Spat over Joburg Roads Agency’s CCTV ‘spy’ cameras

The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), an entity of the City of Joburg, has to explain how it granted authorisation for the installation of a contentious and “invasive” CCTV surveillance system in the mainly wealthy suburbs of Johannesburg.

Court papers filed before the High Court in Johannesburg show that between October 2019 and April 2020, the JRA has granted Vumacam, a company installing the artificial intelligence (AI) capable closed-circuit television (CCTV) to fight crime in Johannesburg suburbs, a total of 64 wayleaves for CCTV purposes.

Vumacam has since approached the court with an urgent application to declare JRA’s decision to suspend aerial and CCTV wayleave applications unlawful and invalid, and set it aside.

“The JRA has not suspended the granting of wayleaves for Vumacam’s smart CCTV system specifically,” said Vumacam spokesperson Natacha Cunningham.

“They are holding on approving all wayleaves for any CCTV and aerial wayleaves applications in the public space. This is not aimed at Vumacam.”

Cunningham said JRA did have the authority to grant authorisation for Vumacam to install poles with cameras “and has, in fact, approved hundreds of wayleaves to date”.

In his founding affidavit, Ricky Croock, Vumacam chief executive officer, said that since March 2020, no wayleaves at all have been granted to Vumacam. He stated that at first, Vumacam had little difficulty in obtaining wayleaves from the JRA and they would generally be granted within 48 hours of application.

“These wayleaves applications were made, and granted, in accordance with the requirements set out in the bylaws … from approximately April 2019, Vumacam started experiencing difficulties in obtaining the relevant wayleaves, despite the fact that it continued to make applications in compliance with the requirements in bylaws,” he said in the affidavit.

He said the applications were made in compliance with the requirements set out by the bylaws and submitted between August 2019 and March 2020.

“The JRA, however, has still not accepted and issued the required wayleaves. The result is that Vumacam is unable to complete the installation of its CCTV network in the affected areas,” Croock said.

He deposed that Vumacam did not complain about the delay at first, on presumption that it was caused by the Covid-19 lockdown. It was only on 9 June when JRA sent a letter stating the “aerial and CCTV wayleave applications are suspended until further notice” to Vumacam.

In his replying affidavit, JRA acting CEO, Victor Rambau, has detailed its reasons for suspending the CCTV wayleave applications, including that the system Vumacam intends to roll out was in violation of the right to privacy of private individuals and that they have no authority to approve such a system.

“The court will appreciate that this application is not just about wayleaves,” said Rambau. “Vumacam wants to install surveillance cameras to monitor movements of innocent people and sell the relevant footage to third parties,” he states.

Rambau said even if the court were to grant the application, it would be of no use as the JRA had not legislative authority to grant authorisation or policy for a system intended to “spy” on private citizens without their knowledge. But he failed to address the question about how the wayleaves were approved.

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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