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It's more important than ever to keep tabs on local government surveillance plans like Kelowna has and Kamloops is exploring, as society is more connected than ever, according to BC's Information and Privacy Commissioner.

With cameras at our fingertips, mass data collection with artificial intelligence and the tempting pull of technology touted as easing the task of policing public safety, commissioner Michael Harvey is keeping a close eye on the potential creep against privacy rights.

"The rapid change in technology is all the more reason to remain more vigilant of what we're doing here," he said.

Kamloops is one of five BC cities considering new or expanded public surveillance systems, a trend that surprised Harvey in his first year on the job.

The Kamloops proposal would have its bylaw officers, or "community service officers", monitor public areas in real time from a downtown office. It's being proposed as a method to deter criminal or nuisance behaviour while protecting public infrastructure.

The "analytical cameras" would be used for "early detection and protection" of public property, according to a staff report. They would be not only in civic facilities but also public spaces to "combat graffiti and public nuisance leading to the perception of unsafe streets."

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"This should also include an immediate intermediate response unit that can respond promptly to non-criminal-related nuisance behaviour," the report read.

It's being considered as part of the 2025 budget cycle and hasn't yet been debated by council, nor have staff decided how widespread their use would be if approved.

There is almost no mention of police use and whether Kamloops RCMP will have access to the cameras, but some other BC cities are floating surveillance measures specifically with crime in mind.

White Rock, for example, began exploring a new CCTV network in the wake of a public stabbing. It's an effort hampered by steep costs and so far won't be getting help from the province to pay for it, according to Black Press.

In Vancouver, police were recently given access to a network of 221 municipal traffic cameras already in place.

But public surveillance hasn't shown to combat crime in other jurisdictions.

"I haven't seen any evidence that general mass surveillance can lead to a generalized decrease in crime," Harvey said. "That's why new forms of surveillance need to be justified by specific use cases."

Where it has been found useful is in parkades, for example, where they have reduced vehicle crime, according to a study of UK surveillance networks more than a decade ago. Similar results have been found in Kelowna.

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Kelowna has hundreds of cameras, but contracted security are only monitoring those in parkades and around bus exchanges in real time.

City staff wouldn't agree to an interview, but a City spokesperson said in a written statement that 24-hour monitoring allows for a quick response to security concerns, like break and enters in progress, or public safety issues, like fires.

"City security staff are regularly reviewing the effectiveness of cameras on an ongoing basis. Cameras that are ineffective are removed," the statement read.

The vast majority of footage is automatically deleted and, if saved, it's only accessed by a small group of people. Police, meanwhile, have to submit a written request to get access to specific footage.

In 2018, Kelowna was one of several cities considering public surveillance expansions and live monitoring of the footage and faced scrutiny by BC's privacy commissioner at the time. The City made its case to the commissioner's office and ultimately went ahead with the system.

Commissioner Harvey said there are cases where surveillance is justified and perhaps necessary, but said suggestions it should be allowed in all cases when public safety is at issue are "dangerous."

He pointed to a Vancouver city councillor's suggestion that there is no expectation of privacy in public.

"I'm not here pushing a zero video surveillance world. I accept there are use-cases where it may be justified, but this idea there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public is a really important one I want to push against," he said.

He said governments should weigh collective rights, including public safety, against those of individuals, but privacy is inherent to the Charter and even in public places, while "limited," it should still be strongly considered.

"If we disregard the idea that in public we have no rights to privacy, that strikes to the heart of our rights here in this country, and I think it's a really dangerous idea," he said.

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Technological advancements in areas like artificial intelligence make surveillance much more advanced and complicated than a simple camera, Harvey said.

Though he didn't name the organization, he said a government body in Newfoundland aimed to advance a surveillance network around three years ago while he was privacy commissioner in the Atlantic province. Within the proposal was the addition of a facial recognition tool, and the government agency responded to questions by saying it's an "industry standard" feature.

"That's really potentially very troubling for me that we might have any of these public bodies procuring video surveillance," he said. "Let's say they do a (privacy impact assessment) and it's entirely justified and found to be lawful ... but buried (in) that surveillance is a feature they just turn it on and they build a database of biometric information of people they're surveilling."

The use of that same technology has been blocked so far by BC courts. Specifically, it was American company Clearview AI's program of scraping photos from the internet to build a facial recognition database for police use.

"(Clearview AI) was building a database of individuals then selling the ability to consult that database of biometric information to law enforcement without anyone's knowledge or consent, essentially, transforming all of us to potentially being in a police lineup all the time," he said.

To Harvey, the potential proliferation of public surveillance is as much a practical privacy issue as it is a philosophical one.

"Do we live in a society where our base understanding is that people are generally orderly and law-abiding, productive members of society? Or, do we live in a society where we're assuming people are, if they're not watched and there's no threat they'll get in trouble, they're going to behave in an unlawful way?" Harvey said. "The way we set up our systems and programs sends messages to our society about what our fundamental assumptions are."

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