Administrators won't remove camera pointed at school bathrooms

Education officials in Cape Breton are refusing to remove a video camera pointed at the entrance of two student bathrooms, despite objections from Nova Scotia's privacy commissioner.

The camera was one of several at the Rankin School of the Narrows in Iona that was streaming live images to the internet last year because no one set the password on the surveillance system.

"Based on the evidence we have, it is not an authorized collection of personal information, so it isn't in compliance with the law," said Catherine Tully, Nova Scotia's information and privacy commissioner.

Insecam.org, a Russian-registered website, accessed the unsecured webcam and broadcast a live stream of the boys' bathroom entrance until CBC News alerted school officials in May 2017.

The Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education declined an interview Wednesday and would not comment specifically on the bathroom camera. However, a spokesperson said in an email that staff have since secured all surveillance cameras behind firewalls.

Michelle MacLeod also said the education centre has strengthened passwords, developed new privacy policies and boosted staff training on the issue.

But Tully said the need for a camera pointed at the bathroom entrances has not been established.

"Taking video of children going in and out of a bathroom seems to me more sensitive than a lot of other places you could put a camera," Tully said.

After Tully recommended removing the bathroom camera in October 2017, school officials adjusted the camera so that it also points at the entrance to the girls' bathroom.

"That just made it worse," said Tully. "That's the bottom line. It was a problem on the boys' and now it's twice the problem."

Recommendations made by the province's information and privacy commissioner are not binding unlike in some other provinces, including Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island.

"My strong recommendation to the government is that it's time to modernize the law, and that it's time to give this review power some teeth behind it so that it's effective."

Tully said if she had enforcement powers under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the school bathroom camera wouldn't last.

"It would come down," she said.