Cape Breton regional police adding cameras for officers, cars and downtown streets

Police officers, patrol cars and even some streets in the former towns of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality are expected to be outfitted with video recording equipment sometime this fall.

Bodycams, dashcams and surveillance equipment will make citizens and officers safer and provide better evidence in court cases, Chief Robert Walsh said Tuesday after a meeting of the municipality's board of police commissioners.

The street cameras will likely deter some crimes and help police solve others that may have happened or are in progress, he said.

"If there was a critical incident such as an armed robbery or an active shooter, our communications centre could access that video livestream in real time, get the information, the images, and provide that detail to our officers in real time, so we have a better situational awareness and a better response for police," Walsh said.

The public may have some concerns about privacy, but police will have policies that should alleviate those worries, he said.

"The cameras in downtown cores and at key intersections would only be used for an investigative purpose and we want to reassure the public that they are not monitored continuously," the chief said.

Bodycams and dashcams will make police operations more transparent, Walsh said.

However, he said policies are still being developed on when those cameras can be activated or deactivated by officers. He said guidance on that may be coming from the province.

The force is getting quotes for all the cameras this summer. Depending on cost, it plans to buy up to nine dashcams for patrol cars, more than 120 bodycams for officers and up to 50 street surveillance systems.

Street cameras will not only go in downtown Sydney, they'll also go up in the former towns of North Sydney, Sydney Mines, Glace Bay, New Waterford, Dominion and Louisbourg.

The police budget this year includes about $700,000 for equipment, much of which will be for cameras and software.

Walsh has said in a previous interview that the cost of the software includes unlimited cloud-based data storage that will be able to handle video files.

CBRM Coun. Glenn Paruch, who chairs the police commission, said the cameras are a good idea.

"It's change, but I think change is needed here in the city," he said.

Privacy concerns

There will always be some people with concerns about their privacy on public streets, but some downtown businesses already have their own cameras trained on their stores. That doesn't seem to deter shoppers, Paruch said.

The difference is that police surveillance cameras will only be viewed when a crime has been committed or is in progress, he said.

"If there was no incident, they can't just go use that without having proper cause."

Walsh said Cape Breton police will use Charlottetown as a model for its camera system. Police there have labelled all street cameras with the city's E-Watch brand to notify the public about the presence of video surveillance.

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