The London Metropolitan Police Service has announced that going forward, all body cam footage will be stored by Microsoft data centres, in the cloud. Cloud computing and storage has become big news recently, and for the Met Police, utilising this hi-tech storage solution shows just how they’re moving with the times.
Currently, there is a programme underway in which all Met officers are being issued with a body camera, and 3,500 officers have already been kitted out. The idea of these cameras is to provide actual footage of incidents and to bring transparency to the police force. It’s also intended to increase confidence in policing and to prove that no one has anything to hide.
Automatic uploads
The body worn cameras can record up to 12 hours of footage and the ones the police are wearing have been made by TASER. The electronic dart gun was also developed by this company and it is now empowering the police force in a whole new way.
When a police officer returns to a station, the cameras are placed in a docking station, where the footage is automatically uploaded to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. There will be no escaping the upload of footage as it is compulsory, and officers who do not follow protocol may be at risk of being dismissed.
A secure record
Body cameras such as those available at and those worn by the Met Police, film footage that’s good quality, and this footage can then be uploaded online.
For the police force, all footage will be stored for a minimum of 31 days, and police have the option of classifying it as evidence if needs be. This evidence can then be stored indefinitely, and is securely held offsite, thanks to the state of the art technology that cloud storage offers. No one can tamper with the cloud, and Microsoft has an excellent security record too, ensuring that data is well protected at all times and not vulnerable to leaks or hacks.
The public can also rest easy as Microsoft is trusted brand, and their data should be safe at all times, reducing any loss of privacy they may feel if caught on film. Body worn cameras have raised some contentious privacy points, but hopefully, the collaboration with Microsoft allays some fears.
