Police board OKs $500,000 request for bodycam bids

The Toronto police board has approved a pricey second step in an ongoing examination of body-worn cameras, taking the service closer to equipping all front-line officers with the increasingly popular technology.

One month after a much-anticipated report on the Toronto police body-worn camera pilot project was released, the civilian board agreed to spend $500,000 on a non-binding request for proposals to find the best, most affordable camera technology.

The money will also pay for a fairness commissioner and outside experts to ensure the search is above-board — something city councillor and police board member Shelley Carroll said is costly but necessary.

Supporters defend request for proposals as ‘absolutely’ necessary to find the best, most affordable tech, while critics question methods, outcome of test run

“The reality is, we absolutely need this. This will be the biggest contract for a new technology in the country,” she said at Thursday’s board meeting at Toronto police headquarters.

A supporter “in principle” of the deployment of body-worn cameras, Mayor John Tory said the cost of ensuring the police service does a proper technology evaluation “will pay itself back many times over.

“This is precisely the kind of due diligence that any public or private body should be expected to do, and precisely the kind of investigation of all the questions,” Tory said.

Last month, a 95-page Toronto police report concluded all 3,200 frontline officers should be equipped with body-worn cameras at an estimated cost of $85-million over 10 years — a gargantuan expense at a time when the service is under pressure to slash its $1-billion budget.

That conclusion is based on a nearly year-long body-worn camera pilot project that ended in May, in which 85 officers across the city wore cameras on the front of their uniforms.

The report found cameras ensure an “unbiased, independent account of police/community interactions,” and emphasized strong community and officer support of the technology.

Surveys found 95 per cent of the public, and 85 per cent of officers, support the use of the cameras.

But critics and Toronto police, too, raise significant concerns about the project’s shortcomings — not to mention the skyrocketing cost of implementing body-worn cameras, though there is hope emerging cloud storage technology could decrease costs.

Among the biggest criticisms is that the project’s sample size was so small that no statistical conclusions could be drawn on key issues, including whether the cameras caused a decrease in public complaints against officers.

Erick Laming, a doctoral student in criminology at the University of Toronto who has researched police body-worn camera studies said the public response rate of 7,500 surveys was “pretty weak.”

“If that’s your main finding from a nearly yearlong study, it’s sad,” he said.

Laming warned about the dangers of “selling your soul” to a company, saying that could result in unforeseen problems, such as issues recently encountered by the Calgary Police Service.

Local media reported Thursday that technical problems with the chosen body camera supplier have forced Calgary police to terminate a $1.3-million contract and restart the process of equipping all of their frontline officers with the cameras. The police service is considering legal action.

Another major concern is that, during the pilot project, Toronto officers did not have the cameras rolling at all times.

In an email on Thursday, the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition raised concerns about the officers’ ability to turn the devices on and off.

“If there is no agreement about when cameras will be on or off, what do we do? Leave it up to the officer involved?”

But at Thursday’s meeting, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders defended what he said are already clear and well-considered guidelines for officers concerning when to activate the cameras. The rules were guided by consultations with Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, he said.

“Believe me, this is not about arbitrarily turning them on and off,” Saunders told the board.

“In fact, it is more to make sure that we try our very best to have some sort of objective evidence for encounters that we have whenever we are dealing with the public on a dayto-day basis.”

Laming said before giving final approval to the expansion of bodyworn cameras, board members should consider the bigger question of whether the tool can truly enhance public trust.

“This is technology — and technology cannot change policing. It can advance it in certain areas, but it’s not going to change how police officers act,” he said. With files from Betsy Powell