Body-worn cameras have been a growing trend in the law enforcement community for the last several years. Yet, as agencies worldwide establish body-worn camera programs, they are challenged with how to access, manage, protect, search, and easily share that video. The hundreds to even millions of hours of video that agencies —depending on size— are capturing weekly is simply overwhelming them and complicates compliance with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Criminal Justice Information Standards (CJIS) requirements. Agencies can deploy Video Analytics solutions to help them face these challenges in four key ways.

1. Easy retrieval of incident videos
Intelligent video analytics enables fast search and retrieval of video information to help develop investigative leads. Quick retrieval of specific frames or sets of footage and automatically redacting footage help meet compliance requirements and assist investigations.

2. Citizen privacy protection
With intelligent, automated object redaction, intelligent video analytics helps simplify protecting the privacy of people and sensitive information captured on film. Automated redaction eases an agency’s ability to comply with privacy and criminal justice laws when video is required for public release. And IBM Intelligent Video Analytics on Cloud allows for setting up redaction criteria to automatically distort faces, objects and images captured by law enforcement officers’ body-worn cameras.

3. Fast data mining
Based on people-search characteristics and facial recognition, tactical leads can be developed efficiently by auto-searching footage for a set of user-defined characteristics such as hair length or color; clothing type, color and pattern; skin tone; height; weight and more. This auto-search capability can be applied to footage across multiple cameras for even quicker, comprehensive review. IBM Intelligent Video Analytics on Cloud helps eliminate hours of footage review and rapidly provides evidence to officers in the field—helping make the most of every second during an active investigation.

4. Optimized time and resources
Automatic redaction helps eliminate the manual frame-by-frame process, and auto-search can significantly improve video review time. IBM Intelligent Video Analytics on Cloud helps dramatically reduce the number of hours needed to manage, review and redact body-worn camera footage for public consumption. This capability can result in significant financial savings for agencies by helping reduce the need for increased dedicated head count.

Body-worn camera programs can enhance community relations and protect officers. The law enforcement community needs to realize that these benefits don’t have to come with the challenges of extensive additional resources to manage the back end. The IBM Intelligent Video Analytics technology that exists today can transform an agency’s ability to derive the most value from body-worn cameras.