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Eric Wynne / Herald Photo A security camera is mounted outside the King Edward Inn on Agricola Street in Halifax. URBAN EYES An incomplete list of CCTV cameras in Halifax: Scotia Square Building - looking over Duke Street patio area; looking over Duke Street sidewalk. Maritime Centre - looking over Barrington Street sidewalk. Spring Garden Road law courts - northeast corner looking over stairs. Dugger's Men's Wear - pointed west overlooking sidewalk. Mills Brothers - corner of Spring Garden and Birmingham Street pointed east. Halifax Regional Library - above and to left of main entrance; above south side entrance. CBC Radio Building - southwest corner overlooking South Park Street sidewalk; northeast corner overlooking Sackville Street sidewalk. Queen Elizabeth High School - overlooking Bell Road entrance. Art Gallery of Nova Scotia - Hollis Street looking north over sidewalk. Carmichael Street - looking east over Grand Parade.Grafton Street - in doorway of Cheers; right of doorway looking north; in doorway of Grafton Street Dinner Theatre; at either end of Charles Schwab building pointed straight down over sidewalk. Avis parking lot, two pointing east and west. Argyle Street - above parking lot next to Charles Schwab building; bubble cams facing street over both entrances to Charles Schwab building; two under Lawrence of Oregano awning, facing north and south; bubble cam in fire exit; above My Apartment entrance looking north over sidewalk; above Five Fishermen entrance facing south over sidewalk. Live Webcams Saint Mary's University - Loyola Residence, overlooking Huskies Stadium. Burke-Gaffney Observatory - two cams, one looking west-northwest toward the Northwest Arm and one looking east-southeast toward Halifax Harbour. Dalhousie University - Fenwick Place looking east-southeast toward Halifax Harbour; computer science building looking over intersection of University Avenue and Henry Street. CBC Halifax Harbour cam - shows Halifax waterfront from Dartmouth.

By John Gillis

Think you oughta be in pictures? If you venture into downtown Halifax, you probably already are.

Take a stroll around the block bordered by Carmichael, Grafton, Prince and Argyle streets and you could appear on 17 private security cameras. While the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras aren't hidden, they are easy to miss.

Some people believe if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from the cameras. Others argue that when you can't move freely without being captured on tape, your privacy is lost.

But most just don't think about it one way or the other.

"It seems that there's sort of a quiet acceptance . . . of the placement of video cameras, privately monitored video cameras, around the city," said John van Gurp, one Haligonian who has taken an interest in the subject.

He has dedicated part of his personal Web site (http://jvangurp.com/halifaxcams) to tracking surveillance cameras whose eyes stray onto public spaces.

He doesn't think of himself as an activist but he'd like to see his fellow citizens give the issue some thought.

"There's nothing inherently bad about it," he said. "It's not going to hurt you. But I think we've got a right to privacy."

Mr. van Gurp predicts a boom in private companies' use of CCTV.

"The technology is so cheap and it's so good, why wouldn't any business do it? And it's not regulated," he said, standing under the watchful eye of a camera at the Five Fishermen restaurant on Argyle Street.

Somewhere above street level, Peter MacPherson can watch any of the live feeds on two banks of 16 monitors each in his office.

But he rarely does.

"I wouldn't have much of a life sitting in front of these things watching them all day long. It's not that interesting," said the operations manager for Grafton Connor Group, the company that runs the complex housing the restaurant and several bars.

Mr. MacPherson said the digital video is archived for up to six weeks, but the only time anyone looks at it is if there's been some kind of incident.

He said the video is used "less than once a month," usually to back up staff if someone claims bouncers roughed them up or if liquor inspectors find an underage person inside.

He said he'd like to upgrade his cameras from the one frame per second they shoot now, but he has no plans to add more.

Jeff Weickert, who has worked in the CCTV industry for four years, said most cameras in Halifax are motion-activated and use infrared filters and emitters to see in the dark.

The newest cameras on the market are higher resolution and more flexible.

"There are pan/tilt/zoom cameras which could really make you go 'Wow' when you see how far you can zoom in on something," Mr. Weickert said.

But he's confident neither business owners nor government are spying on you.

"A lot of people's perceptions about security systems are based on science fiction novels, the Orwellian thing: 'Oh, Big Brother's watching me' sort of stuff," said Mr. Weickert, who works for Pacesetter Technologies. "In my experience, that's just not the way it is."

But the cameras do what they're meant to do, spotting thieves, thwarting fraud and scaring off vandals.

"We're in business because people are what people are," Mr. Weickert said. "If everybody was a saint, we wouldn't need these things."

Mr. van Gurp recognizes businesses' right to protect their property and their customers, but he worries about police possibly using video surveillance to keep tabs on the public.

"It may be a leap from privately owned CCTV to state-owned CCTV, but there's definitely a link there," he said. "And if the public gives tacit approval to privately owned cameras monitoring public space, I can see that it would make it a little more palatable to have police-monitored cameras in public space."

That's soon to be the case in Antigonish, where town council just voted to install surveillance cameras downtown that RCMP officers will monitor.

Halifax Regional Police spokesman Sgt. Don Spicer said there's nothing similar in Halifax and it's not something police are seeking.

But he does think monitored cameras would be useful.

"Oh, absolutely," he said. "Policing is all about eyes and ears on the street. That's the whole idea of community policing.

"We count on people looking after their neighbours and so on. Something like this is just an extension of that."

Sgt. Spicer said that given the extent of private CCTV, live webcams and even television news cameras on the street, police-monitored cameras wouldn't be any more intrusive.

"The expectation of privacy, I don't know if it can be there in terms of being in the public," he said.

Instead of shunning extra lenses, Mr. Weickert thinks people would invite them.

With the price of technology dropping, he predicts average homeowners will soon be installing cameras to check on their houses from work or vacation.

"Our industry is driven by consumer demand," he said. "People want this stuff."