B.C. Transit has added audio security equipment to 109 buses already equipped with security cameras, all part of a pilot project to see how much the safety of operators and passengers can be improved by such devices.
As of Monday, the audio will always be on in the operator’s compartment, at least until April, when the one-year $400,000 pilot project concludes, said Transit spokesman Mike Russell. All but 25 of the buses are in Victoria; the remainder are in Kamloops.
The change means that Transit conversations between the operator and a passenger will be recorded. “The recording will only be kept, just like the video, if there is an issue and the operator tags it,” he said. Since April, cameras have caught close to 350 security and safety incidents, mostly in Victoria, some of which can be used as evidence in prosecution of people, such as the individual who spat on an operator, Russell said. “We have the video from that and it was very helpful.”
Other incidents captured by the cameras range from motor-vehicle accidents involving buses, falls or injuries on buses and customer service issues such as what an operator might have done or not done, he said.
“The audio recording is always on, just like the camera system, from the time the bus turns on until it is off. If there is an incident, the operators push a ‘tag’ button, which allow us to find it and download it after an incident,” Russell said.
As well as audio coming onstream, Monday marked the activation of two external side-mounted cameras on 13 buses in the Victoria fleet.
Russell said that officials from the B.C. Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner have talked to Transit security staff about surveillance concerns, but his understanding is that nothing has changed since commissioner Elizabeth Denham raised concerns in April.
“We informed the privacy commissioner of the latest update to the project. They have thus far not asked for changes,” he said. In April, Denham told the Times Colonist that she was not keen on people going about their “ordinary, lawful public activities” and having those activities recorded without their consent.
Decals inside buses indicate that passengers are being recorded for driver and passenger safety reasons, “but it is not possible to alert individuals outside the bus that they may be recorded by a camera facing forward from the front of the bus,” Denham said at the time.
Asked for comment Monday, a spokeswoman for the office of the privacy commissioner said: “The commissioner’s concerns are on the record. We are continuing our consultation with B.C. Transit about these concerns as well as with respect to audio recordings. It would be premature to comment until these consultations and our analysis are complete.”
Unifor 333, the union that represents Transit operators, could not be reached for comment.
Once assessments from the audio and visual equipment pilot project are in, a decision will be made as to whether all 280 or so buses in the Victoria fleet should be equipped with such equipment, depending on the success and expense involved, Russell said. Many transit systems across Canada use the same kind of equipment, he said.
