Closed Circuit Television and Video Surveillance

In one line

In India the camera is now aimed at the police as much as at the offender.

What it does, in three roles

Prevention. A visible camera changes behaviour in the place it covers. The effect is real but modest and it is strongest for planned property offences and weakest for offences of sudden violence, and part of it is displacement to a place without a camera rather than prevention.

Detection. Footage is a record of who was where and when. It is the fastest route to identifying a vehicle, a route, a companion or a time of arrival, and it fixes the movement half of a case in a way that no witness can.

Restraint of the investigator. This is the Indian development. A camera in a police station protects a person in custody, and the Supreme Court has treated it as a fundamental rights measure rather than a policing convenience.

What the Supreme Court has directed

Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh contains the directions, and they are worth learning as a list because they are exactly what a short note wants.

Cameras in every police station. The State and Union Territory Governments must ensure that closed circuit television cameras are installed in each and every police station, and so that no part of a station is left uncovered they must be at all entry and exit points, the main gate, all lock ups, all corridors, the lobby and reception, all verandas and outhouses, the Inspector's room, the Sub-Inspector's room, the areas outside the lock up room, the station hall, the front of the compound, outside but not inside the washrooms, the Duty Officer's room and the back part of the station.

The systems must have night vision and must necessarily consist of audio as well as video. Where there is no electricity or internet the State must provide it, by solar or wind power if necessary.

Storage. Footage must be preserved for eighteen months. If the equipment available in the market cannot store for that long, the State must buy the one that stores for the maximum period possible and in any case not below one year, and must review the position so as to buy eighteen month equipment as soon as it becomes commercially available.

Oversight committees. A State Level Oversight Committee of the Secretary or Additional Secretary of the Home Department, the Secretary or Additional Secretary of the Finance Department, the Director General or Inspector General of Police, and the Chairperson or a member of the State Women's Commission. A District Level Oversight Committee of the Divisional Commissioner, the District Magistrate, a Superintendent of Police of the district, and a mayor of a municipality within the district or the head of the Zilla Panchayat in rural areas.