B.C. RCMP detail body-worn camera rollout

Thousands of RCMP officers in B.C. are about to get body-worn cameras.

Speaking at a news conference in Surrey Thursday morning, Mounties discussed the roll-out of around 3,000 cameras at first.

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Over the next year and a half, that number is expected to grow to 10,000. The RCMP says the cameras will be active in 144 detachments spanning 150 communities in B.C.

The expectation is for officers to be recording when answering calls or interacting with the public.

“Basically, how this works is that when one of our members responds to a call for service and begins to engage with a person, the camera is activated,” said B.C. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald.

“You will see frontline officers wearing the cameras in the front of their vests on a regular basis. The cameras are powered on during their entire shift, but they’re in a buffering mode and must be activated by the officer in order to record audio and video.”

After the officer sets the camera to record, McDonald explains, the device will also save the previous 30 seconds from before the button was pushed.

“This will ensure a clear visual picture of what is happening leading up to the camera’s activation.”

He says the officer is expected to inform members of the public that the camera is on. When the officer’s workday ends, the camera will be placed into a docking station back at the detachment, where the footage is uploaded in its original format to a secure cloud-based server. 

“The cameras are not used in surveillance or in 24-hour recording, and the cameras will not be used in areas that have a high expectation of privacy.”

Insp. Ted Lewko of the Mission RCMP detachment says officers are ready to use the 44 cameras coming to their region.

“I anticipate that body-worn cameras will not only strengthen public trust, an important aspect to me personally, but I also expect them to resolve public complaints more quickly and to improve the efficiency of evidence-gathering tasks,” said Lewko.

The RCMP’s corporate management officer Taunya Goguen says they are training officers to develop the muscle memory of “seatbelt off, camera on.” 

The Prime Minister proposed the initiative with $238.5 million over six years and $50 million in ongoing funding for the cameras. 

McDonald says any member of the public who feels they’ve been the subject of body-worn camera footage can apply under the Access to Information and Privacy rules to access the footage. He says police oversight bodies will also have access to the footage.

“That includes the IO for police investigations and also the OPC. Those bodies will have access to unvetted, unredacted versions of that footage to conduct oversight investigations against not only the RCMP, but any police agency that comes under question. So that’s where transparency and accountability come from.”

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