CCTV

Trends in body worn cameras

by Mark Rowe

Edesix, the Body Worn Camera (BWC) company, examines the latest trends in the wearable camera market. They say evolution is key, as it’s essential to keep providing new innovative solutions to meet the growing security demands of an ever expanding customer base.

BWCs have been proven to help improve the safety of those in public facing roles, whilst producing compelling legal evidence when needed. BWCs can provide two-fold protection to staff – firstly, members of the public naturally change and moderate their behaviour for the better when they realise they are being recorded, or might be recorded – but importantly those cameras can then be used, when needed, to record evidential quality footage to secure convictions, or to uphold the account of staff in the event of a complaint or incident.

Studies examining the use of BWCs show they make a real difference in protecting frontline staff and the public. Not only do they deter aggression and in many cases eliminate the need to activate a panic alarm or radio during an incident, but they also help staff feel valued, safe and more protected. A BWC system must be simple to deploy, simple to manage and simple to use; the wearable camera is a tool for the user to protect themselves – but it isn’t the focus of their job, nor should it be. It is essential that they are easy to use and easy to deploy with minimal training, while the back-office management suite needs to be secure and able to deliver court-admissible evidence packages.

Latest trends include:

VMS Integration

WiFi enabled BWCs, such as Edesix’s VideoBadge VB-300 and VideoTag series, can live stream into leading Video Management Systems, providing security teams with detail of incidents as they unfold, even if they occur in fixed IP camera blind spots. All live streams are also recorded on the camera and encrypted at rest to ensure footage is kept for review and usable in court.

Education

BWCs are increasingly used in education to protect staff and maintain best practice techniques. Driving instructors, schools, and cardiac arrest training centres have all taken advantage of these wearable cameras. Both teachers and instructors face verbal abuse on a weekly basis, and BWCs have been deployed to deter this aggression. Paramedics and rapid response units not only use BWCs to reduce abusive behaviour but also for training staff with best practice techniques, using real-life footage from previous call-outs.

Legislation

With GDPR around the corner, the data management from BWCs has never been more important. BWC manufacturers have helped organisations prepare for GDPR with features such as automatic deletion policies, data reports and full audit trails for recorded footage. This enables organisations to find and delete unnecessary data that isn’t related to an on-going incident. Back-office software, such as Edesix’s VideoManager, provides all the tools necessary for organisations using BWCs to comply with the latest data protection regulations.

With more use cases and markets appearing for BWCs, the need has arisen for smaller form-factor cameras known as ‘Incident Recorders’. These lightweight cameras designed to be worn by every-day staff who sometimes deal with abusive behaviour, such as retail workers, receptionists, airline hostesses and nurses. Like BWCs, Incident Recorders come complete with audit trails, at rest encryption and WiFi live streaming capabilities.

Richie McBride, managing director at Edesix, says: “We are at the forefront of innovation in the BWC market, and are continuously developing and launching exciting new products such as the VideoTag our smallest incident recorder to date, the X-100 (head mounted) and X-200 (torso mounted) cameras and ONStream which integrates Edesix body worn cameras with existing CCTV.”

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