Saps ‘ready’ to advertise for police body cameras, but infrastructure still needs upgrades

Divisional Commissioner of Technology Management Services at the South African Police Service (Saps), Major General Edith Mavundla, has confirmed that body cameras for police officers are on the horizon.

Police have been discussing the use of body cameras since as far back as 2019, and are yet to set a date for implementation.

Briefing Parliament on Wednesday about Saps’ use of technology to combat crime, Mavundla said that specifications for the cameras had been completed, and they were ready to advertise to suppliers.

“We have advertised a request for information from the suppliers who are able to provide the body-worn cameras in the country that we are able to test what is existing out there to get a view of how these cameras are going to be used,” said Mavundla.

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“Saps has compiled the specification. Our supply chain is ready to advertise out there for such a solution and that is why we are mentioning that body-worn cameras are one of the technologies that we are embarking on to use.”

‘Cameras in eThekwini not working’

Saps is also looking into co-operation agreements with municipalities and businesses that have active camera systems for the feeds to go directly to the police for crime monitoring.

“The cameras that have been covering eThekwini have not been working for a while. Saps is collaborating with the municipalities and have signed the cooperation agreements. We are engaging with the metro police environment and any other business that have cameras that are covering those specific areas,” said Mavundla.

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“We are engaging with businesses that use cameras for the streaming to come to the police, we would like to monitor those cameras for the crime behaviour and incidences.”

The cameras would also support emergency response teams by providing exact locations of incidents captured on the feeds.

Mavundla said another area police were looking into using technology to combat crime was Automated Vehicle Location.

This allows the police to dispatch the closest vehicle to the crime scene and assist in criminal and departmental investigations.

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“It will improve response time by locating the vehicle closest to the crime scene. It will also reduce the misuse of state vehicles by providing actual movements of vehicles,” said Mavundla.

However, Mavundla acknowledged that the current infrastructure is not fully equipped to support the full implementation of the crime-fighting technology.

Infrastructure upgrades

Saps was working on upgrading the infrastructure, though the process has been delayed due to funding.

“Advanced crime-fighting technologies such as body-worn, static and vehicle dashboard cameras with AI-driven systems do require technology infrastructure to realise scalable, secure and reliable support to enable Saps operations seamlessly,” said Mavundla.

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“Without the infrastructure, we will not be able to run the sophisticated technologies that are required to combat crime or improve the policing and be able to fight crime and service our communities.

“Infrastructure will need to be expanded and upgraded to accommodate the technology evolution and its demands.

“We are upgrading our technology infrastructure. We are behind with the upgrades because of the austerities of the funding. At the moment, we are running technologies that are sufficing to be able to run on this particular infrastructure.

“As we are going to be receiving or using the body-worn cameras, that infrastructure will need to be upgraded to the level where the information will be able to transmit and analysed perfectly.”

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