The impact of CCTV on fundamental rights and crime prevention strategies: The case of the Catalan Control Commission of Video surveillance Devices Jose ´ R. Agustina a,1 , Gemma Galdon Clavell b,2 a Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain b Institut de Govern i Polı´tiques Pu ´ bliques (IGOP-UAB), Barcelona, Spain Keywords: CCTV Crime prevention Privacy Efficacy Legitimacy Proportionality Civil rights Barcelona abstract Many authors have written about issues related to privacy, legitimacy and efficiency in relation to CCTV systems in public space as a crime prevention strategy. Some have approached them separately; others have tried to come up with more comprehensive approaches. Few, however, have dealt with how such concerns have been put into practice by those who have to decide on the uptake of CCTV. This article considers some reflections on efficacy, legitimacy and privacy in relation to CCTV, as an introduction to the case of how the members of the Control Commission of Video surveillance Devices in Catalonia took these issues into consideration and interpreted the Law when deciding whether to approve a petition submitted by the City Council to install three cameras in Barcelona’s public space in 2003. It concludes by drawing some conclusions from the process, as a way to highlight the complexity of the policy process around surveillance in open, public spaces. ª 2011 J.R. Agustina & G. Galdon Clavell. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. The expanding use of CCTV and privacy issues One of the most influential premises in Criminology is that crime rates decrease in correlation with an efficient control and crime prevention strategy. However the implementation of an intensified surveillance as a generalized mechanism for controlling crime and deviance raises different conflicts in various fields of an individual’s life and activities (e.g. Felson, 2009; Agustina, 2010). Such conflicts have been overlooked as long as security reasons are becoming more prevalent when balancing opposing interests (e.g. citizens’ privacy or sex offenders reintegration versus community safety or the public interest) (see Agustina, 2009b). In this sense privacy continues to be at risk given that societies are preferably more inclined to choose security in the first place. Closed Circuit Television Cameras (CCTV) have in some countries become a major weapon and common strategy in the 1 Jose ´ R. Agustina is a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Law at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona (Spain). He has a JD degree in Law and a PhD in Criminal Law and Criminology from Pompeu Fabra University, is Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Social Studies. Among his research priorities, he is focused on strategies for crime prevention and privacy issues. A visiting scholar at Cambridge Institute of Criminology (2007), Pace Law School (2008) and Rutgers University (2009), he has authored articles and books on different issues related to IT and crime prevention. Besides that, he is conducting research on family violence and other criminological and criminal policy issues. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Actualidad Criminolo ´ gica y Penal’ Collection with BdeF- Edisofer. 2 Gemma Galdon Clavell is a researcher based at the Universitat Auto ` noma de Barcelona, where she focuses on public policy, community safety, incivility, surveillance and public space. She has worked for the UN, the Transnational Institute and the Catalan Institute for Public Security, and is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of Privacy International. She is a regular contributor to several Spanish and European periodicals. available at www.sciencedirect.com www.compseconline.com/publications/prodclaw.htm computer law & security review 27 (2011) 168 e174 0267-3649/$ e see front matter ª 2011 J.R. Agustina & G. Galdon Clavell. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.clsr.2011.01.006