Two preliminary considerations before entering the subject. One: the video surveillance sector is so complex in terms of the regulations and legal frameworks that govern it that there are quite a few experts who warn that it would not be bad to bring some order to it. And two: there is a widespread feeling that there are more and more cameras monitoring and recording our lives, that we live in a kind of permanent Big Brother from which it is difficult to escape. But this perception is only half-hearted. The presence of police video surveillance here, which exclusively groups those controlled by the police, is light years away from that of any corner of our immediate environment.

If we compare Barcelona with Nice, the situation is better understood. The two Mediterranean cities suffered first hand the tragedy of terrorism. In July 2016, a jihadist attack claimed the lives of 86 people in Nice. A year later, in August 2017, 16 more people were murdered on the Rambla in Barcelona. Both incidents had an immediate response in terms of safety and prevention. The French city currently has more than 3,500 video surveillance police cameras. Barcelona will end the year with 117.

The data does not bear comparison. These are two disparate models of understanding prevention and security. The one in Nice is not an isolated case. Similar figures, in terms of the presence of cameras on public roads, and even higher, are found in Paris, London or any other European city, not to mention the United States, where monitoring is already part of the day in day and virtually no permission is asked or no obstacles are put in place when activating it.

There are now few detractors of police video surveillance, despite the reluctance with which the first cameras were installed, which were attacked with the argument that they violated privacy.

The regulations governing the installation of police video surveillance cameras are particularly complex and restrictive.

It is not superfluous to draw the competency map to understand a little better who each of the artifacts depends on. In Catalonia, there can only be police cameras on public roads. A public street is any street, square, beach, bridge or park where a conflict persists over time that advises the municipal authority to request the installation of one or more cameras. These terminals are managed exclusively by police and are requested from the video surveillance commission of Catalonia by the councils.

In the case of Barcelona, ​​the security manager, Maite Casado, is in charge of signing the reports requesting the installation from the commission. The latest reports are related to the 17 cameras on Passeig de Gràcia and eight more around the Albéniz palace, in Montjuïc.

The video surveillance commission is chaired by the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, Jesús María Barrientos, who meets behind closed doors once a month with members and speakers, who have previously distributed and studied the requests. Its decisions are binding and are notified by the General Directorate of Security Administration (DGAS). Each request is accompanied by a detailed police report in which the Consistory attests with police data the need for the presence of the camera to improve prevention and police action. The file must collect with images the field of view of each camera, the details of the management of the images and an eight-page questionnaire of such high technical complexity that there are numerous municipalities that address the DGAS in seeking advice when considering installing a camera.

Another official data that helps to understand the insignificant presence of police surveillance cameras on public roads in Catalan municipalities is the official data provided by the DGAS to La Vanguardia. In 2010, the Department of the Interior authorized, after the mandatory report of the video surveillance commission, 28 files for the installation of cameras, out of the 28 requested. Twelve years later, in 2022, 73 of the 79 received were authorized. Irrelevant data in the face of the unstoppable progress of new technologies applied to the world of security, among which there are state-of-the-art cameras that are increasingly less invasive but very effective in tracking the images that are being sought.

So far the fixed police video surveillance. But there are also mobile police cameras, for which more and more bodies, from the Mossos d’Esquadra to the municipal police, are opting for them, to be worn individually or in vehicles.

Until last year, all these artifacts needed the approval of the video surveillance commission, but a recent reform made their use more flexible and the files are sent directly to the DGAS.

Another section in which it is practically impossible to determine how many cameras there are is that of private surveillance, which distinguishes cameras that monitor publicly owned buildings from private properties or assets.

In this area, the Catalan Data Protection Authority and the Spanish Data Protection Agency come into play, which disseminate recommendations on the good use of video surveillance. It is impossible to give an official figure of how many of these cameras are installed.