Vancouver city council has approved a plan to investigate the use of body-worn cameras for Vancouver police.
The motion approved Wednesday directs municipal staff to work with the Vancouver Police Department and stakeholders to identify the costs of such a program by 2024, with the goal of full implementation for on-duty, front-line officers by 2025.
“The implementation of body-worn cameras will enhance accountability and transparency in public safety. That benefits everybody,” ABC Vancouver Coun. Lenny Zhou, author of the motion, said at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“The video evidence will provide an independent, unbiased and objective way to capture the interactions between the community and police officers.”
According to the motion, Vancouver police make more than 1 million contacts with the public per year, responding to an average of 650 calls per day, and the VPD “welcomes police oversight.”
“There is now an extensive body of academic research on (body-worn cameras) and its applications. It has shown to decrease the number of public complaints against police officers as well as to decrease the use of force by police officers,” the motion states.
“The benefits associated with (body-worn cameras) must be weighed against privacy implications.”
The motion does not outline any privacy policy or regulations to accompany the body-worn cameras, which would record both video and audio.
Provincial government standards, however, dictate that prior to the deployment of such cameras, a police board must ensure a privacy impact assessment has been completed and approved by the appropriate authorities. Information on the cameras, and the circumstances under which they may be used, must also be made public.
Any video collected must also be stored with restricted access and not altered at any time. Footage may only be retrained for one year from the date it was recorded, then it must be deleted, the policing standards state.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) is among the groups concerned about surveillance and privacy. Policy director and lawyer Meghan McDermott noted that the purpose of the program doesn’t appear to be clearly outlined in Vancouver, whether that’s improved accountability for police or a more efficient criminal justice system.
“What’s the pressing objective and what is the evidence that they can actually meet that policy objective?” she said in an interview. “There is high potential for people’s personal information to become known to the state and then shared within agencies.”
As it stands, McDermott said Vancouverites can go about their business anonymously on the streets, with an officer’s ability to record information — at protests or gatherings, for example –restricted to what they observe firsthand. Body cameras would “exponentially increase” their to record the public and enter that information into a state database, where tools such as facial recognition software can be applied, she explained.
“If the purpose is to improve or increase accountability measures for police, we think that there are a lot of better ways to do this just using democratic regulation of police,” McDermott said.
“We’re cautiously skeptical about it and we think there has to be a lot more thinking going into it by our decision-makers, a lot more engagement with the public about what their expectations are, and also education for the public about what it could mean if this technology is deployed on such a widespread basis in Vancouver.”
If the program proceeded in Vancouver, an estimated 800 police officers could be equipped with the cameras at any given time.
While the cost remains unknown, Zhou said body-worn cameras will make police investigations “much easier and faster,” possibility resulting in savings down the road. He also believes the program aligns with Premier David Eby’s public safety goals, so the province may become a funding partner.
The VPD has said it is open to talking about cameras, but that questions around privacy must first be addressed.
Its union, similarly, has said it supports tools to improve oversight and accountability, but the costs of the technology must be considered. Union president Ralph Kaisers has told Global News that when the VPD studied the issue several years ago, it found it would need to hire up to 25 digital forensics experts to vet and treat footage for privacy issues.
Zhou’s motion cites a 2015 legislative special committee’s report on the Independent Investigations Office (IIO), which recommended the provincial government “aggressively pursue the steps necessary to implement the police use of body-worn cameras.”
In an October interview with Global News, IIO chief civilian director Ron MacDonald echoed that call, saying he’s been pushing for the use of body-worn cameras for years.
“Certainly where there is an investigation ongoing into a serious harm or death investigation, the privacy issues don’t, I believe, play a role in any way as significant as the need for a thorough, complete investigation that video would assist in,” MacDonald said at the time.
Police in Toronto and Calgary have already moved to equip front-line officers with body-worn cameras, and in B.C., the Delta Police Department is currently running a pilot project.
The RCMP is also preparing to roll out 12,500 cameras across 700 detachments, starting with a field test of 300 units in three divisions. The cost of that program per unit is estimated to be between $2,000 and $3,000 per year.
–With files from Simon Little
Editor’s Note: This is a corrected story. A previous version incorrectly stated the estimated cost of the RCMP’s body-worn camera program.