Credit - RCMP
The RCMP will start deploying body-worn cameras to RCMP officers next week across the country, and are expecting to be fully deployed with more than 10,000 cameras in the next 12 to 18 months. The RCMP says cameras act as an independent record of how officers interact with the community.
Officers will wear the cameras on their chests. The cameras contain flashing red lights that indicate they are recording.
They will also not be used in areas that are considered high privacy expectations such as washrooms and hospitals, and during strip or body cavity searches.
Key facts
Officers will turn on their body cameras during :
- mental health calls
- interactions with people in crisis
- crimes in progress
- for investigations
- public disorder and protests
- to record information to support the performance of their duties
Body cameras will not be used for:
- 24-hour recording
- surveillance
- when intimate searches are conducted
The RCMP said it believes the program will foster trust, increase transparency, enhance public-police relations, and even aid in the gathering of evidence as the documentation of police incidents will be “accurate” and “unbiased”.
Members of the public will have the right to access the recording by making a formal request under either the federal Privacy Act or Access to Information Act, though the RCMP may also disclose footage from a camera if a determination is made it is in the public interest to do so.
Video will be stored “securely” in a cloud-based digital evidence management system; officers must place the camera into a docking station-when they return from a shift or as soon as possible-to charge it and offload any captured video.
The recordings will be kept by RCMP between 30 days and two years or more – depending on what the camera catches. The federal government committed nearly $240 million over the course of six years in the 2020 fall economic statement; that figure includes $50 million ongoing annually.
