In early May 2014, London’s Metropolitan Police announced it would be spending almost £1 million on a trial of 500 body-worn video surveillance cameras for police officers in 10 of London’s boroughs.  The move comes after several high-profile cases in recent years calling into question the integrity and transparency of police officer’s actions.

David Green, senior analyst at IHS, the specialist security research organisation comments. “Fitting video surveillance camera systems on mobile law enforcement is not a new idea – in fact over $200 million was spent on these systems worldwide during 2013. 

However, so far the focus of this spend has been on in-car video – typically two-camera systems that offer both forward facing and rear seat occupant coverage. 

In the majority of cases, the motivation for fitting these cameras came through the video’s usage in prosecution cases as evidence, although as the sue-culture has become more popular there has increasingly been a benefit in helping protect against legal claims for malpractice.

Body-worn cameras are a much later addition to this industry segment – IHS estimates that sales reached over 5,000 units per year during 2013 for the first time. 

In early adoptions, the body-worn cameras did not prove to be as successful as hoped.  Issues arose with field of view, focal length and above all else, simply whether or not the camera was pointing in the right direction when it mattered. 

As a result, officers were finding that when they needed to search through video footage it was a difficult process.