Police have eyes on Niagara
Live-video feeds coming soon from the streets to police headquarters
It’s going to be a lot more difficult to get away with a crime once the Niagara Regional Police get their real-time operations centre up and running.
One of the technological advancements that will be at the NRP’s disposal will be the ability to zero in on live-video technology from around Niagara.
“What that will do is allow the police the ability to tap into cameras that are existing in either public cameras, or in other organizations, and when needed we could provide a real-time view to our staff in the real-time operations centre,” said Deputy Chief Joe Matthews.
For example, Matthews said, the police operate cameras in downtown St. Catharines. From there, the view will be fed directly to the communications centre at the NRP’s new state-of-theart headquarters on Valley Way, which open later this year.
“If we were to have a report of a bank robbery that occurred at the corner of King and Queen streets in St. Catharines, then when that call came in, the system would identify that there’s a camera close by and our staff could then immediately look at that camera and get a real-time view of what’s happening within the range of that camera,” he said.
“We hope to expand in the future out to cameras held by the private sector — it would be an agreement that we would reach
We hope to expand in the future out to cameras held by the private sector — it would be an agreement that we would reach with those organizations.” Deputy Chief Joe Matthews
with those organizations.” Matthews said any deal reached with a business or organization it would be done in “total compliance” with privacy laws.
“The privacy commissioner sets down guidelines about the use of cameras in public spaces and it relates to when they can be accessed and the means by which they could be monitored,” he said.
“We would make it known that we had these agreements, and then we would follow the guidelines as set down by the privacy commissioner.”
Having agreements with, for example, banks, schools and shopping malls, would increase “situational awareness” for officers.
“Having that real-time data available to somebody on our staff just allows our staff in the communications unit to actually see and … feed that data out to the officers in the cruisers,” he said.
“It may be one thing for an officer to have a description of a vehicle. It’s a whole other thing, and we think an enhancement, to have that officer actually see a picture of the vehicle.
“It increases their situational awareness, which really contributes to public safety. It allows that officer to be more efficient and more effective in their day-to-day duties.”
The technology is called Command Central Aware.
The NRP purchased it from Motorola Solutions Canada.
That puts the NRP on the “cutting edge” of police services across Canada when it comes to the expanded use of the technology, Matthews said.
The NRP offered a media tour of thenew$65-million,210,000-squarefoot headquarters on Friday.
The three-storey complex off Valley Way was built on eight acres near the Ontario Provincial Police station in a high-profile location, visible from Highway 420.
Matthews said the NRP is looking to improve “our ability to engage with our citizens.”
He said likely starting this fall, citizens will be able to go on the NRP’s website and get crime information down to specific neighbourhoods.
“The system integrates the data and brings it all to a central place and then provides an ability to map it,” said Matthews.
“The citizens can look at those maps and determine what’s going on in their neighbourhood. Among the data sets, we’ll choose different categories of crime people want to know about and then we have to adapt it slightly, so that we’re not going to be publishing exact addresses.
“We’ll have a range of down to a couple blocks, so you’ll see a little flag on the map, for instance.”
He said a number of other police services have integrated a crimemapping service, and it’s something the Niagara community is interested in seeing.
“We have recently purchased a new radio system from Motorola, and this system integrates with the radio system,” he said.
“We feel very fortunate that the timing was right for us to expand this partnership with Motorola. It’s all in the name of improving public safety.”
Matthews said more than ever, the NRP is moving towards intelligenceled policing.
“The cost of policing is rising — police need to be smarter about the use of technology and make decisions based on available data,” he said.
“This system just helps us to integrate all that data to bring it sort of under one umbrella within the police service.
“We can make better decisions about deploying people. There are future analytical programs that can be added to this program. We don’t own those right now, but they could certainly be added in the future, and that’s all with a view to sort of improving the service that we can deliver to the community.”
Matthews said the real-time operations centre is separate from the NRP’s existing communications unit and 911 centre, but will support it.
He said the improvements to the new dispatch centre at the headquarters will largely come from having more space and a better environment.
“The technology with the new radio system, it will operate generally in the same way.”
The new headquarters will replace two existing facilities: the police headquarters on James Street in St. Catharines and the Niagara Falls detachment on Morrison Street.
It will house about 600 of the NRP’s 1,100 uniform and civilian members. There will be 415 parking spaces and, for the first time, many units will be working under the same roof.
The NRP is scheduled to move into the new facility in nine phases, starting with the Niagara Falls patrol unit. The facility is expected to be operational just after Labour Day.