Getting personal: on the beat with body worn cameras Tim Compston of SecurityNewsDesk discovers that body worn video cameras are increasingly in the frame to help protect police officers, workers and the wider community. As Body Worn Video (BWV) camera solutions expand their reach amongst police forces, and filter down to private security guards and customer-facing employees, we look at the state of play of this technology and the impact it is having for users. From a police perspective, body worn video is certainly coming to the fore across the Atlantic in a US drive for greater ‘transparency’ following a series of cases of fatal incidents involving police officers and subsequent nation-wide protests. In the wake of this, back in May, the Department of Justice announced a $20 million pilot programme to expand the deployment of body worn cameras. Speaking at the time the Attorney General explained the thinking behind the scheme: “Body worn cameras hold tremendous promise for enhancing transparency, promoting accountability, and advancing public safety for law enforcement issues and the communities they serve.” Significantly, the utility of body worn video is backed-up by a number of studies. A frequently cited study, published by researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology (IoC) – who analysed policing with body worn video cameras in Rialto California in 2012 – showed that during the 12-month experiment, compared to the previous year, use-of-force by officers wearing cameras fell by 59 percent and reports against officers dropped 87 percent. The Cambridge University researchers do, however, caution that more work needs to be done around the subject of body worn video before there is wholesale adoption by the police, in particular around questions like the impact that this evidence will have on the expectations of prosecutors, the policies that need to be implemented to cope with the volume of data and associated storage technologies. On the move for policing On this side of the Atlantic, body worn deployment has certainly moved into the fast lane with the Mayor of London’s announcement of a massive twenty-fold uplift in the number of units deployed. Boris Johnson confirmed that by March next year (2010) a further 20,000 devices, above and beyond existing cameras, will be available for use. One of the strongest advocates of ‘body cams’ as far as the UK is concerned is Matthew Ellis, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire, who was instrumental in ensuring that all front-line police officers, PCSOs and Special Constables, across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent received body cams. Speaking to Ellis about why he went for body worn video cameras in such a big way, he says that this approach ties-in with his commitment to more open policing: “Looking at quite a lot of the complaints which come in about police officers when individuals are being arrested, or more generally, I thought wouldn’t it be great to cut-out the awful amount of time that is wasted on spurious complaints from individuals who just don’t like being arrested and have been arrested in a perfectly sensible way. We are now able to look at the pictures of what actually happened rather than just relying on the words of individuals who disagree over the particular circumstances.” A second driver for the cameras, explains Ellis, was the way that officers talked to him about how things like Tasers can prevent situations getting out of hand because individuals see officers carrying them: “I wondered if the same thing would happen with body worn video cameras. Well, the reality is that, when they were trialled, early on officers were saying that in a number of incidents once they pressed the body cam’s button, and the light came on, people become much more sensible and compliant.” Another force which is opting for body worn video in a big way is Hampshire whose Chief Constable, Andy Marsh confirmed, earlier this year, that it is to roll-out Reveal body cameras for 2,800 frontline staff. According to Ben Read, Marketing Executive at Reveal, this is very much a sign of the times. Whereas a few years ago many UK police forces may not have even heard of body worn video today, says Read, not only have they heard of it, they are seriously considering deployment: “The question now really is what provider to go for?” The answer to that question isn’t that easy given the plethora of existing and new entrants coming into the market. The right response Speaking to Margaret O’Hare from Pinnacle Response, she agrees that things are really up in the air at the moment in terms of what is the best body worn approach to take: “The industry is just trying to decide what it wants because although it isn’t new as a technology, it is new in terms of such mass adoption and there isn’t really a standard as such. The UK is certainly moving towards full personal issue for frontline [police] officers.” On the point of whether it is best to just record when a button is actually pressed, O’Hare points to the Surveillance Camera Commissioner and the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice which has some sections on ‘body worn’ video: “The use of the camera for recording is supposed to be proportionate, relevant to the need, and the person you are recording is supposed to be made aware that recording has happened. They caution against continuous use because there are privacy issues there,” concludes O’Hare. Discussing specific solutions, O’Hare says that Pinnacle Response is in the throes of launching a new model, the PR6, which is due out officially at the end of summer. Although wanting to keep some of the features of the PR6 under wraps for now, O’Hare confirms that the camera will come with Wi-Fi upload and that this functionality ties-in with an industry focus around back office solutions. Market analysis Taking a wider perspective on the market for body worn video cameras, Oliver Philippou, Senior Analyst, IHS confirms that he is in the midst of research on this very topic
