Edited this because spelt Brents name incorrectly multiple times.

At 3 pm on Wensday 20/4/2022 I met with Brent Gilmartin at the Logan City Council (LCC) Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) control room that is at the Councils offices, at 159 Wembley Rd Logan Central.

I had contacted Brent because of a series of Facebook posts about the new security cameras that had been installed along Johnston Rd Forestdale and a link to a LCC document that Suz Corbet had provided. That said “To increase knowledge and understanding of the monitoring room and the camera program, Council has designed the Logan Safety Camera Program Community Education Program. This program allows community and groups to tour the monitoring room and learn more about the history of the Logan Safety Camera Program, how it operates and some success stories from the program.”

On arriving at the council officers in Weberley Rd Brent took me to the monitoring room which has its own external door to the building, only accessible via a touch device that Brent used his mobile phone to activate

On entering the area I was in a small foyer area looking at what turned out to be a electronically switchable frosted glass window. With a wall mounted light switch the panels of the window go from being clear or frosted.

Whilst clear I could see some people sitting in the control room facing floor to ceiling images. These where provided by multiple projectors. In the small foyer area was the TV showing a demonstration of what cameras can possibly see. But it was not live. I was told that no photos were allowed to be taken.

Brent, whos title is CCTV operations officer, said if anyone has any questions about the control room he can be contacted at:

brentgilmartin@logan.qld.gov.au 07 3412 5729 0401 924 934

I had prepared a list of questions to ask about the control room and how it operated. Brent was very cooperative in providing me with answers.

I also had asked on the Forestdale Facebook page for any questions, and added them to my list.

This is the information Brent gave me in that respect:

Ther are about 1,117 cameras that they monitor. The operation has been going for about 16 years. Brent has worked there for about 5 years

Ther are 5 walls on which images from cameras can be projected. Any one of the 5 walls can have multiple camers shown in a grid. Controlled via software such that, approximately a maximum of 20 cameras can be shown on a wall at one time. That means that it is possible to show anything between 5(1 times 5) and 100 (20 times 5) camera images at the same time. Or 1/11th of all the cameras.

Ther are 3 LCC contractors and 3 Queensland Police Service (QPS) people in the control room 24 hours per day, every day

The QPS personal do not operate any of the equipment. They can only ask the LCC contractors to do so, to see what QPS want to see.

Based on the intelligence they otherwise get, they decide which cameras to watch.

Ther are a whole range of cameras that are used, some of them can pan around 360 degrees, some of them are fixed so can not pan at all

Likewise some of the cameras can zoom and some cannot. The maximum zoom are such that they can read a number plate on a car at a distance of 6 km

Where the cameras may be looking over private property, it is possible, via software, to lock the camera so that it does not see that that area. As this is a software lockout, it can be over ridden, if such a request is made by QPS.

There are cameras that have multiple lenses such that 360 degree video of them can be shown, something equivalent to Google Street View.

The cameras are all connected back to the control room via a wireless private network, that, apparently, is the largest in the southern hemisphere. Private wireless means that it is not using the mobile phone network of the likes of Telsta, Optus or Vodafone.

It is logged, who watches which camera when and at what angle and at what zoom. Also who watches recorded video. Considering the number of cameras and views possible, I did not ask how it is logged.

I was told all recordings were watched. But I forgot to ask how, considering 6 people would not have enough time to do it.

If asked by QPS, they are able to detect if a driver is holding a mobile phone was driving.

In the last reporting quarter ther was about 6000 requests for information from QPS.

The vast majority of committed crimes where there is video from the control room, the perpetrators plead guilty so there is no need for a court case.

If it appears that a crime is likely to happen or is happening the QPS will be notified.

On average 15 to 20 incidents happened each day, mostly, live with very few found on non watched recorded video

Although there have been incidents of video captured of house theft, because there are more houses than Cameras this is rare.

Depending on the camera, other data that is or that can be captured are:

object, facial expression, numberplate, type vehicle, mobile phone reconigations, counts and speed.

However this is only done on LCC own corporate sites.

Video data is kept for 30 days. Licence plate data is only kept for 7 days. Because, otherwise, it would take up to much space.

Meta data, data about data, is kept.

This is camera specific and is only done at the camera level. Currently no AI is done at the server level. Meaning that it is not done on recorded video coming from non AI cameras. The reason given for this, was that it is easier to do it at the camera level, than at the server level, and that extra cost of AI is only about $200 per camera.

On a rotating basis all the cameras are replaced every 5 years.

Other than the 3 QPS personal, 5 LCC are involved. Non monitoring staff, Brent and a technician. To resource the control room for monitoring 24 hours per day every day of the year contractors are used. These contractors are trained by LCC. They have to have security licence and be police checked.

The control room can be accessed and operated remotely from a computer or a mobile phone. Although it would be a bit difficult from a mobile phone.

Currently the only people that can do this are Brent and the technician. As QPS personal are not allowed to operate any equipment they do not have remote access to it.

Considering remote access can be done from anywhere, I forgot to ask why the control room was needed at all.

Brent believe the cameras are good for safety and he has cameras around his own house. But he said that the LCC cameras are not a substitute for individual household cameras. His reasoning being that if thieves see 3 houses, 2 with cameras and 1 without,they are more likely to steal from the house that does not have a camera. I asked about fake cameras. He felt they would not work.

It appears that some people interpret that the ability to identify a person or a persons posession, such as a car, in a public situation, is an infringement of some privacy legislation, hence the camera feeds can not be streamed on the internet.

Brent felt even if the video was degraded (lower resolution) such that such identification could not be made, it would still be unlikely that LCC would stream it on the internet. My thought is that it may be costly to do for over 1,000 camera feeds.

Apparently LCC is going to do a future trial of this.

They wanted to use drones but because of the current CASA (Civil Aviationtion Safety Authority) requirements that drones have be in visual line of site, at all times, this made it inpractical. Ther are exemptions, but the cost of utilizing the exemptions is to high.