British police forces are to explore the feasibility of
a national database of CCTV images that would be on a par with the
existing national databases forDNAandfingerprintsamples.
This is despite
news
reports that the Metropolitan Police success rate in using CCTV
to secure convictions is as low as 3%, and the
cancellation of a
national facial image database due to lack of funds.
Graeme Gerrard, deputy chief constable of Cheshire Police and
chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers' working group
on CCTV and video, said CCTV was very useful in preventing,
detecting, and investigating crime. Police also use it to monitor
activity in potential and actual crime scenes, he said.
Gerrard said press reports on the poor success rate had ignored
the fact that some sections of the Met had a "20% to 25%" success
rate in using CCTV. But he said the lack of a national strategy in
the past meant CCTV was less useful than it could be for police
work.
The Home Office published a
national CCTV strategy document in October 2007, which made 44
recommendations. Gerrard, a co-author of the report, said there
were severe technological, managerial and logistical issues to
overcome.
He said that most of the estimated 4.2 million CCTV systems now
installed are owned by local government and the private sector. Few
produce images usable by police to secure convictions without
corroborating evidence, he said. "Even if we have a usable image,
we still have to identify the person," he said.
He said his group would explore the feasibility of storing CCTV
images of crimes and matching them against databases of known and
unidentified offenders, as happens with DNA and fingerprint samples
from crime scenes.
However, the
National Police
Improvement Agency announced the cancellation of fhe Facial
Images National Database (FIND) project as of 31 March 2008. "The
FIND pilot will not be rolled-out beyond those forces currently
involved because there is no clear line of funding for a full
national service," it said.
Gerrard said that funding for national CCTV projects was also
tenuous. His group was working with others such as the British
Standards Institute, the Department of Justice, the Information
Commissioner's Office and others to develop standards for anyone
who wanted to produce CCTV images that the police could use.