Two preliminary considerations before getting into the matter. One, the video surveillance sector is so complex in terms of the regulations and legal frameworks that govern it, that there are not a few experts who warn that it would not be a bad thing to put a little order. And two, there is a general feeling that there are more and more cameras that control and record our lives, that we live in a kind of permanent Big Brother that is difficult to escape from. But this is a perception that is only half held. The presence of police video surveillance, which groups exclusively the cameras controlled by the police, is light years away from any corner of our immediate environment. If we compare Barcelona with Nice, the situation is better understood.
Both Mediterranean cities suffered firsthand the tragedy of terrorism. In July 2016, a jihadist attack killed 86 people in Nice. A year later, in August 2017, another 16 people were murdered on the Rambla in Barcelona. The two events had an immediate response in terms of safety and prevention. The French city currently has more than 3,500 police video surveillance cameras. Barcelona will end the year with 117.
The data does not hold up to comparison. These are two different models of understanding prevention and security. Nice is not an isolated case. Similar figures in terms of the presence of cameras on public roads, and even higher, occur in Paris, London or any other European city, not to mention the United States, where monitoring is already part of everyday life and is practically not even carried out. it asks for permission or it is not conceivable that obstacles are placed for its use.
There are few detractors of police video surveillance, despite the reluctance with which the first cameras were installed, which were attacked on the grounds that they were breaking into privacy.
The regulations governing the installation of police video surveillance cameras are especially complex and restrictive.
It does not hurt to draw the competence map to understand a little better who each of the gadgets depends on. On public roads in Catalonia there can only be police cameras. A public road is understood to be any street, square, beach, bridge or park where a conflict persists over time that advises the municipal authority to request the installation of one or of the necessary cameras. These terminals are managed exclusively by the police and requested from the Catalan video surveillance commission by the city councils.
In Barcelona, the security manager, Maite Casado, is in charge of signing the reports that request the installation to the commission. The latest reports are related to the 17 cameras on Passeig de Gràcia and another eight around the Albéniz mansion, on Montjuïc.
The video surveillance commission is chaired by the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, Jesús María Barrientos, who meets behind closed doors once a month with the members and speakers who have previously distributed and studied the requests. Its decisions are binding and notified by the General Directorate of Security Administration (DGAS). Each request is accompanied by a detailed police report in which the City Council must prove with police data the need for the presence of the camera to improve prevention and police action. The file must include images of the field of view of each camera, the details of image management, and an eight-page questionnaire of such technical complexity that many municipalities turn to the DGAS for advice when They plan to install a camera.
Another official data that helps to understand the insignificant presence of police surveillance cameras on public roads in Catalan municipalities is the official data provided by the DGAS to La Vanguardia. In 2010, the Department of the Interior authorized, after the mandatory report of the video surveillance commission, 28 files for the installation of cameras from the 28 applicants. Twelve years later, in 2022, 73 of the 79 received were authorized. Some irrelevant data given the unstoppable advance of new technologies applied to the world of security, among which are state-of-the-art cameras that are less and less invasive but very effective in tracking the images sought.
So far the fixed police video surveillance. But there are also mobile police cameras, for which more and more bodies are betting, from the Mossos to the municipal police, to be carried individually or in vehicles. Until last year, all these devices required the approval of the video surveillance commission, but a recent reform made their use more flexible and the files are sent directly to the DGAS.
Another section in which it is practically impossible to determine how many cameras there are is that of private surveillance, and it distinguishes the cameras that control publicly owned buildings from private properties or assets. In this area, the Catalan Authority for the Protection of Dades and the Spanish Agency for Data Protection come into play, disseminating recommendations on the proper use of video surveillance. It is impossible to give an official figure of how many of these cameras are installed.
