By Camillie Bains / The Canadian Press

Vancouver - Students' privacy is being increasingly threatened as more schools use video surveillance cameras, says a spokesman for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

"I'm afraid we're moving in the direction of kids used to being watched all the time and I don't agree with that," says Kirk Tousaw, the organization's policy director.

Such spy technology should be installed only as a last resort to curb vandalism, for example, and then only for a limited time with signage indicating a camera is present, Tousaw says.

"What we do have a lot of concern about is particularly the constant unending monitoring of student behaviour on the inside of the school, school buses and the exterior of school property," he says.

Some school districts in British Columbia have drafted policies on the use of video surveillance after the B.C. School Trustees Association issued a paper highlighting the impact of such policies.

They must be presented to the larger community, including parents, teachers and unions.

But just like in the rest of Canada, most B.C. school boards don't have a policy on the issue, meaning they use a hodgepodge of guidelines to decide whether to use video surveillance.

Last week, West Vancouver school trustees approved a policy to install the technology both outside and inside schools, even though one of the district's three high schools has had a camera on the property for years.

District superintendent Geoff Jopson says the board agreed with teachers that the decision to use cameras should include trustees, not just the superintendent and a school principal.

He cited the high cost of vandalism as a primary reason to use video surveillance.

"As would be the case at many schools across the country, there's occasional damage and particularly tagging - the spray-painting of the building - that's expensive to repair," Jopson says.

Video cameras can't stop student misconduct, Tousaw says.

"It's morally relevant for a young adult to decide not to engage in inappropriate behaviour because they think it's wrong, not because they think they'll get caught."

A 1998 Supreme Court of Canada decision involving the search of a Nova Scotia student's locker where marijuana was found established that there are diminished privacy rights in schools, meriting the increased use of video cameras.

B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis agrees with Tousaw that video surveillance should be used to address specific, documented incidents of continued vandalism.

"But I'm not at all supportive of a default use of video surveillance just because it's administratively easier."

Ken Morris, secretary-treasurer of the Richmond School District, says trustees began drafting a policy two weeks ago although video cameras have been used for years at several area schools.

In one case, a camera was installed outside a washroom that was repeatedly being set on fire, Morris says. The student culprit was caught on tape leaving the washroom where the camera also captured "leaping flames" as evidence, he said.

A camera was also installed at a school after the principal's office windows were broken 15 times, Morris says.