HORSHAM Rural City Council will improve its CCTV surveillance operations after an audit found they were not up to standard with Victorian privacy laws.
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The council was one of five Victorian councils randomly audited by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office, along with the City of Melbourne, Whitehorse, Hume and East Gippsland councils.
Auditor-General Andrew Greaves found that surveillance technology was used legitimately, but its systems were not up to standard with privacy laws.
“The councils we examined in this audit could not demonstrate that they are consistently meeting their commitments to the community to ensure the protection of private information collected through CCTV systems," he said.
Horsham Rural City Council uses public CCTV systems in the Horsham central activity district. There are also corporate security systems installed at the Horsham Town Hall and Kalkee Road Children’s and Community Hub.
While the councils and Victorian Information Commissioner’s office received no complaints about inappropriate use of surveillance systems or footage, Mr Greaves said there was not “strong assurance that no such incidents have occurred”.
Mr Greaves said gaps in CCTV signage and management meant the councils could not show their filming activities complied with privacy laws and the information collected was adequately protected.
A report tabled at state parliament has made 11 recommendations to ensure the councils’ CCTV systems comply with privacy laws.
Horsham Rural City chief executive Sunil Bhalla said the council has responded to 10 recommendations from the report. He said the council’s priority was the final adoption of a CCTV policy, which was in draft form.
“Other key areas we are addressing include improving physical security and access controls for corporate CCTV systems and more regularly assessing whether those controls are working,” he said.
Mr Bhalla stressed that there has been no security breaches raised for Horsham’s public security systems.
“We had no incidents of inappropriate use of surveillance systems or footage. The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner also had no such complaints,” he said.
“A strength of the council’s current public CCTV systems is that the data is securely housed at Horsham Police Station and viewable only by police.
“This provides a significant level of protection and ensures that the information is only used for appropriate purposes.”
Mr Bhalla said the council agreed that it should be able to demonstrate that it was securely maintaining its systems to prevent a breach.