What is the recommendation regarding use of fake or dummy cameras ?

CCTV cameras are deterrents to criminals & vandals. They also provide a sense of security to the property tenants and guests. However,

(1) the moment a fake camera is deployed, the tenant's sense of security/safety stands misplaced. In case he meets with an undesirable incident in view of what he thinks is a CCTV camera, he cannot fallback on the recorded footage to help identify the perpetuator. This may lead to legal implications also. 

(2) most fake cameras stand out from the rest. A smart vandal can spot the differences immediately (always on LED light, no IR LEDs like others, non-standard housing, different color/construction/branding , no branding, no-wiring, etc.) and identify that the camera is a dummy. This eliminates the deterrent value also. However these may be able to defeat the unsophisticated/casual criminal/vandal.

(3) most fake cameras are battery powered. Any sizeable quantity of deployment would require changing the batteries periodically, creating a maintenance nightmare. 

So for all practical purposes any permanent deployment of fake cameras looks counter productive. Its much simpler maybe to deploy an inexpensive low resolution IP camera rather than a fake/dummy one.  And this is what our opinion is. We haven't deployed any till date.

We are, still considering, if we can have some use cases if we can get models which look real to artificially jack up camera density, use them temporarily as deterrents for less functional purpose such as:

(a) Act as deterrent for some non-critical intermittent *isolated bad behavior incidents (such as monitor temporary areas  for garbage/waste disposal ). We know think a battery powered temporary mobile camera is more suitable for such applications.

(b) Put a dummy camera to cover a real one if we think the latter is more prone to vandal resistance and nothing can be done otherwise. Dedicating a camera just to protect another (and redundancy) does not look to be financially prudent. 

(c) Even jack up camera density to cover some non-critical blind spot, though its against principle (1). 

But we have not implemented anything, mainly because their seems to be no pressing need for it.

- Suman Kumar Luthra @ APRC-P3 Telecom Sub-Committee