Birmingham City Council is decommissioning 67 CCTV cameras as they no longer meet Home Office Surveillance Camera guidelines.
The announcement follows a robust assessment of the councils CCTV network which identified a number of cameras no longer met the legal operational requirement to be used in a public space.
Cameras that longer meet the requirement for various reasons such as obsolete or faulty equipment that is no longer fit for purpose, or cameras being used in areas where little or no crime is recorded.
Cllr John Cotton, Cabinet Member for Social Inclusion, Community Safety and Equalities, said: “A robust assessment of our Community Safety CCTV network has found that 62 of those 197 cameras no longer met the legal Operational Requirement for cameras to be used in the public realm, as set out by the Home Office Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s (HOSSC) compliance guidelines.
“These were identified as non-compliant for various reasons, such as obsolete or faulty equipment that is no longer fit for purpose, or cameras being used in areas where little or no crime is recorded – therefore no longer meeting the legal requirement for use in areas where crime or anti-social behaviour is an issue.
“We are also investing in eight new redeployable CCTV cameras – which can be used in different areas of the city (based on data intelligence and local need) – which means in total there will be 20 of these in use across the city.
“Following this work, Birmingham will still be covered by significant wider network of 258 public space CCTV cameras (including the remaining 135 Community Safety cameras).”
