Police Connectivity: In-Car Video & Body Cameras

The ability of police systems to communicate with each other can result in better operational achievements. 

In the video integrated system for body camera an in-car video, a 4RE HD Panoramic in-car video system and one or more VISTA WiFi body-worn cameras work together seamlessly as a single system, capturing synchronised video from multiple vantage points. The system is manufactured by WatchGuard.

The Des Moines Police Department in Iowa, USA has begun recently adopting, through a thorough 8-month vetting process of multiple providers, the integrated 4RE In-Car video and VISTA WiFi Body Camera system.

“After an extensive review and evaluation process, WatchGuard’s integrated solution, allowing for communication between the in-car video system and the body worn camera, rose to the top” said Des Moines Police Chief, Dana Wingert. “Their in-car video systems and body worn cameras will provide a high level of service and transparency that the citizens of Des Moines have come to expect.”

The 4RE in-car video system and VISTA WiFi body cameras work together as a single system, they capture synchronised video evidence by using unique Distributed Multi-Peer Recording.  According to WatchGuard’s website, when any camera in the integrated system initiates a recording, the other cameras sense a change in status and immediately begin recording.

Recorded events are uploaded wirelessly from the police vehicle to evidence storage with no officer involvement. For search, common fields like Officer Name, Date, Category and Vehicle ID can be used, or custom event tags like Case Number to quickly locate video files from a 4RE in-car system, the body-worn camera or any other type of digital evidence file, according to the company’s website.

The Evidence Library 4 Web evidence management system automatically links the individual recordings from the group and saves them on local or cloud-based storage devices for easy searching, viewing and sharing, without any human hand needed to aid the uploading.  

This advanced technology provides multiple views on a single incident, thereby strengthening the overall video evidence collected.

“The integration of in-car and body-worn video cameras where the devices are intelligently communicating and synchronising with one another is the leading edge of video evidence technology for law enforcement,” said Steve Coffman, President of Texas-based WatchGuard Video.  “Police officers are trained to work as a team when responding to an incident; their video evidence tools should do the same.”

According to officer.com, deployment of the department’s integrated system begins in January 2017 and includes 100 4RE In-Car and 300 VISTA Wi-Fi Body Cameras.

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