'Eyes' monitor every movement

A new sign in Queen Stlets users know about video surveillance. Picture / Brett Phibbs

You are never far from the watchful eye of police, city officials and private security staff when walking or driving in central Auckland.

They can be hard to spot, but hundreds of cameras on and in buildings, under verandas, on lampposts, slung below traffic signals and hidden in ceilings have their lenses trained on us.

This surveillance can worry libertarians, but it would automatically be called on in the event of any terrorist attack in the city.

Police already routinely look through footage from security cameras pointed at crime scenes. An Auckland police spokeswoman said there was good co-operation between police and private camera owners. In some cases, different software used to run the private security systems could lead to a delay in viewing footage.

This was the case in the murder of dairy worker Bhagubhai Vaghela. Police were not able to immediately view footage taken from a camera at a car yard near the Eden Terrace minimart because of the software used by the company.

After the London bombings, closed-circuit television (CCTV) played a key role in the investigations - 15,000 hours of footage.

Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney said central Auckland was "exceptionally well-monitored" by 49 CCTV cameras installed two years ago in a joint venture between his organisation, the police and the Auckland City Council at a cost of $650,000.

"We have a fantastic ability to track people with great clarity," Mr Swney said.

The 49 cameras, including a powerful camera on the Sky Tower that can monitor numberplates within the central city and objects the size of a roof as far away as Bastion Pt, operated round the clock and were monitored by police and the council for security and traffic purposes.

A further 16 security cameras at the Viaduct Harbour have been connected to the police central control room this month.

The Newmarket Business Association is spending $142,500 to install eight cameras within two months.

The Britomart transport centre is well supplied: it has 64 hidden cameras with zoom and tilt capability monitored continuously from a control centre. Cameras at 36 railway stations across the region are gradually being connected to the control centre via a new fibre-optic cable.

On a walk round the central city, the cameras seen by a Herald reporter were mostly about 5m above the ground, so out of the normal visual field of drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. One, in a housing about the size of a round cake tin, dangles over the corner of Victoria and Queen Sts from a lamppost. Another, in an elongated box and bolted high onto a pillar of the Metropolis hotel/apartment building in High St, scans near the Freyberg Place plaza.

Queen St is again in the frame, from about 8m up on the side of a building at the corner of Shortland St and Jean Batten Place.

Viaduct Harbour's Waitemata Plaza, bordered by apartments and moored yachts, seems well-watched, with three of the cake-tin cameras on lampposts.

Stagecoach marketing executive Russell Turnbull said the company had basic videotape cameras fitted on just two buses in its 600-strong fleet. Those two were used on routes where graffiti and vandalism was a problem.

Mr Turnbull said it would cost about $5000 each to install digital cameras on buses and the company was watching a trial by the Red Bus Company in Christchurch.

A spokesman for Sky City would not say how many cameras it had at its Auckland casino and entertainment centre but did say it filmed more than 20,000 hours of footage over any 24-hour period.

It is understood there are about 500 private security cameras in the central business district.

Watching you

49 cameras in central Auckland.

16 cameras at Viaduct Harbour.

64 cameras at Britomart transport centre.

Cameras at 36 railway stations.

8 cameras planned for Newmarket.

20,000 hours of camera footage shot at Sky City every 24 hours.

Cameras outside private buildings.

Cameras inside banks.

Cameras on two Stagecoach buses.

 

- Additional reporting by Louisa Cleave