Limited internal security cameras on KPU campuses cause concern

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The Runner staff recently looked into Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s campus security camera systems following the disappearance of Vol. 16 Issue 13 from newsstands in March.  

While there are outside cameras on campus near entrances, campus security told The Runner they are not all connected to networking, as a project to upgrade external CCTV footage and address blind spots on campus continues into its second year. 

KPU Director Risk and Security Andy Sidhu could not confirm when all external cameras will be working, but hopes it will be a matter of weeks until they are live. 

The external camera upgrade is part of a larger security upgrade program using funds received from the provincial Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, Sidhu says, which is going towards upgrading the external CCTV cameras, improving lighting at Surrey and Langley campuses, upgrading the campus alarm system, and adding key card readers to doors.

Internal cameras are limited to student services desks at Surrey, Langley, and Richmond campuses to comply with credit card transaction requirements, but are not found anywhere else. 

Adding internal cameras is a welcomed security measure, Sidhu says, but a matter of funding. 

“It’s something that if we have the funds for, we’ll definitely try to pursue, but there’s nothing concrete or firm plans right now to do that. It is very much funding dependent. I’d love to see it, to be honest,” says Sidhu. 

“We internally have had that discussion of wanting to have these cameras on the interiors to help us address a multitude of different incidents or concerns that could happen.”

While KPU waits to have funding made available for internal cameras, students say they would feel better with cameras on campus to aid with incidents including theft and harassment. 

One student worries that for women, if they are harassed or feel uncomfortable, their concerns would be hearsay without cameras to show what happened. 

“[It’s] safety for girls because sometimes there are some boys and they’re looking and saying something, just staring,” says Prabhleen Gill, a KPU business management student. 

“If we go and say something, they will be like, ‘No, we didn’t do this.’ So if there are cameras, they can prove they did it.” 

Other students raised concerns about people from outside KPU coming into campus buildings, making students feel disrespected and uncomfortable. They say cameras inside campus buildings would deter some of these people from coming on campus. 

“Outsiders, they sit at Tim [Hortons] … where students get their break from classes, and when [they] come over here, they bother students who are new, and mainly the girls get disrespected from them,” says Vishavjeet Brar, a student at KPU’s Surrey campus. 

“Activities like threatening other students happens at Tim [Hortons] inside of the buildings where there are no cameras.” 

Because of this, one student says she avoids coming to campus. 

“I don’t spend much time here in the university because of the outsiders, … I don’t usually stay in the university,” says Saisha Atthi, a student at KPU’s Surrey campus. “It’s not unsafe I would say, but I’m uncomfortable.” 

Sidhu recognizes that while this is something that happens, KPU is a public institution and the camera technology needed to capture audio and video for these types of encounters would be too great an expense.

“At the end of the day, the university is an open facility. We do welcome the public to use our spaces in a respectful manner,” says Sidhu. 

“So we’re not [going] to ask people to leave just because they don’t necessarily attend a class at KPU. It’s a fine line, … but we also have the right to ask anybody to leave at any particular time.” 

Students are advised to download the KPU Safe app, take the security training courses available on Moodle, and contact a security guard if they ever feel unsafe on campus.