CCTV in toilets - is this allowed?

[Jake]

On of my friend who used to run a pub would put vaseline on the top of the toilet cysterns.

 

Now THAT seriously deserves an ooo-er

[Geoff]

Yeah that's standard practice in a lot of 'bad' areas. Every flat surface in the toilet covered in Vaseline, or even better WD40 (makes the coke fizz up!).

[PageZ]

We had ours put in after a small fire was started!

 

Now thats what you call a curry!!!

 

Cheers

Mr B

[mattx]

http://www.gristle.org/toiletcam/

 

Would make for an interesting Chemistry lesson perhaps....

[bossman]

Enough of this toilet humour it's all a pile of Cr*p anyway hehe!

[herbertbauer]

"Every Step You Take" is an excellent, but critical new documentary about video surveillance in Britain (it has just premiered at a film festival in Austria, coming to Britain / US soon).

 

It also has a section that deals with the presence of CCTV in toilets and other 'impossible' places. The trailer alone is worth seeing check it out:

 

http://www.EveryStepYouTake.org

[stephenleak]

How well do they cope with UV lighting?

 

UV Lighting?! You can't tell me you need to install UV lighting in your toilets?! If so is it to combat the use of drugs? And if so, what kind of school do you work at where kids are shooting up?!

 

Sorry if I'm reading into this wrong!

 

Its a secondary school in the middle of 3 big council estates in north Bristol. Some of our kids have got real problems. They may give the impression of not wanting to be at school during the day but, when 3:30 comes around, they don't want to go home, because of what's waiting for them there.

[matt40k]

I worked at The Queen's School, which was the first school to place cameras in the toilets. You'll be amazed at some of the footage, we had a kid look direct at the camera, smile, wave, right before he took the sink apart.

 

Funny hearing about how he denied it was him when they played it back to his parents. Specially when the head was outside at the time and walked in on him.

 

Ah fun times.

 

I believe if you google the queen's school you'll see some where in the top 20, a link to the CBBC article about it.

[Geoff]

CBBC Newsround | UK | School puts CCTV cameras in loos

[matt40k]

That be the one!!

 

If anyone cares, the schools been closed and re-opened as the thomas clarkson community college. The heads left, the new temp head has left, the new head has left and it's the old deputy head who's now the temp head.

 

Lots of heads leaving there body (school)

[Little-Miss]

I read it more like the lights on the ceiling...i hope thats what was meant lol! (uv lighting)

[Sirbendy]

We had CCTV in the loos. All came out 2 years or so back.

 

We've had them smashed, torched, flooded, used as a knocking shop (by a few students), smoking shelter and communal "base". Now we've got someone on guard there full time, it's no issue.

 

Getting the cameras out was GRIM...metal enclosures, toiletrolled into obscurity in the roof..soggy, smelly, all in all yuk. The girls was by far the worst, surprisingly.

 

We have quite a few kids here who don't really want to go home either..or who want to come in during holidays to escape.

[Sirbendy]

So what happens if one of the little darlings decides to take a pee in the sink how are you covered for that. Are you allowed to view the material if this happens?

 

Hah. We've had kids openly bare their arse to our CCTV in the corridor outside IT..shame we were in the office (all of IT) with the deputy head (a lady)..talk about laugh..

 

We put it in the end of year 11 presentation for his year...we only hold a grudge until they leave.. Got a HUGE laugh..

[matt40k]

We have quite a few kids here who don't really want to go home either..or who want to come in during holidays to escape.

 

It's unreal how bad the girls toliets have been. Not worth thinking about how sick you must be to take a dump then transfer it to the sink... no joke. Cleaner was wtf? Ended up getting the guy a cup of tea. Poor sod.

[Andrew_C]

It's unreal how bad the girls toliets have been. Not worth thinking about how sick you must be to take a dump then transfer it to the sink...

Didn't she have a cup?

[matt40k]

Unfortuanly no-one stepped forward.... I wonder y ? Lol

 

Amazes me how most people i've worked with are tea\coffee addics

 

If you all had a choice, lose you right( or left if your left handed) arm or never drink tea\coffee ever again.

 

Lucky for me I'm one of those few freeks that doesn't like tea\coffee!!

[maniac]

I worked at The Queen's School, which was the first school to place cameras in the toilets. You'll be amazed at some of the footage, we had a kid look direct at the camera, smile, wave, right before he took the sink apart.

 

Funny hearing about how he denied it was him when they played it back to his parents. Specially when the head was outside at the time and walked in on him.

 

Ah fun times.

 

I believe if you google the queen's school you'll see some where in the top 20, a link to the CBBC article about it.

 

I know of one school that had cameras in the toilets at least 4 years before that news article, and another school that had cameras in their toilets at least a year before that article. I think The Queens School were just the first to goto the press, and the assumption was made that it was the first school to do it.

 

Mike.

[boomam]

I bet there would be all manor of uproar if said cameras were in the girls/womens.

[jumpinjamez]

"Every Step You Take" is an excellent, but critical new documentary about video surveillance in Britain (it has just premiered at a film festival in Austria, coming to Britain / US soon).

 

It also has a section that deals with the presence of CCTV in toilets and other 'impossible' places. The trailer alone is worth seeing check it out:

 

Nino Leitner's Every Step You Take - Ready for your close-up?

 

Great film , i do not agree with the over use of CCTV cameras anywhere and in childrens toilets its a joke (we have then at my school , nothing to do with me) . As is said in this film the footage does get out and then is misused. But the public are happy to give up civil liberties so we can "feel safe".

[ACAN]

i started a new job about a month and half ago and recently two people have been suspended and another sacked due to something to do with fraud or theft. ive heard that the company are thinking about putting covert cctv around the store and in the staff toilets. im wondering wether this is allowed as the staff toilets are one of males and one for females but they are just one room with the toilet and sink right next to each other. surley they are not allowed to do this? Edited June 17, 2010 by ACAN

[DrCheese]

def not if the room is so small that there is no way they can avoid seeing the actual toilet. I have no idea what law it would fall under tho.

[Sarconia]

The school I went to must have had camera's in it... and this was about 10yrs ago. We didn't ever get up to anything particularly bad in them, just the usual stuff (I mean actually going to the loo) and a bit of writing messages on the walls, they smelt vile but I swear that nobody ever cleaned them.

 

Anyway, I noticed that there was a visible line where half the writing had been smudged off, I figured that this was because the cleaner wasn't that tall and simply couldn't reach that high so above that I wrote a note which said "haha, can't reach?". A few days later a teacher pulled me into his office and asked me if I'd been writing funny notes in the toilet, I denied it of course but he seemed absolutely convinced that it was me -it must have been a camera as I virtually never wrote anything on the walls in there.

[solitaire89]

Slightly off topic, but I bought a swimming costume from a sports shop the other day. When I went to try it on, turned to look in the mirror to check it, and saw that the CCTV camera points straight into the mirror of the changing cubicle! Funnily enough, I won't be trying anything on there again!

[smitho1990]

yeah, we've got camera's covering the sinks and soapo dispensers after one was set alight. Not sure how they managed that like.

[Sirbendy]

Hmm...tempting to look at adding some to our 96-strong matrix here...we have cams covering loo exits, but every day now the little barstewards are doing something...stripping down the auto soap dispensers/trying to torch them (WHY FFS?), flooding the loos etc.

 

Yesterday I was called to photograph the Year 7-9 boys hand drier...pulled totally off the wall (4 screws and rawplugs gone), partially stripped (with bits in the bin), STILL LIVE(!), left hanging by the 240v wires with the elements/motor exposed. When I went to handle it, it activated..I forgot they were auto-on. Needless to say we broke out the IT Dept building Master key and hit the isolator for it in the cupboard, then locked the loo in question and summoned SLT and site manager...

 

Problem is, you can't prove which kids did it with the exit cam..they're all either saying "it was like that", or "I saw nothing"..you know DAMN WELL one of them did it, but you can't prove it.