Hamilton council votes for removal of security cameras from fortification by-law

The City of Hamilton will no longer police residents’ home surveillance systems.

City council voted recently to remove the use of security cameras from its “fortification by-law”, saying it likely wouldn’t hold up in court against a Charter challenge.

Some Hamiltonians are rejoicing at the news, while others are pushing for the city to create new rules.

“The intent of the fortification bylaw was never to be a camera bylaw,” said a City of Hamilton staff member.

Following a recent vote at city hall, home security cameras will no longer be governed by the so-called “fortification” by-law.

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City staff had deemed the rules “legally vulnerable” to charter challenges and say they didn’t fit with the intent of the by-law, which was to prevent residents from having excessive security measures at their homes that could impact emergency responders.

“This by-law has been acting as a holding basket. People are able to complain, cite violations of the by-law — they go into this little holding basket and staff review them at extreme (amounts of) time for staff and resources for staff, and in 100 per cent of situations, they can’t enforce,” said Hamilton Ward 2 City Counc. Cameron Kroetsch.

No matter the reason, downtown Hamilton resident Dan Myles is glad to see the camera rules go.

The city had ordered Myles to remove the 10 surveillance cameras from his home under the by-law last August.

Now, with the provisions gone, he says he’s looking to start a class-action lawsuit.

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“Basically it would entail everyone who has been persecuted by the City of Hamilton — fined, forced to move cameras. et cetera, et cetera — based on a law that was unconstitutional and illegal from the beginning,” said Myles.

Myles is well-known in the city for posting his security camera footage online and aiding police with criminal investigations captured in the footage.

He’s also faced controversy in the past year, he’s been called out for using a homophobic slur against the local councillor online, and the Hamilton Spectator reported that a man with the same name as Myles was previously convicted of criminal harassment.

Myles denies that allegation.

“I’m saying that I’m not that person, and I have no idea how this person is connected to me,” said Myles. “There’s not one single documentation that says this.”

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The city actually says that the by-law was never intended to regulate the use of home security devices, like Ring-doorbells,

Though the city says with how commonplace they’ve become, they received more and more complaints about them in recent years.

In a report to council, city staff say they received 11 camera-related complaints in 2012, compared to 171 in 2023.

The removal of cameras from the fortification by-law still leaves the door open for councillors to create new regulars for home surveillance systems, something the Hamilton Privacy Alliance is pushing for.

“So we don’t want to cover the Ring doorbells, we want to cover these more high-tech cameras that create surveillance within an entire neighbourhood,” said Vic Passalent, a coordinator with Hamilton Privacy Alliance. “Surveillance cameras with sophisticated features like thermal imaging, facial recognition.”

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