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Shirley Lau

The police are planning to install surveillance cameras in Lan Kwai Fong - a scheme which critics say will be an invasion of privacy.

Deputy Commissioner Dick Lee Ming-kwai said yesterday the force would spend about $2 million to have permanent closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras put up by the middle of the year.

He justified the plan on the grounds of crime prevention and crowd control.

Twenty-one people were crushed to death in Lan Kwai Fong during New Year's Eve celebrations nine years ago.

'At present, CCTV cameras are already installed in many public and private estates, as well as large shopping arcades,' Mr Lee said in an RTHK radio interview.

'Hence, what we are considering now is to install such cameras in pedestrian-only districts or places where many major social activities are often staged, such as Lan Kwai Fong.'

He said they had not decided how many cameras would be installed. The cameras would be linked to Central Police Station and footage would be destroyed after three months.

It would be the first time CCTV cameras have been installed to monitor a public pedestrian area. Cameras already monitor many public roads.

Mr Lee acknowledged the potential for public concerns about intrusion of privacy. 'Lan Kwai Fong will only be a trial point and it does not mean putting up such cameras in the whole of Hong Kong. We will select our spots carefully and will also take public views into account.'

Signs warning of the cameras' presence would be put up.

Mr Lee claimed Lan Kwai Fong was chosen partly because the move was well supported by business owners in the area.

But Andy Ip, assistant manager of Italian restaurant Baci Pizza Too, in Lan Kwai Fong, feared the move might hurt business as it would cause unease among patrons, including celebrity customers wary of being filmed without their consent.

'We don't need that really, because unlike such places as Tsim Sha Tsui, Lan Kwai Fong is not a rough area,' he said.

James To Kun-sun, chairman of Legco's security panel, also opposed the move, claiming it did not take privacy concerns into account.

'If in extreme cases you want to prevent crime from happening, you could install up to 10,000 such devices,' he said. 'If the Government or the police do not [set limits] to operate the cameras under a specific period and circumstances, promoting their use will mark a dangerous precedent.'

Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor director Law Yuk-kai said the move was only acceptable if the devices were low-resolution and footage was just used for crowd-control purposes.

'It will be a big problem if the cameras [are planned to be] used to prevent crime. If this is the case, the police can watch us anywhere in public,' he said. 'It would be an intrusion of privacy if the camera can identify one's face.

'Signs warning of the cameras are also useless because they would be a restriction on freedom of movement if someone stopped going there because of them.'

Johannes Chan Man-mun, head of the University of Hong Kong's law department, said there must be a system to monitor the use of the cameras' footage.

'There should be some procedure about who is entitled to the right to access the video tapes, and how long the tapes should be kept. And there must be a complaint and monitoring mechanism to prevent abuse,' he said.

The Privacy Ordinance does not explicitly ban filming in public places. The Privacy Commission expressed concerns in 1999 when City Telecom installed a camera to film sunbathers on Deep Water Bay beach and broadcast the images live on the Internet, saying legal restrictions on such filming were inadequate.

In a separate incident, the Commission ruled against Eastweek magazine for unfair collection of personal data when it took a picture of a woman on the street without her consent and criticised her dress taste. But the ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal, saying a picture taken in a public place was not an invasion of privacy.



Cameras to watch Lan Kwai Fong