Thanks to an underage relative who’d stolen my driving licence, I recently found myself ID-less at the local Co-op. I know the woman at the checkout reasonably well, so I said hi, enquired about her day and then asked if I could have my usual vape anyway. She had the decency to look shifty and said: ‘Sorry love.’
Did she not remember me and my ID from just a few days earlier? Was she senile? Did she hate me? I suspected that the reason she was unswayable was because she was bugged. She was wearing a body worn camera and the Co-op’s Security Operations Center was spying on us.
The public is accustomed to, or at least aware of, the police’s use of body worn cameras (BWCs). But in recent years, the technology has been proliferating at a dizzying rate. BWCs are now standard among prison staff, council officials, parking wardens, firemen, nightclub bouncers, train guards, football match attendants, ambulance drivers, hospital staff on mental health wards – and coffee shop baristas.
People are sporting BWCs to protect them from us, us from them, and everyone from themselves
A sign in the Earl’s Court Caffè Nero assured me that for my safety and that of my barista, body cameras would be in operation. But why? I understand they might be handy for a prison guard or a bouncer. But, who are these nutters aggressing and committing ‘workplace violence’ against their barista?
A Transport for London worker I met in King’s Cross was also BWC’d up.
‘Everyone has to wear them,’ he told me. ‘It’s part of the network’s essential kit.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since the beginning of the year.’
‘And how does everyone feel about that? Do you like it?’
He shrugs and says: ‘Not really.’
A quick look on the TfL website informs me that it was only trialling the technology in 2021. Three years later, it’s mandatory across the board. ‘Everyone should be able to go about their day without fear or intimidation.’ I ask what TfL’s policy is if ‘frontline’ staff don’t want to wear the body cam. ‘Managers will work with colleagues to resolve any issues together. We do not envisage that formal action beyond conversations should be necessary.’
A pivotal moment in BWC usage came in 2020 with the invention of the ‘frontline worker’. Although the germ hazard seems to have retreated, the rebranding of public-facing jobs has stuck. TfL, Scot Rail, Co-op, Tesco and Southern Rail all refer to their customer–facing staff and prospective body-cam wearers as ‘frontline workers’.
The body-cam manufacturers Axon and Motorola Solutions also both insist on designating retail assistants ‘frontline workers’. Interacting with the public while at work has become some sort of warfare. Colchester Library and English Heritage sites are the next frontier BWCs are excited to arrive at. Are libraries and country estates in Bedfordshire really workplaces in which people fear for their own safety?
The proliferation of BWCs would imply an increased need for them. And yet, according to the Office for National Statistics, crime rates continue to fall in England.
Motorola Solutions might argue that increasing surveillance prevents crime. The BWC is often touted for its power to prevent ‘incidents’. In the words of Colston Davidge, a Co-op store manager in Westbury, Bristol: ‘Just having a body cam there makes me feel so much safer… People notice it too, it stops stuff from happening in the first place.’ But if the BWC stops stuff happening, how do you know for sure the stuff was ever going to happen?
People are sporting BWCs ostensibly for their safety but also somehow for ours – to protect them from us, us from them, and everyone from themselves. In the words of Southern Rail: ‘Our colleagues wear body cams for everyone’s security. Be safe. Feel safe. Travel safe. With body-worn video cameras, you can feel more protected.’
The double-think required when justifying the use of these devices is almost as impenetrable as the double-think required to understand how they are used. BWCs are first and foremost a psychological tool. They are always capturing footage in 60-second loops but it’s often the wearer who has control of when to record, alerting security HQ with livestream footage, when their spidey-senses tell them an ‘incident’ is about to occur.
In the HM Prison and Probation services, wearers are required to announce when recording is about to occur. But who is monitoring their use in the Co-op? Where is the legal framework for Colchester Library and Caffè Nero to follow? Who’s ensuring the privacy of the Wetherspoons punter isn’t at risk?
A chatty Sainsbury’s employee in Chiswick gives me the lowdown. ‘We have to wear them,’ he says. ‘If health and safety or someone comes in and we aren’t wearing them, the shop manager will get in trouble.’
When I ask him what they’re used for, the man looks a bit stumped. ‘It’s for my safety. Like, if I think someone’s being a bit aggressive. Mostly I use it to film suspected shoplifters. And then the livestream goes back to security head office.’
I pick up on the word ‘suspected’. But for some reason, he starts to laugh. ‘To be honest, it’s really easy to switch the livestream on by accident,’ he says. ‘I’m often going around filming and I don’t notice.’
The UK civil liberties campaign group, Big Brother Watch, has been asking the privacy question since 2018 when BWCs were first trialled on mental health wards. The group’s Advocacy Manager tells me BWC-wearers working in retail and hospitality are technically bound by General Data Protection Regulations. Officially they are ‘data controllers’, which means they shouldn’t have access to the footage they film: they should tell you when you are being filmed, and if you have been filmed by a body worn camera in a shop or a bar, you can use a subject access request to see the footage.
But other than GDPR, there are no specific laws, regulations or even official guidance covering the use of BWCs anywhere outside of policing. Even the government policy outline for BWC usage in prisons doesn’t set any definitive rule when it comes to body cams in toilets and changing rooms: ‘The use of BWVC in areas where there is a higher than usual expectation of privacy (such as toilets, showers, changing rooms, search areas and medical treatment rooms) will require compelling reasons for doing so.’ While CCTV in changing rooms and bathrooms is assumed to be out of the question, these walking cameras seem to have a free pass to go anywhere, capturing both video and audio.
A pivotal moment in body-cam usage came in 2020 with the invention of the ‘frontline worker’
To muddy matters further, if a shop assistant films you on his iPhone rather than on his body cam, he ceases to be a data controller and becomes just another member of the public with an iPhone. The impossibility of regulating filming for personal reasons may explain why, say, the Sainsbury’s employee isn’t fussed if he’s walking around live-streaming back to security HQ. Every man and his dog is snapping, rolling, making memories. And in fact, as a member of the public, you can film a BWC-wearing front-liner right back and face little retribution.
Perhaps BWCs do deter aggression and assault. But what they also deter is the friendly to-and-fro with semi-strangers that is pretty vital for a healthy, functioning society. Whatever your views are on safety vs liberty vs privacy, what chance do you have of getting along nicely with someone who has to point a camera in your face in order to ensure that their interaction with you doesn’t result in an ‘incident’?
And while BWCs may have the effect of soothing and ‘giving confidence’ to wearers such as Colston Davidge at the Westbury Co-op, they can’t solve the non-problem of violent crime at places like Caffè Nero or the library. They are only going to create the problem of fear. Wearing a helmet while walking down the street doesn’t reduce the likelihood of you falling over – but it does encourage you to believe that walking down the street is a more perilous activity than it actually is.
The fact is that mistrust breeds mistrust, and once a worker has worn a BWC, it may be hard to revert to being camera-free. It suddenly feels unsafe. How long until teachers feel unsafe without a body camera? How long until students need a body cam to film their teachers?
My thieving underage relative – the one who took my driver’s licence – came tail between her legs to tell me she had lost the licence at the weekend. A bouncer at Wetherspoons had confiscated it. ‘Was he wearing a body cam?’ I asked.
‘No… I mean yes – but it wasn’t on. I’m not lying,’ was the strange but telling response she gave me.
Too right, I thought. Along with underage fun and friendly checkout ladies, carefree lying is a thing of the past. You can’t risk it. The cameras will catch you out.
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