Image quality in some cameras too poor for use

Graeme Gerrard, Deputy Chief Constable of Cheshire Police is the lead on CCTV for the Association of Chief Police Officers and last month calculated there were 1.85 million CCTV cameras in the UK.

He told MPs that improvements in the quality of images on privately-owned cameras were needed and said there should also be requirements about how long images are kept.

“We spend an inordinate amount of time looking for CCTV,” he said in evidence to MPs scrutinising the Protection of Freedoms Bill. “Very often we do not know where it is.

“There is no requirement for anybody with a camera to register the fact they have a camera, even if they have put it in an area that covers public space, so first of all, we have to go looking for CCTV.

“Having found it, we have to determine whether it has captured the image. Very often we not know that until we have seized the image, taken it back to the police station and found some equipment on which to play it. Exporting the images is not always easy. There are all sorts of different playback systems.

“Having done all that, we then find that the quality of the images is pretty awful or the camera was not switched on or not pointing in the right direction, or the image is pretty poor quality.”

Police spent a lot of time collecting CCTV, so anything that improved image quality and indicated how long they would be kept would help, he said.