By Dongyun Kwon
As part of the Capturing the Yarra Ranges campaign, I want to share my story with the local community as a foreigner who grew up in a different environment that most of our readers didn’t experience.
I was born and grew up in South Korea.
In my country, the CCTV network was rolled out probably when I was still a primary school student or before.
In a few years, it became very big, and cameras were installed literally everywhere including public and private spaces, and cars.
In 2013, legislation was introduced that all new cars must be equipped with CCTV cameras, which we call ‘black box’ in Korea.
It was to use the footage to find out the cause of accidents or to track criminal offenders who might have been captured by the black boxes on the nearby roads at the time.
I remembered that I read a text in my textbook that was talking about the issue of privacy breach in early middle school or late primary school which was between 2009 and 2011 (I’m not sure).
What I still remember about the text, because it was really shocking to me, was that a Korean was exposed to CCTV cameras at least 24 times a day on average (I might be wrong with the number).
I looked up the number again to write this column and found out the number increased to 98 times for people in their 30s and 40s per day on average in 2021.
Please don’t get my column wrong.
I’m a big advocate for Capturing the Yarra Ranges which we are currently doing to raise awareness of the need for a better CCTV network to make our community safer.
I still strongly think there are many positive aspects of having stronger CCTV cameras across Yarra Ranges.
For example, in my country, it is common for people to leave their personal belongings, like tablet PCs, laptops, or wallets, unattended to possess the table in a cafe or a restaurant while they are going to make an order at the register or toilet.
Nobody would touch your stuff on the table, rather, they would take it as a sign of the spot being taken.
I don’t know if it stems from our CCTV system, culture, or strong justice system.
But I can confidently say that the CCTV cameras also contribute to this.
However, I’d like to emphasise that we also need to think about how to get prepared to prevent possible problems.
Back in the years when I was a student, the tuition centres installed CCTV cameras in the classrooms to observe whether the students were studying (again, I’m not sure if they still continue to do this).
A new trend has been going on that families with a baby install a camera in the baby’s room to check the safety of the baby in South Korea.
I mean it’s all for a good purpose, but could it be justified to watch students through the cameras, and what would happen if the computer that has all the footage got hacked and all the footage got stolen by someone who wants to use it for a negative purpose?
With the appearance of social media, there is a high number of footage with peoples’ faces streaming on the internet without permission by them.
I find it scary, and it sometimes makes me think ‘Where’s my privacy? Am I living in South Korea, a democratic country, or North Korea where a dictator surveils people?’.
Again, what I’m trying to say is not to oppose the reinstatement of the CCTV network in Yarra Ranges because I deeply feel the need for a stronger surveillance system for the safety of Yarra Ranges, especially on the main streets of each township.
And I totally believe the well-operating CCTV system managed by a responsible authority would be the first step to make our community safer.
But I hope the Yarra Ranges community won’t make the same mistake that my country did by taking the side effects into account.
That is the only reason I’m sharing my experience with you.
I cannot wait to see the reinstatement of the CCTV network with the detailed plans to prevent possible problems.
