LETTER | Time to reconsider ‘privatised massive surveillance’

LETTER | The first cases of Covid-19 in the country were detected on Jan 25 last year. By Dec 14, the total number has risen to 84,846 in 324 days or an average of fewer than 262 cases per day.

Alarmingly, 85,196 Covid-19 cases had been recorded in the first 28 days of this year or an average of over 3,042 per day. Clearly, existing measures are not enough, and radical methods must be introduced to save lives and livelihoods.

But do we have the political will? As far as I know, this has been lacking for the past 18 years.

A good example is road safety, which I had thought deeply and wrote about in preparation for a public forum organised by a newspaper group in December 2003, after two buses had collided and killed 14 passengers.

After the speakers had made their presentations, I was invited to speak first representing my table of participants and proposed what I termed as ‘privatised massive surveillance’. My idea was reported by several English dailies and my interview with a journalist was published full page in a broadsheet Bahasa Malaysia newspaper.

In 2003, I noticed that many motorists and particularly motorcyclists ignored traffic lights even at junctions with cameras installed. It was due to many static cameras being inconspicuous or not functioning.

This had allowed snatch thefts to be rampant as robbers could easily scoot away without arousing suspicion.

I proposed that camera crews be stationed at strategic places. They would wear bright uniforms to be noticeable, and not hide behind pillars waiting for traffic offences to be committed and then capture the evidence. Their presence would also deter street crimes.

A concessionaire could be appointed to recruit thousands of ex-servicemen and retired police personnel to be deployed nationwide and they can be mobilised in cities and towns and along highways and country roads.

Their presence would have made our country safer and prevented countless accidents, saving many lives in the process. Diehard offenders would be caught jumping red lights, crossing double lines, driving on emergency lanes, speeding or obstructing traffic such as illegal parking.

The summonses issued and fines collected would be more than enough to recoup the minimal expenditure on cameras, uniforms, training, and commissions, including an efficient system to collect evidence and fines after notifying the offenders.

The authorities would not have to spend more on static cameras or give the excuse that the limited number of enforcement officers cannot be present everywhere.

My plans were shelved, and nothing happened until almost nine years later. On Sept 22, 2012, the Automated Enforcement System (AES) started operations with 14 static cameras and captured 63,558 offences within the first eight days of operations.

This prompted me to point out that at this rate, 830 cameras would be able to capture 171,772,650 offences in a year. Later, there was a huge public outcry, and the AES was withdrawn, and the government had to compensate the two concessionaires.

In November 2015, I wrote that the new concessionaire was scheduled to reintroduce the AES in the first quarter of 2016 covering 350 locations. But it did not happen, and I proposed the use of dashboard cameras or dashcams as the most effective tool to capture traffic offences and street crimes.

This would allow thousands of private and commercial vehicles to participate by fitting high-quality dashcams and submit evidence of traffic violations, corruption and crime.

Dashcams are superior to AES cameras that are fixed at known locations and cannot capture dangerous driving, tailgating, overtaking at double lines, driving on emergency lanes, and obstructing traffic by double parking.

Motorists and motorcyclists would have to be on their best behaviour as the vehicles behind may be fitted with dashcams, and rear-facing cameras can also record more offences.

There are two major flaws in using a mobile app to report traffic offenders. Firstly, it would encourage the use of handphones for recording while driving or riding, making our roads even more dangerous than they already are.

Secondly, it would promote vigilantism resulting in people taking the law into their own hands. Those seeking revenge on drivers and will follow their vehicles hoping to record one or more offences.

It is not unusual for a typical Malaysian driver to commit many offences daily, such as not stopping fully at junctions but rolling past and accelerating when the coast is clear.

It was then reported that 1.6 million traffic offences captured by AES cameras will have to be quashed due to a technicality. The gathering of evidence was performed by the staff of the two concessionaires, but the law only allows officers from state enforcement agencies to perform such tasks.

As such, laws need to be amended for private company staff to process evidence of traffic violations or they could be commissioned as auxiliary officers, wearing the same uniform as a policeman or Road Transport Department enforcement officer but under the concessionaire’s payroll.

A better step would be to amend the law to allow videos or photos captured by dashboard cameras to be accepted as evidence in court. Until this is done, it is premature to introduce a mobile app for the public to report on traffic offenders, which JPJ had toyed with in the middle of 2016.

But as long as political will is lacking, many people will continue to be injured or killed on our roads, many of them needlessly, causing untold sufferings to the victims and miseries to their families.

Today, our primary concern is the pandemic and the concept proposed in ‘privatised massive surveillance’ can be resurrected. I am not in favour of existing enforcement officers to be overzealous in issuing summonses, as some of them were unwarranted.

But the presence of more enforcement officers busy video recording crowds not fully in compliance with physical distancing and wearing of masks will automatically nudge many into their best behaviour, as actions can be taken later based on video evidence.

As there will never be enough enforcement officers to be present everywhere, other civil servants can be deployed as many people are capable of taking good videos using just their smartphones. Better still, interested ex-policemen and ex-servicemen can be deployed through their associations to do the job.

Similar to a machine gun mounted on a pickup used by African militants, the sight of a man in uniform manning a video camera mounted on a tripod would scare those who have been indifferent and emboldened by lack of enforcement.

We cannot win the war if we continue to lose the daily battles against Covid-19. Or are we not even aware that we are at war, going by the lax attitude by all levels of society. Without the political will to turn the tide, more lives, businesses, jobs and income will be lost, either by default or by design.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.