Body Cams: Extending the Point of Impact of Intelligent Video Analytics

The concept of smart public safety involves applying data management, analysis, and collaboration processes to multiple types of data, to deliver deeper insight into all manner of things impacting public safety.  Digital video is information rich and it can be a critical source of insight. 

Video analytics is the technology to extract insight from digital video.  It tags video images creating data and applies advanced analytics to that data, which can be either archival or streaming in real time.  The power of video analytic solutions is that they have the capabilities to recognize and analyze events that humans may miss.  Adding these capabilities to collaboration technology can complements traditional law enforcement and emergency management skills.  Video analytics can deliver targeted intelligence to improve situational awareness to front line personnel.  Moreover, it can help them identify threats in real-time, as well as detect patterns that can help predict, and ultimately prevent, crimes. 
  

The New Frontier of Digital Video

Video surveillance data can derive from many sources, including archived footage, stationary cameras, sensors and, increasingly, field units such as dashboard cameras (“dash cams”) and body worn video (“body cams”).  Body cams are the new frontier of digital surveillance video and have the potential to be critical components of smart public safety programs. 

These devices were first introduced in the mid-2000s in select European cities in Great Britain and Denmark.  Adoption in North America began a few years later, gaining increased momentum in the past two years across the U.S and Canada.  A 2014 study of the 100 most populous cities in the U.S. found that 41 have deployed body cams to at least some of their officers, while an additional 25 cities have plans to deploy them. Some of the cities leading this charge include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami and Washington, DC.  Similarly, police forces in large Canadian cities such as Calgary, Toronto and Edmonton are leading the country’s efforts in deploying body cams to their officers.   

Benefits, Concerns and Solutions

The benefits attributed to body cams include increasing officer accountability, reducing use-of- force incidents, reducing citizen complaints against officers, and decreasing attacks on officers.  These benefits suggest that police and citizens are reacting positively to this new dimension of public safety.  Body cams remind police and citizens that they are being observed, inducing a state of heightened self-awareness that broadens their perspective.  The mere presence of a body cam on an officer can help deescalate tense situations and cool down confrontations. 

At the same time, citizen groups and police associations have raised concerns about the use of body cams by officers.  Both cite privacy issues that need to be discussed, understood and guaranteed in accord with civil rights.  Under what circumstances, for instance, can video be made public?  What’s the balance between privacy for citizens and transparency for police?  There is no consensus approach now, but guidelines and regulations are under discussion so it is only a matter of time before a social and regulatory solution emerges.

Another issue with body cams is the cost of the devices themselves, and of storing the massive data files that accumulate.  Here, a technical solution may help address the issues.  By combining body cams with video analytics, public safety organizations can gain additional value from the devices and offset the costs of using them.  Applying analytics to body cam generated video, for instance, can increase situational awareness for the officers on the ground, potentially saving property and lives.  It can also guide commanders’ decisions to deploy personnel most effectively in response to real-time updates in a given situation.  This combination can also increase the efficiency of existing resources, enabling one person to do the work of many.  Ultimately, body cams + video analytics can be a force multiplier for police commanders.

Improving Public Safety with First Person Technology

Adding the first person perspective of body cams with the insight delivered by video can be a powerful enabler of smart public safety.  Right now, we’re at the earliest stages of exploring the capabilities and value afforded by this combination.  As the adoption of body cams spreads and the concerns around the technology are addressed, the benefits will increase.

Much of this new, emergent value is likely to be found when the insight derived from body cam digital video is merged with other tools, such as department- and city-wide operational dashboards that help manage resources, facilitate decisions, and coordinate action.  The promise of video analytics is compelling, and when combined with first-person technology such body cams, it has the potential to vastly improve the way cities maintain public safety.