This force so intimidating to lawbreakers, that in some places the criminality decreased almost to zero. Nowadays, there are 570 cameras in the city and they contributed in solving nine murders and in detaining hundreds of law offenders. The surveillance camera system is not only a very important tool for the Police but also the Technical Administration of Communications, the Crisis Staff of the City Council for the investigation of the traffic accidents, assisting in the protection of historical monuments, the fight against a drug abuse and support to the Fire Brigade..
The city’s surveillance recordings helped the Czech Police in the investigation of four and a half thousand cases and that is 35% more than in the previous year. In the first five months the cameras have contributed to solve 1500 cases.
Camera as a proof
Public surveillance cameras act not only as a deterrent against crime but their recordings are also used as a proof during court sessions. At the beginning of the system’s usage there were certain technical inadequacies, but I don’t remember any incident in recent years in which the judiciary regarded proof from the surveillance camera as invalid, “cautioned Ludv
ík Klema a City Police deputy manager. Surveillance cameras made crime to almost disappear from the places such as Opletalova Street, Na Příkopě, Náměatí Míru, Charles Square or Kostelní Street. Even the drug dealers fled out of the sharp sight of the cameras in the Republic Square. As seen all around the world cameras help in the fight against terrorism. One example was the capture of the terrorist suspects in London. They were identified on the basis of the camera recordings.
The future of the surveillance camera system
The City Council will invest sixty million Czech crowns in the development of the surveillance camera system this year. This means that there will be approximately thirty new cameras installed in several parts of the city. Prague 1 will broaden its surveillance in Vodičkova Street. On top of that Prague 1 received a grant by the Home Office department which would lead to the instalment of two cameras in Vrchlický Park, in front of the railway station. This place is notorious for drug users and homeless people gathering. Prague 3 will have a new camera in Prokop Square by the statue of Jaroslav Hašek. Prague 11 and Prague 12 having only four cameras, will receive some new ones as well. “The City Council, Police and the Public demand the installation of the total of 150 cameras, nonetheless, I think that it is not possible to install all of them as the system nowadays is of a high quality and its running costs are high. For example, the data transfer alone costs us around thirty million crowns annually. That doesn’t mean that the development of the system will diminish, claimed Rudolf Blažek. Since the beginning of the surveillance development, the City has invested 600 million crowns in cameras. The system is technically opened, therefore can be expanded according to needs. The question was: Would it be worth it? Cameras are not only used by the police or the security staff, but also by the City’s Transport Service and Technical Administration for Communication. Even Prague’s highway radars for speed monitoring are included in the surveillance system.
To discipline car thieves
Currently the radar cameras are being tested to provide another service – monitoring of the stolen vehicles, this is the city’s ever present iniquitous crime. Despite the annual drop in the number of the stolen cars, the amount of five thousand vehicles per year is still excessive, “suggested Rudolf Blažek. Therefore we started using the speed meter radars to detect the stolen cars. Even though the deputy manager didn’t mention any details, it is presumed that the coordination of police and security guards with the system connected to the stolen cars database was tested during the initial operation. Technically this means that seconds after the stolen vehicle passes the radar, the nearest police officer will be informed about its identification number, the type, the colour of the car and the identified vehicle can be stopped. The City Police as well as Prague 10 guards have similar equipment installed in one of its cars (it is a laser speed meter with camera). The same device functions for the Czech Police. The system, however, is located inside the cars.
Historical monuments – even a seagull can cause an alarm
Some cameras are destined for the protection of historical monuments against vandalism and thievery. Twelve cameras guard the most valuable statues on Charles Bridge, the statue of Saint Wenceslas, Jan Hus and Josef Jungmann memorial, the statue of Saint Jan Nepomucký and Malý rynek as well. Special software creates a protective electronic fence around the statues in a certain distance and its disruption informs the camera service about the problem. The outdoor guard reacts immediately; this can be counted in tens of seconds which is sufficient time to capture the offender. The electronic enclosure is so effective and the reaction of the guards and the police so fast, that no one has ever managed to damage the statues. This year the fence was disrupted in more than 25 thousand cases. “Mostly false alarms were initiated by a variety of circumstances, but the guards intervened in 585 cases when somebody tried to “lay hands on the statue. Although in most cases these were tourists aiming to take a photograph, climbing on the statue support to embrace it, “said a deputy manager Rudolf Blazek.
The most frequent causes of the false alarm are seagulls settling on the statues. The most frequent incidents in the past with the obvious criminal or vandal intentions were attacks on the statue Calvary especially the inscription in Hebrew above it. Since the existence of the electronic fence the statue has remained undamaged. Now even the number of attempts to climb up it doesn’t considerably differ from the other statues.
The data are protected
There has only been one attempt to misuse the surveillance camera system so far and it refers not to Prague but to Plzeň. One employee aimed to use the camera’s data for his own private purposes. The Prague surveillance system, however, can hardly be misused in this way. “The first precaution against the misuse is that an operator cannot manipulate any recorded data. He must not by any means delete them, furthermore, in cases of suspicious events it is possible to find out where exactly the camera was facing because the data is archived for thirty days,“ claimed Rudolf Blažek. He also called upon everybody to report any suspicion of camera misuse, adding: “Especially in the initial stages we received several suggestions, but after the inspection of recorded data the suspicions were proved invalid. “Another insurance policy of is the number of people operating the camera and capable of seeing what the camera is recording. Here is a list of sites where you can see the camera recordings:
- Control Centre (CC) of the Czech Police – authorities City of Prague
- District headquarters of the Czech Police for Prague 1 to 4, and detached site (former district headquarters of the Czech Police for Prague 6)
- CC of the City’s Police
- CC, the district headquarters of the City of Prague 1 to 15
- CC, Ambulance Service of the City of Prague
- CC, Fire brigade of the City of Prague
- CC, Crisis Staff of the City of Prague
- Supervisory service of the Informational and Control System
- National Anti-narcotic Centre, Czech Police
- Headquarters of the Transport Services
The recorded data is saved in the data department of the Czech Police and there is no personal information added. The access to the recordings is only allowed to the Czech Police and the Police of the City of Prague. “The images are saved in a format impossible to read with commonly used browsers. The surveillance browser is only available to certain authorities. The network of the surveillance camera system is separated from the internet as well as the City of Prague Council‘s intranet, “emphasised Ludvík Klema. He also pointed out that some cameras have a limited scope of reach, so that the escape of some sensitive information cannot be possible.
Oskar Exner