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Could CCTV surveillance in become more common in Denmark?

A Danish housing association has said it wants to introduce increased CCTV surveillance to help residents feel more secure.

Published: 10 January 2019 15:01 CET

Could CCTV surveillance in become more common in Denmark?

File photo: Lea Meilandt Mathiesen/Ritzau Scanpix

The housing organisation, Boligforeningen AAB, wants to be able to install video surveillance of spaces abutting its housing without the need for prior police permission.

Such a move would help prevent crime, AAB’s CEO Christian Høgsbro told Ritzau.

“We have found that CCTV can help to solve and prevent crimes in our residential areas,” Høgsbro said.

The AAB director pointed to Vejleåparken, a housing area in Ishøj west of Copenhagen, as a location which has seen a high number of arson attacks against cars.

Høgsbro’s company is unhappy that it is currently unable to install CCTV without first asking police.

According to Danish law, police can set up surveillance on streets if they feel law enforcement requirements at the locality justify this. Such justifications include a high prevalence of violent incidents, Ritzau writes.

Peter Kofod, justice spokesperson with the Danish People’s Party (DF), said he was in support of AAB’s request.

“I think it is completely fair for housing associations to be able to install CCTV if they are financing it themselves and if it complies with existing rules on data security,” Kofod told Ritzau.

Parliament is currently processing a bill that would allow police to take control of CCTV systems owned by private businesses. The bill will also broaden the conditions in which companies could successfully apply for permission to install CCTV.

But the proposal does not go far enough, according to DF, which wants municipalities to have the authority to implement CCTV.

Denmark’s rules on CCTV use remain considerably stricter than those in the United Kingdom, where businesses are permitted to use CCTV provided that people are informed they may be recorded (normally by displaying signs), authorities are notified of purpose and the recordings are shown to anyone who requests to see them.

In neighbouring Sweden, police themselves have to apply for permission to use CCTV.

A 2017 survey found that six out of ten Danes want increased surveillance such as CCTV cameras in public places to help prevent terrorism.

READ ALSO: Copenhagen to use '100 security cameras' to combat gang crime

Swiss back new law to allow phone and email tapping

A security camera keeps watch over proceedings in Davos: Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP

The proposed law won 65.5 percent support across the wealthy alpine nation, final results showed.

Switzerland's police and intelligence agencies have had limited investigative tools compared to other developed countries: phone tapping and email surveillance were previously banned, regardless of the circumstances.

But the new law will change that.

The government insisted it was not aiming to set up a vast data-gathering apparatus, similar to the one developed by the US National Security Agency that came into the public eye in part through former contractor Edward

Snowden's revelations.

“This is not generalised surveillance,” lawmaker and Christian Democratic Party vice president Yannick Buttet told public broadcaster RTS as results were coming in. “It's letting the intelligence services do their job,” he added.

Swiss defence minister Guy Parmelin had said that with the new measures, Switzerland was “leaving the basement and coming up to the ground floor by international standards.”

Parmelin insisted the Swiss system was not comparable “to the United States or other major powers”, who have struggled to find the right balance between privacy and security.

How it would work

Phone or electronic surveillance of a suspect will only be triggered with approval by a federal court, the defence ministry and the cabinet, according to the law.

Bern has said these measures would be used only a dozen times a year, to monitor only the highest-priority suspects, especially those implicated in terrorism-related cases.

The law was approved by parliament in 2015, but an alliance of opponents, including from the Socialist and Green parties, got enough signatures to force Sunday's referendum.

The poll was part of Switzerland's direct democracy system, in which votes are held on a wide range of national issues four times a year, and even more frequently at regional and municipal levels.

Just 43 percent of voters took part in Sunday's poll, a slightly lower mark than recent referenda when flashpoint issues like immigration were on the ballot.

Cold War spying

Overshadowing the vote was a scandal dating back to 1989 and the dying days of the Cold War, when Swiss citizens learned that the security services had opened files on 900,000 individuals, detailing their political and trade union affiliations.

The revelations sparked outrage in a country where people fiercely guard their privacy, and led to significant curbs on police intelligence measures. But the vote highlighted how public attitudes had shifted, with the law's

proponents invoking the string of recent attacks across Europe — including in Brussels, Nice and Paris.

Criticising that tactic, Green party lawmaker Lisa Mazzone told RTS that the law's approval was won through “a campaign about fear of attacks.”

Rights group Amnesty International said it regretted Sunday's result, arguing that the new law will allow “disproportionate” levels of surveillance and that it posed “a threat… to freedom of expression.”

But lawmaker Buttet argued that Switzerland's handcuffed intelligence agencies had become too reliant on help from other nations because they were deprived of using the full range of modern investigative tools. “We were naive,” he said.

Separately on Sunday's ballot, a popular initiative calling for a 10-percent rise in retirement benefits was defeated, with 59.4 percent voting against. The government was against the measure, citing the cost.

Sixty-four percent of voters also rejected an ambiguous measure calling for unspecified cuts in the use of natural resources such as lumber and water, which the government also opposed.

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