Beginning on Tuesday and continuing into December, Saskatchewan RCMP are starting their first phase of rolling out body-worn cameras for officers throughout the province.
Nationwide, the RCMP is rolling out body-worn cameras for officers over the next 12 to 18 months, deploying more than 10,000 cameras. Officers will be expected to turn them on when they go to calls or interact with the public. They will wear the cameras on their chests and red lights will indicate when they are recording.
“As we continue to modernize as Saskatchewan’s provincial police service, body-worn cameras will have a role in our ongoing trust-building with the communities and people we serve,” said Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, commanding officer of the Saskatchewan RCMP.
In Saskatchewan, the rollout starts on Tuesday with officers in the Fort Qu’appelle detachment. That will be followed by the Black Lake and Fond du Lac detachments in the week of Nov. 25, the Onion Lake and Pelican Narrows detachments in the week of Dec. 9, and then the Punnichy detachment the week of Dec. 16.
The rollout to all remaining detachments in the province “will take place in a phased approach” over the next eight to 12 months, RCMP said.
They began field-testing cameras last year.
RCMP say the cameras serve as an objective record of how officers interact with the community.
“The muscle memory that we’re training officers to build in is essentially seatbelt off, camera on,” said Taunya Goguen, the RCMP’s corporate management officer, at a recent press briefing.
Goguen said the force expects the cameras to lead to “greater accountability and public trust, better interactions between the police and the public, improved evidence-gathering and quick resolution to public complaints.”
The cameras won’t be worn for surveillance or for 24-hour recordings, or used in settings with a high expectation of privacy, such as washrooms or hospitals. They also won’t record during strip or body cavity searches, according to the RCMP.
“Body-worn cameras are one more tool we can use as police officers in our daily duties and in being accountable to the public,” Blackmore said.
Trenton Entwistle, the program manager for the camera program, said video from the cameras won’t be used for facial recognition “at any time.”
The videos can’t be edited, and officers can’t delete their own videos. The length of time each video is retained will vary from 30 days to more than two years, depending on the type of incident, the RCMP outlined.
The Liberal government has allocated $238.5 million over six years and $50 million in ongoing funding for the cameras.
It first pledged the money in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer set off mass demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality across the U.S.
Goguen noted the program came “in response to concerns raised by racialized communities and (is) meant to address systemic racism.”
She said the initiative “will be important for the police and communities to increase transparency, providing information about what occurs during those interactions.”
— With Saskatoon StarPhoenix files
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