Malaysian Indians Progressive Association (Mipas) strongly condemns the installation of 64 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in the toilets of SMK Seri Sentosa recently.

It was ridiculous to place CCTVs in toilets just because the school wanted to deal with many cases of vandalism, students cutting class, gang fights, cheating during exams, lepak (loitering) cases and many more.

Mipas finds that no matter what the reason, it is fundamentally wrong to install CCTVs in toilets or bathrooms, which are meant to be private places and therefore students' rights to privacy are being infringed.

Mipas also queries how the Education Minister and department were not aware about this matter and had given the school the green light to install the cameras inside the toilets.

Some document of the school’s plan must have been submitted to the Education Ministry and it’s department, before the school was granted approval to install the CCTVs.

Mipas suggests that the school installs the CCTVs at the entrances to the toilets, so that it could monitor who goes in and out.

SMK Seri Sentosa is the first to install CCTVs in toilets. Internationally we don’t see any other schools which have done that before.

It could be that in the future, many schools around the world would follow in SMK Seri Sentosa’s footsteps. This is no laughing matter. It is really serious and must take it into consideration all aspects before being implemented.

S BARATHIDASAN is Malaysian Indians Progressive Association (Mipas) secretary-general.