Concerns Mount Over Surveillance Expansion at Swarthmore

Swarthmore’s installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras has raised concerns among students and faculty over the expansion of campus surveillance. While the college’s administration cites safety and security as the primary reasons for implementing surveillance, some students and professors argue that increased monitoring raises questions about privacy, student activism, and the broader implications of campus security measures.

On Dec. 9, 2023, Kya Butterfield ’25 and Ayla Cimen ’25 decided to take a walk through the Crum Woods. Cimen recalled hearing a rumor from a Resident Assistant (RA) about a new camera installed in the Crum, “Word had quickly spread about how [the camera] was meant to be used in an Afghan war zone, and it was over $20,000,” she said. Cimen was flabbergasted when she first saw the camera, which she says was not securely fixed in place. “It was just sitting in the ground,” she described.

She explained how she and Butterfield mocked the camera, saying that they were both “morally opposed” to its installation in the woods. Cimen pointed out that Crumhenge was one of the last student gathering places left on campus that didn’t have surveillance.

Both Butterfield and Cimen described how easy the camera would be to tamper with, emphasizing its lack of footing. “He was mocking how easy it would be to damage it but was not intending to damage it,” Cimen said. “And that’s when the wiggle happened.”

Over a week later, both students received an email from Public Safety stating they had been seen climbing trees in the Crumb. The email asked the students if they had also climbed on the camera, to which Butterfield admitted to “wiggling” with the camera, to which he was charged with violating the college’s vandalism and damage charge in the Student Code of Conduct. “What he meant by damage is that, as a result of me shaking the camera, it goes from being pointed in one particular direction to maybe turning fifteen degrees to the side.”

Butterfield stated that he was initially charged around $4,800, which included the re-installation of the pole and the mounting equipment.  However, he said the charge was later reduced to $2,400 “out of good faith” by Public Safety.

After being found guilty of vandalism, Butterfield appealed the case, arguing that the camera was not just repaired; instead, the opportunity was taken to significantly upgrade the camera system, including adding a concrete foundation that the original installation lacked. He pointed out that the bill was more than the total amount for his tuition, housing, and food. Ultimately, Butterfield won a partial appeal and the bill was subsequently reduced to $900. 

According to Interim Director of Public Safety Colin Quinn, the camera in Crumhenge was installed in response to an increase in incidents of vandalism around the area, carried out primarily by juveniles unaffiliated with the college.

Swarthmore History Professor Timothy Burke, who is currently teaching a course titled “Surveillance, Privacy & Transparency,” has witnessed the evolution of campus surveillance over his 30 years of teaching. Burke said that while mechanisms to track student behavior, such as Public Safety patrols and RAs, have always existed, campus surveillance has become increasingly pervasive over time.

Burke guessed that the first camera was installed between 15 and 20 years ago, and noted that there was a significant increase in camera installations around 2016. Burke also mentioned the expansion of other surveillance capacities, such as the OneCard swipe, used in tandem with CCTV footage to identify students.

During Butterfield and Cimen’s hearing, both students described being shown footage from the day — an estimated six hours of footage captured from CCTV cameras around campus before Cimen and he entered the woods.

In email communication with The Phoenix, Associate Director of Public Safety John Bera explained that the college has utilized CCTV cameras for over a decade as “passive tools to enhance the safety and security of the entire campus.” Bera noted that the cameras are not monitored in real-time; instead, they serve as a deterrent to crime and are used as a resource when safety incidents, misconduct, or potential crimes occur on campus. 

Bera further stated that the number of cameras in use on campus is regularly assessed, and additional cameras are installed based on “various factors.” He mentioned new buildings being opened on campus and existing areas with little to no coverage as among the reasons for adding cameras. 

When asked about the last time cameras were installed on campus and their reasoning, Quinn said that cameras are typically added “every year or so” based on regular assessments, typically around five to eight each academic year. He would not disclose specific camera locations or the exact number in use on campus, claiming there were security concerns in doing so. 

When comparing the intentions behind early surveillance mechanisms to those today, Burke explained that the mechanisms themselves change the intentions of surveillance: “A fair amount of surveillance practices begin with the capacity to surveil, and in building that capacity, the center of authority and responsibility comes to know things that it didn’t previously know, and to some extent, often gets swamped by the density and quantity of knowledge or information that it is now pulling in via these new capacities.”

Burke situated the growing surveillance within a larger national trend. The problem, Burke says, is that “once you commit to ubiquitous surveillance, then everything you’re not surveilling becomes a source of enormous anxiety.” 

Burke believes that CCTV footage has played a critical role in the misconduct charges against student protestors. Jonah Sah ’27, who faced a disciplinary charge that was supported by CCTV footage, voiced concern about the impact of surveillance technology on student activism. “There’s just always a chilling effect with surveillance,” Sah said. “Students are constantly worried, especially now that certain types of protests can lead to the threat of deportation for international students or the loss of financial aid for FLI students.”

Zack Kreines ’25 shared his experience at the recent Parrish sit-in, where he was there as a photographer. After repeatedly being told to stop taking photos of the protest and not identifying himself, Kreines says he overheard campus personnel tell a Public Safety officer to threaten to follow him back to his room. 

“I left and I didn’t go back to my room,” Kreines said. 

He recalled hearing about other instances of masked protestors being followed back to their rooms using CCTV footage, which was later cross-referenced with OneCard swipes to identify students. Kreines mentioned that he hadn’t noticed surveillance on campus until the last couple of years. “It seems pretty clear to me that it has to have something to do with increased protests about Palestine on campus,” he said.

Kreines expressed concerns about the lack of transparency in Public Safety’s surveillance practices compared to other Tri-Co campuses. For example, in Haverford’s equivalent of Swarthmore’s Annual Fire Safety and Security Report, Haverford provides information about the number of CCTV cameras in use on its campus. In its 2024 report, Haverford reported 85 cameras on campus, an increase from 45 in 2022. 

Burke discussed the issue of surveillance in the context of the pandemic and building access control. “I don’t know of any place where there has been a conscious conversation of building from that [pandemic surveillance].” However, he believes that if any institutions were to build back down, it would be small colleges “where the whole value proposition is face-to-face, residential, intimate, connection.”

“We’re a small town, so people are looking at each other over the back fences anyways … We can use that intimacy of scale to construct human forms of keeping an eye on each other,” Burke said.