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Here today, gone tomorrow, those cameras.

Here today, gone tomorrow, those cameras.

Surveillance cameras come and go in Lobby 10, with some frequency, it would seem.

In recent years, a pair of cameras has been installed to provide security for the Martin Luther King exhibit that goes up in Lobby 10 in February — but that didn’t happen this year. This year, however, the cameras were installed in April for the MIT150 Open House.

In a change from the usual policies for cameras installed by the Security and Emergency Management Office, the Lobby 10 cameras were to be used “to monitor crowd levels during the Open House and will be removed after Commencement,” Thomas W. Komola, a manager at SEMO, told The Tech in May.

Historically, recorded camera footage was only to be used for criminal investigations, and with the written approval of John DiFava, Chief of Police and Director of Facilities Operations.

Komola said in e-mail yesterday that removing the cameras from Lobby 10 was on SEMO’s to-do list, but not a priority. “We will get to it,” he said.

John A. Hawkinson