Cumbria's surveillance upgrade: A glimpse into the future of policing

Cumbria Police said the existing 80 cameras they have to watch the county, which have an image quality of around 720p (a format which is 720 pixels high), are being upgraded to 1080p.

A further 40 cameras will be installed across the county, and some of these cameras will be achieving resolution higher than 1080p.

This new technology makes the police ‘ready for the future’ in terms of what may come next, the force said.

Mike Johnson, deputy police, fire and crime commissioner for Cumbria, said of the rollout: “It's an upgrade of the existing camera system that we've got throughout the county.

“We've had 80 cameras across the county and we're upgrading to high-quality, high-definition cameras, which is preparing for the future.

“We’re going from 80 cameras up to 120 cameras and it's all about giving people peace of mind that these cameras are being monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year."

Mr Johnson said the rollout has been funded to around £500,000 of taxpayers’ money, and to date, the new cameras have assisted in identifying or tracking more than 500 people and assisted in 500 arrests.

The first of the new additional 40 cameras has been installed in Penrith, with other areas of Cumbria to see them installed later this year.

Much of the constabulary’s existing cameras have also now been upgraded, and the difference is large. Images are now much clearer, and zoom-ins are less blurry, meaning the police can see more than they used to.

Above: Two views of Washington St in Workington, taken with the old cameras (left) and the new.

These cameras replace those which were installed in 2015, and the police want these to last longer and have possible use in new policing developments.

Policing of the future?

These new cameras capture street scenes in high-definition, but in the future could they do more? It's conceivable that policing developments could include the use of facial recognition with AI, a piece of tech that has been seen in southern England and Wales and has garnered much controversy.

There are two main kinds of face recognition available: the first is known as live face recognition (LFR). This system tends to use cameras mounted on police vans that scan faces and check them against a list of wanted people.

The tech is sometimes used for big events and is announced in advance by the police forces which currently use it.

The second kind is called retrospective face recognition, where CCTV, smartphone, and doorbell camera images can be put into a system that tries to identify people based on millions of existing photos.

The use by police of both systems is on the rise nationally, and has been embraced by the Met and South Wales Police. Could it come to Cumbria?

The technology is controversial. Rights groups point to concerns of reduced privacy, and existing technology’s difficulty in accurately identifying faces of people of colour, particularly black people, with a potential for bias.

Pete Fussey, a University of Essex professor who has audited the Met’s face recognition, said a report into this showed the algorithms might still be discriminatory and biased, but added: “If you desensitise the system, then you’ll get fewer matches and fewer of those will be wrong.”

But a study from the National Physical Laboratory showed that in all LFR uses by the Met and South Wales police forces, there have been no mistakes made.

A spokesperson from Big Brother Watch, an organisation which has long campaigned against such tech, said it ‘brings into question the necessity and proportionality of the whole endeavour if you’re having dozens of police officers standing around the street looking at iPads just to make one arrest.'

Another spokesperson from the group said: “Police and private companies in the UK are increasingly using facial recognition technology to monitor, categorise and track us.

“The technology works by creating a 'faceprint' of everyone who passes in front of camera — processing biometric data as sensitive as a fingerprint, often without our knowledge or consent.

“This dangerously authoritarian surveillance is a threat to our privacy and freedoms — it has no place on the streets of Britain.”

A Home Office spokesperson said of the technology: “The government is committed to making sure the police have the tools and technology they need to solve and prevent crimes, bring offenders to justice, and keep people safe.

“Technology such as facial recognition can help the police quickly and accurately identify those wanted for serious crimes, as well as missing or vulnerable people.

“It also frees up police time and resources, meaning more officers can be out on the bear, engaging with communities and carrying out complex investigations.

“The Home Office is working closely with industry and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to keep pace with the rapid developments and improvements in this technology and make sure forces can use it in an effective, fair, and proportionate way.”

'Keeping people safe'

Cumbria Constabulary’s CCTV manager Andy Petty and the Mr Johnson both said these new cameras are not yet equipped with this technology, but when asked if it will be, the former said: “We’re talking about now.

“The rollout at the moment is about high-definition cameras.

“What the capability of the equipment is making sure (is) that it’s capable for any further technology improvements moving forward.”

He added: “The key focus is to give people assurance that they're there to keep people safe, and it's also to send a message to the criminal world that if you want to commit criminality in Cumbria, be aware you'll be being watched.”

Mr Petty said when asked if this will include such tech, that there are no current plans to include it, and the cameras do not have it, but added: “I think it’s something we have to think about. It’s my opinion that facial recognition is a force for good.

“The public were upset when we started taking fingerprints, they were upset when we took DNA, they were upset when we started using ANPR, but they're used to all of that now, and I think facial recognition is the way forward.

“I can only think that it's going to help policing in years to come, but at this stage, as this system stands now, we're not using it.”

The tech comes with software by the company Bedroq which includes black screens covering areas which are potentially windows into people’s homes, in an effort to protect privacy.

Devonshire Street/Market Square in Penrith, showing the new black screens aiming to protect people's privacy. (Image: Cumbria Constabulary)

Mr Petty said the police cannot remove these or see behind them in any way or in any angle, and added on the topic of protecting people’s privacy: “If I move that camera now to turn it around and try and look at someone's window, not only is that visible to my other two operators, that's visible to everybody on the dispatch desks, and it's visible to the force incident managers and inspector and the supervisors over there.

Mr Petty's workstation (Image: Ollie Rawlinson)

“Anyone else looking at that camera sees what I'm doing, and every action that I take on this system, every keystroke, every joystick manoeuvre, is auditable.

“Part of my job is to audit that on a regular basis to make sure that there has been no misuse of the system, and we train that out before we even let officers on here.

“That misuse of the system will not be tolerated, it's a sackable offence.”

'CCTV cameras reduce crime and increase prosecutions'

Regarding the impact on crime, Mr Petty added: “We know from past years of looking at our data that where we have a CCTV camera in the 100 meters radius around that area, there is roughly a 30 per cent reduction in crime and antisocial behaviour and an increase in the number of cases of crime and ASB that are taken to court, and they get a positive result through court.

“So it makes sort of sense, really. CCTV cameras reduce crime and increase prosecutions.”

Mr Johnson said about privacy: “If you're carrying out your life and you're a law-abiding citizen, you've absolutely nothing to worry about because the cameras, they're not there to be used against you, they're there to protect you.”