Surveillance cameras for all HDB blocks, carparks by next year

Camera footage has helped police solve more than 430 cases and provided investigative leads for more than 890 cases since 2012, said Second Minister for Home Affairs S. Iswaran in Parliament yesterday.

The surveillance cameras, or Polcams, have been installed at 4,400 HDB blocks and multi-storey carparks, he said, adding that the Government is on track to installing them at all 10,000 HDB blocks and carparks by next year.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said he had received feedback from MPs that residents have welcomed these electronic eyes and asked for installations to be sped up. "We are going as fast as we can," he said.

Video cameras - which include body-worn cameras (BWCs) and in-vehicle cameras for frontline officers and police vehicles - are part of a greater effort to harness technology in fighting crime.

Mr Iswaran noted that footage from BWCs can be encrypted and will have an indicator light to show when recordings are taking place. There are safeguards to ensure footage cannot be downloaded, edited or deleted without authorisation, he added.

Non-Constituency MP Gerald Giam had on Thursday raised privacy concerns over footage recorded by Polcams.

Yesterday, Workers' Party chairman Sylvia Lim (Aljunied GRC) also asked if there were standing operating procedures governing the use of BWCs.

Mr Iswaran assured Ms Lim that protocols governing the use of BWCs would be established, and that there were safeguards in place.

"There are stringent guidelines, standard operating procedures and system security features to guard against data breaches and the misuse of data," he said.

This article was first published on Mar 7, 2015.
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