Can camera surveillance be used for racial profiling?
Academic studies in the UK and Canada have documented the tendency towards racialized profiling by camera system operators. Cameras are used to target specific minority groups, especially Black and Aboriginal peoples, who are imagined to pose a greater threat than others. Street cameras have likewise been touted as effective tools in dealing with homelessness. In the case of homelessness, cameras may well increase criminalization and the local jail population. None of the known causes of homelessness – poverty, lack of social housing, etc. – are addressed by camera surveillance. Decisions about where to place camera systems can reflect profiling mentalities. Public housing zones in poorer, racialized neighbourhoods are increasingly targeted by camera surveillance schemes. It has also been shown that most camera operators are male and that cameras are sometimes used for inappropriate personal voyeuristic purposes independent of the camera system’s security aims.
