Sparks fly in council over bodycam bills, speed cams
There's good news — the province is picking up the tab to equip Edmonton police officers with 280 body cams and the software to operate them, after the switch from dashboard cams to body-worn cameras.
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The bad news is the city could be on the hook for a small army of 40 people to monitor them, and to redact for confidentiality issues when footage is required for the Crown or the public.
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Listening to the Edmonton Police Service annual report, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi called the bill 'shocking' and saw one more piece of evidence that the province is stiffing Edmonton taxpayers.
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'What concerns me is that province continues to download policing cost onto municipalities. The province mandated that these officers wear body cameras, and my understanding was that they will recover the full cost. What I'm hearing today is that the back-end cost of those body cameras, we will be required — EPS will be required — to hire close to 30 to 40 people to monitor the cameras … to keep all the content together,' Sohi said.
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Section 33C and 33B of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act authorizes the collection of information from the public.
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The recordings are disclosed to the courts when required, but private information of third parties captured in any recording is first redacted.
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Legally, officers are not required to inform the public they are being recorded during an interaction, but they are trained to do so when they can, the EPS website said.
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Body-worn video was mandated by the Government of Alberta in March 2023 for all police agencies.
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About the size of a deck of cards, the camera is worn on the front of the uniform.
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The officers activate recording with audio and video during interactions with the public 'when the nature of the interaction is known to be, or become, investigative or enforcement related in nature.'
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When the cameras are actively recording, the officers' body-worn camera will illuminate red lights.
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Some 35 officers on EPS' encampment response teams, community safety teams, and transit and community safety teams began wearing cameras in July 2023.
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The EPS began servicewide implementation of body-worn video in September. In a phased approach, a total of 280 officers were outfitted in the areas of public safety unit, crime auppression branch, various patrol branches, Whyte Avenue beats, gang suppression, the commercial vehicle investigation unit and the traffic enforcement section.
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