Taipei City Councilor Vivian Huang was recently commenting on the absurdity of how surveillance cameras on Taipei’s streets are filming residences and broadcasting live footage of people’s private lives on the Internet, instead of being used to enforce traffic regulations. Huang asks whether the Taipei City Government is really spending hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars on surveillance cameras merely to monitor lawmakers and residents?
During a Taipei City Council question-and-answer session on Nov. 12, Huang remonstrated with Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin over the cameras, which she said should be used for monitoring traffic conditions, not residential buildings. She said that cameras were found being pointed directly at her office last week, and that it was not the first time it had happened.
In 2010, when a surveillance camera at the intersection of Chenggong Road and Wende Road in Neihu District was found pointed directly at her office located on the second floor, she notified the police and those in charge of managing the cameras immediately corrected the problem. The police told her that the manufacturers were at fault.
Photo: Wang Jung-hsiang, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者王榮祥
When Huang was browsing the Web site of the Traffic Control Center, under the Traffic Engineering Office, to find out more about the footage filmed by the surveillance camera that was pointed at her office, she discovered that cameras were also monitoring residences and that the footage was being broadcast online 24 hours a day — a serious violation of human rights, she says. Many of the cameras on the site were “temporarily unavailable,” which also exemplifies the acute incompetence of the city government, Huang says.
Hau said that a more effective method for managing the surveillance cameras will be established in the future, while Department of Transportation Commissioner Jason Lin says that the cameras were not intentionally pointed at residences. He says that the optic fibers embedded in the cameras had probably shorted the circuits, consequently disrupting the Traffic Control Center’s ability to control the cameras remotely and causing the cameras to face the wrong direction. All of the cameras were originally pointed directly at their respective intersections and all malfunctioning cameras have been sent for repairs, Lin says.
(Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)
Photo: Huang Shu-li, Liberty Times
照片:自由時報記者黃淑莉
台北市街頭的錄影監視器不是取締交通違規,鏡頭竟是對準民宅,市民的生活隱私全在網路上直播曝光,讓北市議員黃珊珊大呼實在太扯!質疑市府花數億元建置的監視器,難道只是監控民意代表與民眾的工具?
黃珊珊十一月十二日在議會總質詢時向台北市長郝龍斌抗議,因為本來應該做為監控路況的錄影監視器,竟轉向對準高樓住宅,黃表示,上週發現路口監視器,鏡頭卻直接對準她的服務處,而這已經不是第一次。
黃珊珊指出,在二0一0年時就曾發現位在內湖區成功路與文德路口的監視器,鏡頭不偏不倚正好對準位在二樓的服務處,當時通報警察局,相關單位也立即調整鏡頭,事後警局解釋是「廠商作業缺失」。
黃珊珊表示,為了解對準服務處監視器所監看的畫面,她特別上交工處的交通控制中心網路查詢,卻意外發現監視器不只是對著她的服務處,還對準民宅,且二十四小時在網路上直播,嚴重侵害人權,許多錄影畫面更是「系統維護中」,凸顯市府螺絲嚴重鬆散。
郝龍斌回應,未來會建立更嚴謹方式管理錄影監視器,交通局局長林志盈則澄清,鏡頭絕不是刻意對準民宅,應是光纖埋設挖斷錄影監視器電路,導致遠端遙控的交控中心無法控制監視器,而使鏡頭偏移,設置的監視器一定是對準路口,故障監視器已送維修。
(自由時報記者陳慰慈)
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