RCMP begin body worn camera rollout in BC

B.C.

2024-11-21 11:30 PST

The RCMP is pleased to announce the roll-out of Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) to six communities in British Columbia in its first phase beginning November 24, 2024.

Approximately, 300 cameras will go to frontline police in Mission, Tofino, Ucluelet, Cranbrook and the Cranbrook British Columbia Highway Patrol (BCHP), Kamloops and Prince George, in that order. Fort St. John and the surrounding Peace Region will roll-out the cameras in January 2025.

Citizens in Mission will be the first in the province to see its RCMP officers wearing the cameras during frontline duties.

This phased roll-out will give these communities and the RCMP time to refine the use of the cameras as a frontline policing tool.

As British Columbia’s provincial police service, the BC RCMP will represent the largest roll-out of any police agency in the province with more than 3,000 cameras to be deployed over the next 12 to 18 months.

We anticipate many benefits from the use of body-worn cameras including improved public and officer safety, says Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, Commanding Officer of E Division. The RCMP believes the cameras will enhance transparency and accountability as well as provide a first person view of what police officers encounter daily, often in highly dynamic and tense situations.

The roll-out of body-worn cameras is part of the RCMP’s modernization efforts and is the national standard for all RCMP officers across the country, says Assistant Commissioner John Brewer who oversees RCMP Criminal Operations in the province.

The RCMP estimates that the Body-Worn Cameras and Digital Evidence Management Services (DEMS) will cost approximately $3,000 per user each year. The RCMP is using a Software-as-a-Service subscription model which minimizes upfront costs and limits the need for infrastructure requirements.

In 2020, the federal government urged police agencies to use body-worn cameras as a means to respond to concerns from racialized and indigenous communities about interactions with police.
The RCMP agreed that body-worn cameras were an additional tool that would increase accountability and improve police transparency. It is now the national standard for the RCMP.

The initial roll-out represents about 10% of the total that will eventually be distributed to frontline officers across the province.

The RCMP’s Body-Worn Camera policy is publicly available.

Statement of Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald

I’m pleased to be here today to officially announce the roll-out of body worn cameras by the RCMP in British Columbia.

The introduction of the cameras is now the national standard for the RCMP and it addresses calls I have personally heard from local, regional, Indigenous and provincial leaders to address the overall need to enhance public trust and confidence in policing.

This initiative will represent the largest, most ambitious roll-out of body worn cameras in the province.

With that in mind, I want to acknowledge our BC project team who have worked tirelessly on this project to ensure a smooth deployment across the province. I also want to thank the National Police Federation for joining us today.

The introduction of body worn cameras and the Digital Evidence Management System (DEMs) is expected to promote transparency, strengthen accountability and enhance officer and public safety.

The use of the cameras demonstrate our ongoing commitment to modernize the RCMP.

While the RCMP has used cameras for over a decade, the evolution of the technology and supporting infrastructure has advanced in such a way that allows us to roll out the cameras to a much broader group—specifically—frontline officers who engage with thousands of people in British Columbia on a daily basis.

So, how will the cameras work?

Very basically—when one of our members responds to a call for service and begins to engage with the person, the camera is activated.

You will see frontline officers wearing the cameras on the front of their vests. The camera is powered on during the entire shift in a buffering mode, but must be activated by the officer in order to record audio and video. The camera automatically saves 30 seconds of video prior to activation by the officer. This will give a clear visual picture of what was happening leading up to the camera’s activation.

When possible and when safe to do so, the officer will inform the member of the public when the camera is on.

When the officer’s workday ends, the camera is placed onto a docking station back at the detachment. Footage is uploaded in its original format to a secure cloud-based server.

The cameras are not used in surveillance or 24-hour recording. The cameras will not be used in areas where there is a high-expectation of privacy.

Once the cameras are in use across the province, the video will provide us with an un-biased first person account of incidents involving the police and members of the public.

Having a tool that makes our actions visible, and provides clear evidence, and may also result in a reduction of public complaints, is an initiative the BC RCMP wholeheartedly welcomes.

Body worn cameras and the digital evidence management system is more than just a new tool in the RCMP’s modernization efforts. I am hopeful it is also viewed as a pivotal step toward addressing systemic racism.

We anticipate body-worn cameras will deliver tangible benefits to the communities we serve and improve the safety of our officers and the public.

Statement of Assistant Commissioner John Brewer

As we mentioned earlier, the roll-out of over 3,000 body-worn cameras by the RCMP in British Columbia will be the largest deployment of the cameras in the province. The cameras will roll-out to 144 detachments in 150 municipalities serving 75% of the population in the province.

So, the deployment of body worn cameras here will be an ambitious project given our geography, the diversity of our police service—from isolated Indigenous communities and coastal villages to major cities in the North, Southeast, Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

Each division, BC included, has its own body-worn project team overseeing deployment of the cameras.

The BC project team has trained a group of superusers who are elected at each detachment to receive advanced training on the cameras and to act as their local subject matter expert. Each officer must complete online training prior to in-person training and deployment of the camera.

Once the roll-out phase is finished, there will be a divisional support team in place to support body-worn camera operations and the digital evidence management systems into the future.

The team has also done a tremendous amount of pre-work to develop a schedule and timeline for the order of camera deployment in BC.

We considered operational priorities and readiness. For example—could the detachment’s bandwidth support body-worn cameras? Was there enough network and power available for the docking stations? Was there a local commitment? We also wanted to ensure alignment with Regional Crown offices.

The weather was also taken into consideration because we didn’t want to roll out cameras in areas prone to forest fires in the middle of the summer. That’s why you will see the cameras going into areas in the north and southeast districts in January through May.

The BC RCMP also continues its work as co-chair of the body-worn camera special purpose committee with the BC Association of Chiefs of Police (BCACP). This committee works together with municipal police and other legal and oversight partners to identify best practices, standard operating and disclosure procedures, policies and ongoing consultation with agencies impacted by the introduction of body-worn cameras.

The call for more police transparency has been clearly articulated by the public and from governments across Canada. As the officer who oversees operations for the BC RCMP in the province, I am pleased that the cameras will be deployed starting next week and throughout 2025. We anticipate that nearly all frontline RCMP officers will be using the cameras by early 2026. We expect the use of the cameras will increase public trust in police and improve police and public behaviour.

Released by:

Staff Sergeant Kris Clark
E Division Media Relations Officer
BC RCMP Media Line: 778-290-2929

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