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Closed-circuit television ( CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly transmitted, though it may employ point-to-point, point-to-multipoint (P2MP), or Mesh networking wired or Wireless. Even though almost all video cameras fit this definition, the term is most often applied to those used for surveillance in areas that require additional security or ongoing monitoring (videotelephony is seldom called "CCTV"Verman, Romesh. Distance Education In Technological Age, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2005, pp.166, , ."Distance education in Asia and the Pacific: Proceedings Of The Regional Seminar On Distance Education, 26 November – 3 December 1986", Asian Development Bank, Bangkok, Thailand, Volume 2, 1987).
The deployment of this technology has facilitated significant growth in state surveillance, a substantial rise in the methods of advanced social monitoring and control, and a host of crime prevention measures throughout the world. Though surveillance of the public using CCTV Camera is common in many areas around the world, video surveillance has generated significant debate about balancing its use with individuals' right to privacy even when in public.
In Factory, CCTV equipment may be used to observe parts of a process from a central control room, especially if the environments observed are dangerous or inaccessible to humans. CCTV systems may operate continuously or only as required to monitor a particular event. A more advanced form of CCTV, using digital video recorders (DVRs), provides recording for possibly many years, with a variety of quality and performance options and extra features (such as motion detection and email alerts). More recently, decentralized , perhaps equipped with megapixel sensors, support recording directly to network-attached storage devices or internal flash for stand-alone operation.
Another early CCTV system was installed by Siemens at Test Stand VII in Peenemünde, Nazi Germany, in 1942, for observing the launch of V-2 rockets.Dornberger, Walter: V-2, Ballantine Books 1954, ASIN: B000P6L1ES, page 14.
In the United States, the first commercial closed-circuit television system became available in 1949 from Remington Rand and designed by CBS Laboratories, called "Vericon". Vericon was advertised as not requiring a government permit due to the system using cabled connections between camera and monitor rather than over-the-air transmission. "Television Rides Wires" , February 1949, Popular Science small article, bottom of page 179
Later, videocassette recorder technology became available in the 1970s, making it easier to record and erase information, and the use of video surveillance became more common. During the 1990s, digital multiplexing was developed, allowing several cameras to record at once, as well as time lapse and motion-only recording. This saved time and money which then led to an increase in the use of CCTV. Recently, CCTV technology has been shifting towards Internet-based products and systems, and other technological developments.
Closed-circuit telecasts peaked in popularity with Muhammad Ali in the 1960s and 1970s, with "The Rumble in the Jungle" fight drawing 50million CCTV viewers worldwide in 1974, and the "Thrilla in Manila" drawing 100million CCTV viewers worldwide in 1975. In 1985, the WrestleMania I professional wrestling show was seen by over one million viewers with this scheme. As late as 1996, the Julio César Chávez vs. Oscar De La Hoya boxing fight had 750,000 viewers. Chavez-De La Hoya Fight Is A Bout About Contrasts, Chicago Tribune article, 1996-06-07, Retrieved on 2015-02-23 Although closed-circuit television was gradually replaced by pay-per-view home cable television in the 1980s and 1990s, it is still in use today for most awards shows and other events that are transmitted live to most venues but do not air as such on network television, and later re-edited for broadcast.
In September 1968, Olean, New York, was the first city in the United States to install CCTV video cameras along its main business street in an effort to fight crime.Robb, Marie Van Brittan Brown received a patent for the design of a CCTV-based home security system in 1969. ( ). Another early appearance was in 1973 in Times Square in New York City.Yesil, The NYPD installed it to deter crime in the area; however, crime rates did not appear to drop much due to the cameras. Nevertheless, during the 1980s, video surveillance began to spread across the country specifically targeting public areas.Roberts, Lucy. " History of Video Surveillance and CCTV " We C U Surveillance Retrieved 2011-10-20 It was seen as a cheaper way to deter crime compared to increasing the size of the police departments. Some businesses as well, especially those that were prone to theft, began to use video surveillance. From the mid-1990s on, police departments across the country installed an increasing number of cameras in various public spaces including housing projects, schools, and public parks. CCTV later became common in banks and stores to discourage theft by recording evidence of criminal activity. In 1997, 3,100 CCTV systems were installed in public housing and residential areas in New York City.
Experiments in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s, including outdoor CCTV in Bournemouth in 1985, led to several larger trial programs later that decade. The first use by local government was in King's Lynn, Norfolk, in 1987.
In 2012, cities such as Manchester in the UK are using DVR-based technology to improve accessibility for crime prevention. In 2013, City of Philadelphia Auditor found that the $15 million system was operational only 32% of the time. There is anecdotal evidence that CCTV aids in detection and conviction of offenders; for example, UK police forces routinely seek CCTV recordings after crimes. "Police are failing to recover crucial CCTV footage, new figures suggest", The Daily Telegraph Cameras have also been installed on public transport in the hope of deterring crime.
A 2017 review published in the Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention compiles seven studies that use such research designs. The studies found that CCTV reduced crime by 24–28% in public streets and urban subway stations. It also found that CCTV could decrease unruly behaviour in football stadiums and theft in supermarkets/mass merchant stores. However, there was no evidence of CCTV having desirable effects in parking facilities or suburban subway stations. Furthermore, the review indicates that CCTV is more effective in preventing property crimes than in violent crimes. However, a 2019, 40-year-long systematic review study reported that the most consistent effects of crime reduction of CCTV were in car parks.
A more open question is whether most CCTV is cost-effective. While low-quality domestic kits are cheap, the professional installation and maintenance of high definition CCTV is expensive. Gill and Spriggs did a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of CCTV in crime prevention that showed little monetary saving with the installation of CCTV as most of the crimes prevented resulted in little monetary loss. Critics however noted that benefits of non-monetary value cannot be captured in a traditional cost effectiveness analysis and were omitted from their study.
In October 2009, an "Internet Eyes" website was announced which would pay members of the public to view CCTV camera images from their homes and report any crimes they witnessed. The site aimed to add "more eyes" to cameras which might be insufficiently monitored. Civil liberties campaigners criticized the idea as "a distasteful and a worrying development". Public to Monitor CCTV From Home, BBC Russia has also implemented a video surveillance system called 'Safe City', which has the capability to recognize facial features and moving objects, sending the data automatically to government authorities. However, the widespread tracking of individuals through video surveillance has raised significant privacy issues.Artificial intelligence in local government services: Public perceptions from Australia and Hong Kong, Government Information Quarterly, Volume 40, Issue 3, June 2023, 101833
In Singapore, since 2012, thousands of CCTV cameras have helped deter , nab litterbugs, and stop illegal parking, according to government figures. In 2013, Oaxaca, Mexico, hired deaf police officers to lip reading conversations to uncover criminal conspiracies.
Highways England has a publicly owned CCTV network of over 3000 pan–tilt–zoom cameras covering the British motorway and trunk road network. These cameras are primarily used to monitor traffic conditions and are not used as speed cameras. With the addition of fixed cameras for the active traffic management system, the number of cameras on the Highways England's CCTV network is likely to increase significantly over the next few years.Networx Security. " Closed Circuit Television." Retrieved 7 March 2019. The London congestion charge is enforced by cameras positioned at the boundaries of and inside the congestion charge zone, which automatically read the number plates of vehicles that enter the zone. If the driver does not pay the charge then a fine will be imposed.Kablenet, The Register. " TfL hands out contracts for congestion charge tags." 6 June 2008. Retrieved 7 March 2019. Similar systems are being developed as a means of locating cars reported stolen.Rowena Coetsee, Bay Area News Group. " New surveillance cameras doing their job, Antioch's top cop says." 11 August 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2019. Other surveillance cameras serve as traffic enforcement cameras.
In Mecca, Saudi Arabia, CCTV cameras are used for monitoring (and thus Crowd control) the flow of crowds. In the Philippines, barangay San Antonio used CCTV cameras and artificial intelligence software to detect the formation of crowds during an Disease outbreak. Security personnel were sent whenever a crowd formed at a particular location in the city.
On a driver-only operated train, CCTV cameras may allow the driver to confirm that people are clear of doors before closing them and starting the train. (From 7:35, the video explains about DOO train dispatch and describes the use of CCTV at stations.) A trial by RET in 2011 with facial recognition cameras mounted on trams made sure that people who were banned from them did not sneak on anyway. CCTV has also been frequently operated in many department stores and shopping malls to mitigate concerns of potential theft. In some countries, malls must obtain approval from the Ministry of Interior (MOI) or Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) before installing CCTVs. Some organizations also use CCTV to monitor the actions of workers in a workplace.]]Many sporting events in the United States use CCTV inside the venue, either to display on the stadium or arena's scoreboard or in the concourse or restroom areas to allow people to view action outside the seating bowl. The cameras send the feed to a central control centre where a producer selects feeds to send to the television monitors that people can view. In a trial with CCTV cameras, football club fans no longer needed to identify themselves manually, but could pass freely after being authorized by the facial recognition system.
In 2018, China was reported to have over 170 million CCTV cameras. In 2023, China was estimated to have a huge surveillance network of around 540–626 million surveillance cameras, though numbers differ significantly between sources. Beijing, China's capital city, has the most cameras for a city overall, with a total of 1.15 million installed. The cameras are used to record details such as gender, age, and ethnicity. Cameras have been used in a southern Chinese city to issue tickets to people for Summary offence. In India, the cities of Hyderabad and Delhi, the capital, have around 900,000 and 450,000 cameras, respectively. The city of Chennai has the highest density per area of CCTV cameras worldwide, with 657 cameras per square kilometer in 2020 (from 280,000 CCTVs). China and India have some of the highest-density and the most amount of CCTVs in cities. South Korea's military has removed over 1,300 surveillance Chinese cameras from its bases for security reasons. In Hong Kong, the police have stated that they are planning to install up to 7,000 surveillance cameras across Hong Kong in roughly three years time, up from the estimated 600 installed cameras in 2024; this amounts to roughly 2,000 planned cameras every year starting from 2025. Earlier, in June 2024, the cameras have also been vaguely planned to be integrated with facial recognition artificial intelligence. The plan has been criticized for the potential for the country to become similar to the "intense surveillance of mainland China". In Japan, an estimation by Nikkei Business estimated that the total number of security cameras in Japan is approximately 5 million in 2018. In Singapore, it was estimated that the total number of CCTVs was around 90,000 in 2021.
There were an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras in the United States in 2011.; ; ; Video surveillance has been common in the United States since the 1990s; for example, one manufacturer reported net earnings of $120 million in 1995. With lower cost and easier installation, sales of home security cameras increased in the early 21st century. Following the September 11 attacks, the use of video surveillance in public places became more common to deter future terrorist attacks. Under the Homeland Security Grant Program, government grants are available for cities to install surveillance camera networks. In 2018, there are approximately 70 million surveillance cameras in the United States.
In Canada, Project SCRAM is a policing effort by the Canadian policing service Halton Regional Police Service to register and help consumers understand privacy and safety issues related to the installations of home security systems. The project service has not been extended to commercial businesses.
In Latin America, the CCTV market is growing rapidly with the increase of property crime. In Brazil, CCTV usage is only permitted in public areas, though individuals must be informed about the presence of the camera according to the Brazilian LGPD (which broadly aligns with the EU's GDPR), the Brazilian Civil Code, and the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards. However, starting in 2023, in Brazil, the Smart Sampa project, a project that plans to deploy 20,000 facial recognition cameras by 2024, has been criticized for its potential to be "biased against Black people" and overall risks of data privacy.
An article published in CCTV Image magazine estimated the number of private and local government-operated cameras in the United Kingdom was 1.85 million in 2011. The estimate was based on extrapolating from a comprehensive survey of public and private cameras within the Cheshire Constabulary jurisdiction. This works out as an average of one camera for every 32 people in the UK, although the density of cameras varies greatly from place to place. The Cheshire report also claims that the average person on a typical day would be seen by 70 CCTV cameras.
The Cheshire figure is regarded as more dependable than a previous study by Michael McCahill and Clive Norris of UrbanEye published in 2002. Based on a small sample in Putney High Street, McCahill and Norris extrapolated the number of surveillance cameras in London to be around 500,000 and the total number of cameras in the UK to be around 4.2 million. According to their estimate, the UK has one camera for every 14 people. Although it has been acknowledged for several years that the methodology behind this figure is flawed, it has been widely quoted. Furthermore, the figure of 500,000 for Greater London is often confused with the figure for the police and local government-operated cameras in the City of London, which was about 650 in 2011.
The CCTV User Group estimated that there were around 1.5 million private and local government CCTV cameras in city centres, stations, airports, and major retail areas in the UK. Research conducted by the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and based on a survey of all Scottish local authorities identified that there are over 2,200 public space CCTV cameras in Scotland.Bannister, J., Mackenzie, S. and Norris, P. Public Space CCTV in Scotland (2009), Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (Research Report) The UK has often been cited as a country that has one of the most CCTV cameras in Europe.
Furthermore, some scholars have argued that situations wherein a person's rights can be justifiably compromised are so rare as to not sufficiently warrant the frequent compromising of public privacy rights that occurs in regions with widespread CCTV surveillance. For example, in her book Setting the Watch: Privacy and the Ethics of CCTV Surveillance, Beatrice von Silva-Tarouca Larsen argues that CCTV surveillance is ethically permissible only in "certain restrictively defined situations", such as when a specific location has a "comprehensively documented and significant criminal threat".]]
All countries in the European Union are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects individual rights, including the right to privacy. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) required that the footage should only be retained for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. In Sweden, the use of CCTV in public spaces is regulated both nationally and via GDPR. In an opinion poll commissioned by Lund University in August 2017, the general public of Sweden was asked to choose one measure that would ensure their need for privacy when subject to CCTV operation in public spaces: 43% favored regulation in the form of clear routines for managing, storing, and distributing image material generated from surveillance cameras, 39% favored regulation in the form of clear signage informing that camera surveillance in public spaces is present, 10% favored regulation in the form of having restrictive policies for issuing permits for surveillance cameras in public spaces, 6% were unsure, and 2% favored regulation in the form of having permits restricting the use of surveillance cameras during certain times.) in Stockholm, Sweden, mounted on top of the pole]]
In an updated opinion poll commissioned by Lund University in December 2019, the general public of Sweden was asked to share their attitudes toward the use of surveillance cameras (CCTV) in public spaces. A significant majority, 88%, expressed a positive view—45% were very positive and 43% quite positive—while only 11% held negative views, and 1% were unsure. Participants were also asked whether they believed surveillance cameras in various environments violated their personal privacy. A majority rejected that such surveillance violated their privacy at national border-crossings (82%), in city centers (77%), parks and green spaces (74%), large public events (80%), and healthcare units (68%). Somewhat less rejection was observed for surveillance in residential areas, where 67% rejected the notion that it violated their privacy. When asked about the perceived use of automatic facial recognition in surveillance cameras in Sweden, 9% believed it was used quite a lot, 55% believed it was not used much, 21% believed it was not used at all, and 15% were unsure. Regarding privacy risks, 55% of respondents believed the greatest risk came from commercial documentation of individuals (e.g., data collection tracking online consumer behavior), followed by 20% who pointed to other members of the public documenting them (e.g., photography or audio recording), and 11% who saw the greatest risk in public sector data collection (e.g., by law enforcement or healthcare providers). 15% were unsure. When asked to whom they would turn to report a privacy breach related to public camera surveillance, 35% said the Swedish National Police, 6% mentioned the Swedish Data Protection Authority, and 39% did not know where to turn.
In the United Kingdom, the Data Protection Act 1998 imposes legal restrictions on the uses of CCTV recordings and mandates the registration of CCTV systems with the Data Protection Agency. In 2004, the successor to the Data Protection Agency, the Information Commissioner's Office, clarified that this required registration of all CCTV systems with the Commissioner and prompt deletion of archived recordings. However, subsequent case law (Durant vs. FSA) limited the scope of the protection provided by this law, and not all CCTV systems are currently regulated.
A 2007 report by the UK Information Commissioner's Office highlighted the need for the public to be made more aware of the growing use of surveillance and the potential impact on civil liberties. In the same year, a campaign group claimed that the majority of CCTV cameras in the UK are operated illegally or are in breach of privacy guidelines. In response, the Information Commissioner's Office rebutted the claim and added that any reported abuses of the Data Protection Act are swiftly investigated. Even if there are some concerns arising from the use of CCTV such as involving privacy, more commercial establishments are still installing CCTV systems in the UK. In 2012, the UK government enacted the Protection of Freedoms Act which includes several provisions related to controlling the storage and use of information about individuals. Under this Act, the Home Office published a code of practice in 2013 for the use of surveillance cameras by government and local authorities. The code wrote that "surveillance by consent should be regarded as analogous to policing by consent."
In the Philippines, the main laws governing CCTV usage are Data Privacy Act of 2012 and the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173) is the primary law that governs data privacy in the Philippines. The Act mandates that the privacy of individuals must be respected and protected. The law applies to CCTV cameras as they collect and process personal data. The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10175) includes provisions that apply to CCTV usage. Under the Act, the unauthorized access to, interception of, or interference with data is a criminal offense. This means that unauthorized access to CCTV footage could potentially be considered a cybercrime.
Main types of IP cameras include fixed cameras, pan–tilt–zoom (PTZ) cameras, and multi-sensor cameras. Fixed cameras' resolution typically does not exceed 20 Pixel. The main feature of a PTZ is its remote directional and Zoom lens capability. With multi-sensor cameras, wider areas can be monitored. Industrial video surveillance systems use network video recorders to support IP cameras. These devices are responsible for the recording, storage, video stream processing, and alarm management. Since 2008, IP video surveillance manufacturers can use a standardized network interface (ONVIF) to support compatibility between systems. For professional or public infrastructure security applications, IP video is restricted to within a private network or VPN.
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