Nearly 40% of CCTV cameras out of order in Hyderabad: RTI
Social activist S.Q. Massod filed the RTI under the RTI Act 2005 seeking information regarding CCTV cameras in the Hyderabad city police limits.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 8 Jan 2023 7:10 AM GMT
Hyderabad: An RTI, filed by social activist S.Q. Massod, revealed that of the 10,597 CCTV cameras installed in public places in the city, 4,402 CCTV cameras are not working.
Mr. Massod filed the RTI under the RTI Act 2005 seeking information regarding CCTV cameras in the Hyderabad city police limits.
Speaking to NewsMeter, Mr. Massod said, "I filed an RTI in 2020 and received a reply after two years. The data clearly indicates that the Hyderabad police do not have a policy for the maintenance of CCTV cameras. In the absence of data protection law and privacy concerns, the police are using different kinds of surveillance tools in the city. It seems that is not up to the mark according to their claims of smart policing, according to their own information."
According to Mr. Masood, the Telangana police say that one camera is equivalent to the work of 100 police personnel, which is nothing but a false claim. The ground reality is that almost 40% of cameras installed by the police need to be fixed, despite designating one person at each PS as a CCTV system administrator. Mr. Massod further said there should be a uniform policy that protects people's rights, including privacy and liberty, on the one hand, and maintains law and order on the other.
When he sought details on the procedure/mechanism adopted and storage capacity, it was found that for each police station, one CCTV system administrator has been allotted for daily monitoring. The CCTV camera footage storage capacity is a minimum of 30 days.
As per the Telangana Police's Annual Report, 10,25,849 CCTV cameras have been installed across the state, of which 1,74,205 cameras were installed in 2022.
Case study
In April 2022, a woman named Mona Lisa was sexually assaulted in Madhapur, Hyderabad in the middle of the night. Later, when she filed a police complaint, the police realised that the CCTV installed on the road where the incident took place was not working. There was a delay in retrieving the footage from other CCTVs on adjacent roads as permission was required from each owner.
