The North Bay Police continue to work through the process of setting up their new police body-worn camera project.
The project has been in the works since 2020, and Deputy Chief Mike Daze says now the challenge is finding people to help manage what will be a massive library of video information.
"So we're just working on staffing up on our back end to be able to support the process in that information," said Daze, after Tuesday's monthly police board meeting.
"There's a large amount of information that's going to have to be brought in, processed out for disclosure. Just with the volume of video that's going to be here, so we do have the software in we're putting the people in place and going through the training to have that back-end support so that when the body-worn cameras start, we have a place to move to and be able to process the information."
Despite the delays, Daze says the police service is looking forward to moving forward with the technology.
"We are proud of the work our police officers do and those body-worn cameras do have an accountability aspect, where if there's questions or concerns, you know, the public will have that ability on the body-worn cameras," noted Daze.
"But I think that it also provides some of that best evidence right when they're out there. There's a degree of protection and there's a degree of investigative ability to be able to clearly and articulate through a video. Here's what happened. Here's experiencing a police officer. Here's what they were seeing. And here's what occurred. So I think there are multiple values of the body-worn cameras."
See related: Police body-worn cameras project on target for 2023
Daze would not be specific on body-worn camera timelines but did believe things will start rolling next year.
"That training process is working through the end of this year," explained Daze. "When it's over we're going to have the pilot into 2024 with those people in place."
