Ottawa police are launching a body camera pilot project to test the merits of equipping officers with the individually-worn devices.
The department will roll out the project in 2017, as a new measure to increase transparency and accountability.
Matt Skof, President of the Ottawa Police Association, hailed the body camera project as a useful tool for capturing the entirety of officers' challenges on the job. He said in many cases, videos of police arrests that circulate online are "sensationalized," and only capture "the tail end of an incident."
"Now you have an opportunity to go right from the beginning of the incident right to the end," Skof told CTV Ottawa on Friday.
Ottawa police say they will consult with departments in Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary, where the cameras have already been tested, in order to determine how long the pilot project will last and how many officers will wear the cameras.
Police in Toronto recently wrapped a one-year body camera pilot program involving 85 officers. The department found the cameras had a short battery life that occasionally caused corruption in the data files, but overall, the cameras were deemed to offer an unbiased perspective on incidents in the field. Toronto police asked for approval earlier this week to equip all front-line officers with the cameras.
Body cameras are also being worn in several cities in the United States. However, two police departments in the U.S. cancelled their programs earlier this month, citing the high cost of data storage for the video files.
Ontario Provincial Police announced plans to equip its officers with body cameras last year, as a replacement for the scrapped dash-mounted camera project.
With files from CTV Ottawa
