It is the Government's intention to require all owners of hotels, restaurants and other businesses open to the public, including offices, schools and shopping centres, to install closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras and to register them with the relevant authorities. Under this provision, the Government would then have the ability to access the recorded images.
This is the proposal that the Ministry of Interior and National Security has brought to parliament and that will have to be approved before it becomes enforceable. The motivation is to increase crime prevention and control systems in the country and improve public safety.
In the proposal, the Ministry also calls for similar cameras to be mounted in public areas of the country. Only police stations, government offices and military camps will be exempted.
If the new provision is passed, owners will be required to ensure that the cameras operate 24/7 and report any problems or malfunctions immediately as soon as they occur.
They will also be required to report any suspicious security events or movements captured by the CCTV images and in any case to forward the full footage recorded by their CCTV cameras to the relevant authorities every three months.
The government will obviously have to guarantee privacy by providing that access to the system and viewing of the recorded footage will only be available to authorised persons.
Failure to comply with the new rules could lead to fines, closure of activities or even imprisonment if omissions or failures prove to be decisive evidence in court cases.