For a year, employees were being filmed when they went into the break rooms in the new Röling building (Faculty of Law). Now, the cameras have been covered with a red sticker.
The cameras have been there for over a year. When the building was completed in the summer of 2023, the faculty board was asked if they wanted cameras in and around the building, in line with university-wide policy.
The board agreed to this. ‘Mainly to ensure the safety of our employees’, says dean Wilbert Kolkman. ‘Cameras seemed like a no-brainer to us because we are a faculty in the busy city centre.’
Entrance
Kolkman was primarily thinking of cameras on the exterior of the building and at the entrances. He wasn’t aware that cameras were also installed in the lounge areas on the higher floors, where employees get their coffee.
‘We didn’t inspect all the rooms in the building during the handover’, he says. ‘So we didn’t notice that they were there.’ Moreover, the cameras look a lot like smoke detectors.
This changed just before the summer vacation. Some employees started to wonder what was hanging from the ceiling. ‘That’s what set the investigation off’, says faculty privacy and security coordinator Guido Visman.
Recording
It turned out the cameras were on and recording not only video but also audio. Visman had the cameras turned off. Three weeks ago, he also covered the cameras with a red sticker.
‘But that’s just putting a band-aid on it’, says Visman. ‘The issue is what’s happening behind the scenes. I find it concerning that the presence of the cameras wasn’t communicated to the employees.’
Under review
In the coming months, camera usage at the UG will undergo a data privacy impact assessment (DPIA). The cameras in the Röling building will also be included in this review, Visman says. ‘And it’s very likely that the use of these cameras will not pass the test.’
Kolkman also thinks the cameras in the lounge areas are excessive. ‘If I were asked now if we want cameras in the faculty, I would definitely ask where they are going to be installed. The building’s exterior seems sufficient to me.’