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Liberty believes the Project Champion CCTV scheme in Birmingham is not only wrong, but unlawful in its implementation

Alarmbells asks:

"At a public meeting in Birmingham [this week] West Midlands police apologised to angry residents after hundreds of surveillance cameras were installed in residential areas of the city. Shami Chakrabarti, who spoke at the meeting, said the scheme was not only wrong but 'unlawful'. Why are these cameras unlawful?"

Just occasionally, when the authorities get things wrong, someone is brave enough to say sorry. Assistant chief constable Sharon Rowe did that on Sunday. She had quite a lot to apologise foron behalf of West Midlands Police.

Earlier this year, residents of Sparkbrook and two surrounding neighbourhoods in Birmingham noticed a large number of metal posts being erected on the pavements of their streets. When cameras were later attached some people started to ask questions. It materialised that they were part of a scheme devised by West Midlands police over two years earlier involving the installation of 169 automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras, 49 CCTV cameras and 72 "covert" cameras in two predominately Muslim areas in Birmingham, one of which was Sparkbrook.

Guardian then revealed in early June that the scheme, known as "Project Champion", had been funded entirely by the terrorism and allied matters (TAM) division of the Association of Chief Police Officers. This was news to the local councillors who had been told that the primary purpose was the reduction of general crime and disorder.

Unsurprisingly, there was massive resistance to the scheme. Why didn't it occur to the authorities that a surveillance project which so obviously targeted the Muslim communityon a blanket basis can be counterproductive in efforts to combat extremism? It 's the same approach that we have seen with the prevention scheme , which has been reported to involve the personal details of innocent Muslims being routinely shared with law enforcement agencies. Such a large-scale CCTV and ANPR project was bound to face criticism for furthering the surveillance society since the cameras formed a "ring of steel" around the affected areas so that every vehicle movement in or out would be tracked.

Liberty notified West Midlands police last week of our intention to seek judicial review of the decision to proceed with the scheme. We argued that it was unlawful for several reasons. First, under the Human Rights Act public authorities (including the police) are required to act compatibly with articles 8 (privacy) and 14 (non-discrimination) of the human rights convention.

The courts have said in the past that the normal use of security cameras in public places where they serve a legitimate and foreseeable purpose does not raise issues under article 8. But there were factors which distinguished Project Champion from such normal use: the scheme included hidden cameras, which are necessarily more intrusive than ordinary CCTV and ANPR because you don't know if you are being filmed.

If the scheme was meant to be a counterterrorism measure it was bound to involve some kind of storage and processing of the information gathered. We already know that ANPR records in particular are kept on a searchable database for up to two years. The sheer number and location of the cameras, many in residential streets, make it impossible for residents to drive into or out of their own communities without being tracked by the authorities.

, which has legal safeguards built in.

Second, section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976

Third, the authorities failed to consult any of the residents prior to the implementation of the scheme. Obligations to consult can arise where there is a legitimate expectation of consultation. We argue that there was such an expectation here for a number of reasons, including the fact that promises of community involvement were made, and the authorities purported to consult some local councillors. The limited consultation was flawed, not least because it did not disclose the fact that the primary purpose of the project was counterterrorism.

At the meeting on Sunday, West Midlands police announced that, in response to the concerns of the community, all of the 72 covert cameras would be removed and full consultation will now take place on the overt cameras (which will be covered up with bags in the meantime). This is welcome news, but retrospective consultation on a discriminatory scheme doesn't go far enough. Because Project Champion is not only unlawful but wrong, it is hoped that the authorities will have the courage to go further and scrap it altogether.

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