The Metropolitan Transit Authority will install surveillance cameras throughout an as-yet unidentified subway train later this year, reports the NY Times. The Authority hopes the cameras will deter crime, and may also help it avoid some lawsuits from those who claim they were injured on the subway.
It’s just a test, and the MTA does not actually have the money to fund such a security program.
No one will be watching real-time monitors showing what the cameras see; the footage can be reviewed if the MTA thinks there’s a reason to, such as a crime that’s been committed.
Before you get up in arms about being watched underground, the Times says, there are thousands of cameras already operating in the subway stations.
Currently, about 2,500 cameras are installed throughout the subway system, including passenger identification cameras, which snap photographs of riders as they pass in and out of turnstiles at more than 100 stations. But there are no cameras on the trains.
Still, this will not be the first time that the agency has experimented with filming the interiors of trains. In the 1990s, cameras were installed on the so-called Redbird trains, the old-fashioned, maroon-tinted subway cars (and perennial victims of graffiti artists) that were retired in 2003.
The NY Post, which broke the story yesterday, says the cameras will be installed on a “letter line” of the subwy system, such as the F. Every inch of the train will be viewed by the cams.