Werribee Secondary College has decided to install a closed-circuit television (CCTV) system at our school.

This Privacy Notice outlines how the CCTV system will be used, including the use and disclosure of any footage produced by the CCTV system so as to be consistent with Victorian privacy law.

Need for CCTV

Our school has an obligation to ensure the school environment is safe and secure, and fulfil our duty of care to students, staff and visitors.  The CCTV system assists our school to fulfil these obligations and to prevent and manage other inappropriate behaviour on school grounds. CCTV also provides enhanced capability to protect our school’s assets against vandalism and theft.

Use of CCTV

Consistent with our school’s obligations set out above, our school may use CCTV cameras to:

• prevent, support and verify incidents involving
  • criminal behaviour – of anyone on school grounds
  • staff misconduct
  • other inappropriate behaviour – including of students, staff, visitors or members of the public. For example, this means the school may use CCTV footage of incidents to help inform decisions about student management
• verify and investigate other incidents involving students, staff and visitors (for example incidents in which a person has sustained injury, loss or damage on school premises)
• to provide the Department with visual coverage during emergencies.

In limited circumstances live CCTV footage may also be viewed by our school or Department staff. For more information please refer to the Department’s policy: CCTV in Schools – Installation and Management (CCTV Policy).

CCTV cameras are NOT

• located in private areas such as toilets, changing rooms, dressing rooms, showers, or other areas where individual privacy is paramount
• used to monitor student or staff work performance
• hidden or covert, except in limited circumstances and in accordance with the Department’s CCTV policy.

Location of CCTV cameras in our school

In our school, CCTV cameras are located in:

• school entrances
• corridors
• external travel/walkways
• locker areas
• computer labs
• machinery rooms
• classrooms
• secure storage rooms
• ovals/ sporting facilities
• playgrounds
• courtyards

A notice is located at the school’s entrances, which alerts people to the presence of cameras and this CCTV Privacy Notice.

Access to CCTV footage

CCTV footage is only accessed for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice and the Department’s CCTV Policy and only by the following people:

Request to view footage

When using CCTV for the purposes listed under the heading ‘Use of CCTV’ the principal may show specific footage of an incident to those directly involved, including relevant staff, students and/or their parents, provided:

• the principal considers it appropriate and necessary in order to support parents to understand the specifics of an incident that has taken place so they can provide appropriate support to their child or for a staff member to better understand an incident
• it would not cause a health, wellbeing or safety risk to any other person
• it would not be an unreasonable intrusion into another person’s privacy.

Please note, our school cannot provide copies of CCTV footage to staff, students or parents The Department must be contacted where these requests are made. Please refer to the Department’s CCTV Policy.

Storage of footage

CCTV footage is stored locally on the school’s server. CCTV footage for Vaping Sensor is store on cloud storage.

CCTV footage is kept for no more than 42 days. If our school has not used CCTV footage in any of the ways set out above, and there has been no request to view or access footage during this period, the footage is deleted.

Where CCTV footage has been used to verify an incident or where it is required to be retained for legal reasons, our school will manage and securely retain the footage in accordance with the retention requirements set out in the Department’s Records Management Policy.

What if you have questions?

For more information of how our school may use the CCTV system and who may access the footage, please see the Department’s CCTV Policy.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the use of the CCTV system in our school, please contact the school to discuss: Scott Tanner, Operations Manager, 03 9741 1822