Big Brother’s beach watch — drones and CCTV spark privacy concerns in Cape Town

Despite the illegality of consuming alcohol on public beaches in SA, many take the risk anyway, often hiding alcohol in water bottles and cooler boxes or burying it in the sand when law enforcement patrols the beaches.

To curb this, the City of Cape Town is using long-range, high-definition CCTV and drones at beaches to identify offenders.

The Mayoral Committee member for safety and security, JP Smith, said the city had deployed drones and CCTV to identify offenders at beaches over the past two festive seasons.

“From kilometres away, invisible to the human eye, we zoom in and identify offenders, who think they are one step ahead of the law,” said Smith.

JP Smith. (Photo: Jaco Marais / Gallo Images / Network24 )

Balancing safety and privacy

However, Heidi Swart, a surveillance researcher, said the public should be notified that drone monitoring was happening.

She said the use of high-definition, omnipresent cameras allowed officials to monitor individuals daily over a long period and learn their behaviour patterns.

In addition to gathering data about people’s lives, the city was monitoring people in states of undress.

“Who gets to see that data? Are you comfortable with some man sitting in a room somewhere looking at your half-naked body?” asked Swart.

“Every single little bit of information about you is yours. So when they’re capturing you on film, that’s your data. But of course, you have no control over it. You don’t even know how long [and] who’s looking at it. You’re completely reliant on the honesty and the integrity of whoever owns this camera, is taking this footage and is storing this footage.

“Is that surveillance really necessary? Because you’re only allowed to collect data if it’s absolutely necessary. And I would argue it’s not,” she said.

“The vast majority of people are not criminals, [and] are not drinking on the beach,” she said.

Legal frameworks  

Swart said there needed to be a specific legal framework for CCTV cameras within the Protection of Personal Information Act to regulate this kind of surveillance.

“There’s all sorts of legislation for who can fly drones, where they can fly and at what time. [But] that has nothing to do with privacy. That’s something separate,” she said.

Brandon Joubert, a video surveillance expert and director of Gensix Technology, said if a drone zooms in and focuses on details of a person that a normal onlooker could not observe, this could be deemed a search and an invasion of the person’s reasonable expectation of privacy.

South Africa’s Constitution guarantees the right to not be searched without consent or legal justification.

“The average citizen does not expect high-resolution, magnified examination of any part of their person or possessions without consent or justification which would meet the threshold required to enforce a physical search of a person,” he said.

Joubert said the distribution of video footage from a drone associating an individual with criminal activity before the matter has been heard in court could be a contravention of the South African Police Service Act.

“The city should make the effort to inform and create an overriding awareness amongst users of the beach that surveillance drones are in deployment, what the purpose is and what the capacity is,” said Joubert.

He said that in a crime-ridden society such as South Africa, law-abiding citizens should welcome the deployment of drones if they do not exceed the ability of a normal human to observe them — except in legally justified cases.

Privacy concerns

Smith maintained that there were no public privacy concerns related to this technology on beaches, given the specific purpose for which the technology is used, the “secure manner” in which the footage was stored and accessed, and the fact that it was in a public space.

When asked whether there were notices on beaches informing people about the surveillance measures, Smith said: “There is no legal obligation to notify the public regarding the operation of CCTV cameras in public spaces.”

Regarding transparency in the city’s use of surveillance systems, he noted the following:

• Overt camera usage: All cameras installed in public spaces by the city are overt and clearly visible to the general public. The city does not deploy covert cameras in public areas.


• Notification requirements: While the city is committed to lawful and responsible surveillance practices, there is no legal obligation to notify the public about the operation of CCTV cameras in public spaces.


• Purpose of surveillance: Cameras operated by the Safety and Security Directorate in public spaces are exclusively used for legitimate purposes, including crime prevention, crime detection and ensuring the safety of the public.


• Viewing of footage: No footage is made available to third parties unless it is for investigation purposes or the good of the general public’s knowledge, media awareness or education purposes.

He said drones were only used to monitor public open spaces and city land and did not encroach on private residences.

“The footage is securely stored and is only made available to authorised officers and managers, for official purposes, and is only used for the purpose it was captured for.”

He said drones had been extremely effective for law enforcement as officers could be directed to offenders and guided to where alcohol had been hidden. This technology was being used in conjunction with and support of traditional policing methods.

Together with the South African Police Service, the city had set up vehicle checkpoints at entry points to prominent beaches; officers searched vehicles and conducted foot patrols on beachfronts.

Read more: Sun, sand and safety — essential guidelines for enjoying South Africa’s beaches this summer

Smith said it was through the use of high-definition CCTV and drones circling high overhead that operators were able to identify beachgoers using creative ways to hide their alcohol, including burying it in the sand or decanting it into soft drink bottles.

Alcohol confiscated from Cape Town beachgoers. (Photo: JP Smith on Facebook)

By Thursday, 2 January, the city had confiscated more than 6,000 bottles of alcohol, with each offender handed a receipt detailing the type and quantity, as well as a fine.

Once the fine was settled, said Smith, offenders could present their receipt at the pound and have the impounded items returned. DM