School Surveillance Cams Invasion Of Privacy?

ABC News
Feb. 01, 2006

It's hard to walk down the street or into a building without being recorded by a security camera. And that's now the case at an East Bay high school. Teachers there now now have a new tool to watch over their campus.

Good natured fun at lunch time, but if something bad were to happen, like a fight breaking out or a backpack getting stolen, it would happen under the watchful gaze of security cameras.

Student: "Everybody's being watched. There's a million cameras around here. A lot of cameras around here."

Not a million cameras, but 120, surveying more than 2,000 students on a campus covering two city blocks.

Principal Tim Galli can even watch from home 24/7 and says privacy concerns are far outweighed by safety benefits.

Tim Galli, Pittsburg High School principal: "As a parent of four, I would much rather have this than get a phone call from the school that something preventable, but very terrible happened."

The surveillance means administrators can spot trouble as it happens and get a campus security officer to it fast. There's also no arguing the facts when you can go to the tape.

It's possible to rewind back a month, so kids find out the hard way, the cameras aren't props.

Guy Rognlien, Pittsburg High School assistant principal: "Or they come in with their parent and (say) 'I wasn't tardy to class' and their parent says 'can you show me when they walked in late?' and I show them when they walked in late. That's when they realize that they're up and working."

Student: "There was a fight last year, so everyone on the team got suspended because they had it on camera that one of our teammates got in a fight."

How much trouble doesn't happen because of the cameras is hard to quantify, but staff is convinced they make for a calmer campus where everyone's more accountable.

Student: "It's like someone peeking through your window. We don't like it. We hate it."

And for every student who's bugged by being watched, others shrug it off as a fact of life.

Student: "I'm cool with it. I just study and do my work. I just feel like they're not there."

The school has spent approximately a quarter of a million dollars on its system, not all at once, but by upgrading and adding to it over the years.

Around the Bay Area, other schools are also investing in this technology if they can, figuring what they spend on the front end will save in the long run on security, vandalism and other crime related costs.