Calgary police find new supplier for body worn cameras
Posted Jul 3, 2018 3:45 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
After major hiccups in 2016, the Calgary Police Service has awarded a new contract for body worn cameras.
Axon Public Safety Canada was chosen, after a request for proposals was sent out in September 2016.
That followed a major issue with a previous supplier, when officers experienced major technical flaws before ultimately terminating the contract and suing the company responsible.
Superintendent Steve Barlow says 100 cameras will be supplied right away and outfitted on officers in District 1.
If this proof of concept phase goes well, they will order another 150 for the same district.
“Gives us an opportunity with more cameras out there, to make sure they are going to meet the requirements we require,” said Supt. Barlow.
Following that, the CPS aims to outfit all frontline officers with cameras — amounting to 1,100 total devices.
A major factor in choosing this new supplier was how modern they are.
“Technology is changing so quickly,” said Supt. Barlow. “With the body worn cameras that we’ve been able to purchase this time, we have been able to look after all the pieces and technology we require, as well as our cloud storage.”
Staff Sergeant Travis Baker took part in the initial test phase that began about three months ago, and was very impressed with the devices.
“Does stream to your phone, the officer can review their video and can see their camera live,” said St. Sgt. Baker. “They can add tags to it, they can put in comments about what type of call it is, they can add things like arrest times and such into the video itself afterwards. Then when they upload it, it saves time back at the office because they can do it remotely right by the phone and don’t have to take a trip to the office to upload the video every time.”
His camera is mounted by a magnet on his chest, but there are other options for officers depending on their preferences.
They work on a 30 second delay — meaning that it will constantly store the most recent 30 seconds of video and if an interaction occurs, the officer turns the camera on to record it and it uploads automatically to the cloud.
Officers were also impressed with the battery life, saying that it exceeded all of their expectations.
All interactions with the public will be recorded, with no chance of anything being lost.
“There’s no way that an officer can delete the video or change the video,” added St. Sgt. Baker.
CPS say body worn cameras serve several purposes, including helping collect evidence, de-escalate situations, protect officers from unfounded allegations, and improve public confidence in the force.
