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lmno
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 534
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 Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 2:54 pm Post subject: School CCTV seized after kids filmed changing |
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More idiocy over nude or semi-nude children.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1181082_school_cctv_seized_after_kids_filmed_changing
| Quote: | School CCTV seized after kids filmed changing
Exclusive by Yakub Qureshi and Neal Keeling
November 06, 2009
POLICE seized video footage from a primary school after children were filmed on a CCTV system as they changed for gym lessons.
The recording was seized after angry parents protested outside Charlestown Primary School in Salford.
The parents had discovered that the school's surveillance cameras were running round the clock and some children had been inadvertently filmed changing into gym gear in their classrooms before PE lessons.
Staff at the school had contacted police to ask them to remove the protesting parents. But after speaking to the parents officers took the footage from the cameras and a computer hard drive.
Police have studied the images and decided no further action is needed.
The school has disconnected the cameras involved in the row. there is no suggestion the footage was being used inappropriately.
But now Salford council is to review the use of all CCTV at its 82 primary schools. The review will look at which schools have cameras, where they are sited and what they are used for.
Parents say they were assured that cameras at Charlestown - installed to improve security - would be kept switched off most of the time. Police were called to the 220-pupil school on Monday after dad Jason Lowe began collecting signatures for a petition.
Mr Lowe, who has two sons at the school, said: "We were originally told that the cameras would hardly ever be used. But in the last week we have just found out that they are recording all the time.
"The children have to get changed in the classrooms because there are no changing facilities. We think it is wrong that the cameras are there. It is a breach of their privacy."
Headteacher Daniel Gauld, who has been at the school since 2006, was not available for comment.
The school is highly rated by Ofsted. Chairman of the school governors, Davina Heyhoe said: "The cameras were installed in 2006, prior to the current headteacher's appointment.
"They were put in to help improve security for pupils and for equipment. Parents would have been fully aware of the system, which complies with all the appropriate legislation.
"The system was renewed for the start of term with two new cameras put in for a specific security need. Charlestown is an open plan design inside so the cameras are sited at the most strategic points to help with security. In some cases, this means their coverage includes some classroom areas that are also walk-through routes.
"We were responding to concerns from some parents about the cameras being on while children got changed for gym class and had planned to put caps over the lens when required.
"However, the head decided this was not adequate and these particular cameras have been disconnected from the system pending a better, long-term solution which satisfies parents and still provides security for the school."
Cllr John Warmisham from salford council said: "Data Protection laws govern the privacy of individuals but I want to be clear that we give schools the right guidance for capturing and recording images of children.
"Our parents need to be confident that schools have the right procedures in place to protect any images they have of children and I want to be sure that parents have been properly informed about cameras in their child's school.
"Closed-circuit TV in schools is relatively new but it looks like it is here to stay and we need to ensure that our procedures and guidelines keep pace with this." |
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Halcyon
Joined: 19 Oct 2008
Posts: 347
Location: Yorkshire
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:46 am Post subject: |
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| Surely, this means that the school was in possession of what the police would term 'indecent' images. After all, schools are not classed as special cases, and, as we all know, there is only one reason for having such images! How can we be sure that bored office staff didn't entertain themselves, by watching them or that copies weren't made and taken home by the school secretary for 'personal' use? I smell the usual hypocrisy, yet again... |
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patlajanque
Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 289
Location: Sunnier Climes
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:38 pm Post subject: |
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I would have thought that given the obvious presence of the CCTV cameras, the images cannot be said to be made covertly and therefore are of simple nudity which should not technically be illegal.
That said, by the 'objective' test where jurors can decide whatever they like, anything is possible ... |
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lmno
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 534
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not sure that a photograph of a child changing can ever be indecent, whether it is covert or otherwise.
However, http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/2009/11/06/jail-for-farmer-who-spied-on-holiday-cottage-guests-91466-25102834/ | Quote: |
Jail for farmer who spied on holiday cottage guests
Nov 6 2009 by Robin Turner, Western Mail
A FARMER who secretly filmed guests naked at his remote Mid Wales holiday cottage was yesterday jailed for two-and-a half-years.
David Sturgess, 54, was placed on the sexual offenders’ register “indefinitely” and banned from ever working with children.
He rigged up an array of hi-tech CCTV cameras in fake smoke alarms at the holiday let next to his smallholding in Llandysul, Ceredigion.
He “zoomed in” on women in the shower and in bed with their husbands or partners.
Women were his prime target but he also recorded images of a 14-year-old girl and two 17-year-old girls staying at the cottage.
Sturgess denied 15 counts including voyeurism and making indecent photographs of children but was found guilty by a Swansea Crown Court jury.
Jailing him yesterday Judge Keith Thomas said: “These offences were a gross intrusion into the privacy of people who rightly feel devastated and upset that their family holidays have been ruined by you imposing yourself on them by spying on them.
“You principally targeted women in a state of undress bathing and showering and taking part in sexual activity but your victims also included two 17-year- old girls and a 14-year-old girl.
“You were not specifically targeting under-age girls but you had an interest in young females generally.”
He added: “There was zooming in on boys and young girls, evidence of showing some interest in their state of undress.”
Geraint Walters, defending, said he was hampered in giving mitigation for Sturgess because the defendant still denied being responsible for the crimes even though he had been found guilty by the jury.
But Mr Walters said his client’s business was now clearly ruined.
He said: “Only a fool would think he’d be able to have paying guests visit a property he owns or manages again.”
He added Sturgess was in physical pain as a result of an undisclosed health condition.
Sturgess’s rural holiday let venture had the backing of the old Wales Tourist Board after he set it up some years ago having moved from his home in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
His secret life unravelled when he split from his long-term partner, Teresa Crick, after seven years. It was she who reported his voyeurism to police.
Officers found cameras hidden in two bedrooms, the kitchen, lounge and bathroom when they raided the property in September last year.
The sophisticated surveillance equipment was linked to TV monitors and recording equipment in the adjoining farmhouse, where Sturgess lived.
The equipment allowed him to zoom in on his unsuspecting victims and to turn up volume to ensure he could monitor the slightest sound.
Both facilities were widely used on a video discovered at the farm by the police which contained recordings of a dozen former guests in various states of undress.
During the trial Sturgess declined to give evidence and a jury at Swansea Crown Court took just two hours to find him guilty of 12 counts of voyeurism and three counts of making indecent images of children, at the end of a two-day trial.
It then emerged Sturgess had a conviction for assault on a woman going back to 1989.
The court was told from victim impact statements from guests caught on Sturgess’ cameras, the offences caused distress, shock and anger.
The judge was told one woman suffered depression after being told her intimate moments had been secretly filmed.
Another woman victim who with her husband took their children aged six and three to Sturgess’s holiday cottage said she felt “violated and angry that the holiday and cherished family memories had been tarnished.
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To me, this seems to be covering a lacunae in the law (privacy) by means of indecency, which cannot be a good thing. If there is a need to prevent the covertt filming of people (changing, showering, sleeping, whatever) then a law should be drafted specifically for that purpose.[/quote] |
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lmno
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 534
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| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject: Re: School CCTV seized after kids filmed changing |
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Hmmm interesting.... | Quote: | Geraint Walters, defending, said he was hampered in giving mitigation for Sturgess because the defendant still denied being responsible for the crimes even though he had been found guilty by the jury.
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His secret life unravelled when he split from his long-term partner, Teresa Crick, after seven years. It was she who reported his voyeurism to police.
Officers found cameras hidden in two bedrooms, the kitchen, lounge and bathroom when they raided the property in September last year. |
So she knew about the cameras before the split... how long had she known about them? And had Sturgess known about them before the split? |
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Halcyon
Joined: 19 Oct 2008
Posts: 347
Location: Yorkshire
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| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 7:20 am Post subject: |
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| patlajanque wrote: | I would have thought that given the obvious presence of the CCTV cameras, the images cannot be said to be made covertly and therefore are of simple nudity which should not technically be illegal.
That said, by the 'objective' test where jurors can decide whatever they like, anything is possible ... |
True. the operative word here is 'technically'. Recently I appeared to have opened the eyes of a police officer (a woman) who came to 'monitor' me. When she was going on about indecent images, she happened to mention nudity. Like a red rag to a bull, I made it very clear to her that photos of nude children were actually legal, were kept by countless naturists, held in British Naturism's archives, kept at the British Library at Boston Spa, and cited a naturist family I knew who even had such photos framed in their living room. She was noticably shocked by this revelation. She said she'd be 'looking into this' and I await her next visit with interest! The ignorance of police officers in this area is unbelievable.
The 'objective' test is unjust in all cases where certain minority interests are crucial - such as nudity (naturists, art), veganism/vegetarianism, home education, etc. (There are many more examples) As juries are composed of a typical cross-section of the population ('Sun' readers?  ), such people will have little knowledge of or consideration for 'fringe' beliefs or life-styles. They tend to impose their own narrow moral views upon such issues - and may even see them as signs of guilt.
Of course, Imno, in essence, no photo of a child getting changed is 'indecent' - and nor should it be, for it is morally neutral. However, its interpretation by others is not. As for the fact that these CCTV images were not taken covertly is irrelevent too. For example, the thousands of internet images of Russian and Ukrainian girls happily getting undressed were taken overtly, both in studios and outdoors, even in public parks, with their parents' permission. And yet British law (using the notoriously biassed 'objective' test) attempts to label them as indecent. I view this arrogant, intolerant attitude as discrimination against naturism, against a particular ETHICAL way of viewing life - not to mention a draconian curb on our freedom of expression. |
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patlajanque
Joined: 09 Sep 2006
Posts: 289
Location: Sunnier Climes
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| Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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IMNO my point was that there is a huge difference between a photograph covertly made and one and one non-covertly made.
I don't deny that there have been many convictions for voyeurism in the courts. My argument was that in the case of CCTV cameras that is not the issue. |
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SPS_1969
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 1227
Location: MIDLANDS
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| Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 5:21 pm Post subject: All for wholesome reasons of course! |
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Hi all!
Here's a good one. At face value, this would seem to be an obvious invasion of expected privacy:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/students-spied-on-with-school-issued-laptops.html
"According to the filing, the actions of the school district were exposed when one of the school’s vice principals disciplined Mr Robbins’ son for “improper behavior in his home,” and used a photo taken from the computer camera as evidence." An organisation can of course dictate what type of behaviour is acceptable/unacceptable whilst on THEIR premises.....but spying on people in their own homes is just taking the piss.
As always, many regards, Stephen. |
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Peter
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 1009
Location: Gloucestershire
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| Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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Lower Merion School District initial response to invasion of privacy allegation
Laptops are a frequent target for theft in schools and off school property. The security feature was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.
• How did the security feature work?
Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District's security and technology departments. The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
http://www.lmsd.org/sections/news/default.php?t=today&p=lmsd_anno&id=1137
Orwell’s 1984 on hold in this instance
_________________
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. |
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SPS_1969
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 1227
Location: MIDLANDS
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SPS_1969
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
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Location: MIDLANDS
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