In every early years setting, the safety of the children is paramount, and therefore the use of CCTV is commonplace. Many businesses, however, may not realise that the use of CCTV is very tightly regulated and covered by legislation including the UK GDPR. Nurseries have a number of legal obligations to children, their parents, and staff.
The law states that the use of CCTV has to be fair or proportionate, meaning that there must be a sign to notify people, and it cannot be used to monitor places that the public would reasonably expect to be private, such as changing rooms. A business is also obliged to tell its staff about their visibility on CCTV, and if it intends to use it to monitor conduct, as well as for security purposes. Employees have the right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office if they feel their employer's use of CCTV is unfair, or has not been clearly explained.
CCTV footage of individuals amounts to personal data for the purposes of data protection legislation, therefore the rights of the individual under the UK GDPR extend to CCTV footage. The most commonly exercised data right is the right of access, which allows individuals to request that a business provides copies of all personal data relating to them (a data subject access request), including CCTV. Businesses therefore must ensure that their CCTV system is one that enables them to easily retrieve and edit footage. As with any data subject access request, there are exemptions. A business must not, for example, release copies of footage to an individual if the footage in question also amounts to the personal data of a third party whose rights would be infringed if the footage was released without their consent.
Each business must keep a written record setting out the justification for using CCTV, and details of efforts made to minimise the impact on privacy. The Information Commissioner's Office will require sight of this document in the event of a complaint.
