Lancashire Police first UK force to adopt new body-worn cameras and policing app

The force has deployed technology from Motorola Solutions including VB400 body-worn cameras, which are fully integrated into the Pronto digital policing application.The cameras will be used alongside a back-end evidence management software solution across the force in order to securely manage and process captured evidence.

The force relies on body-worn cameras to improve the safety and accountability of its frontline teams to capture evidence and also maintain transparency.

It comes after the first three months of lockdown in which UK police forces saw a 21 percent increase in assaults on their officers, according to a study published by the Press Association, which put greater demands on frontline staff and public safety organisations.

The camera’s and app were first trialled by officers in Blackpool and have now been rolled out to all officers across the county to use. More than 2,100 cameras have been ordered by the force and officers can choose to wear one at any time.

Lancashire Police’s Ch Insp Dave Hannan said: “This investment is about giving our officers the best tools we can for the job, making it quicker and more efficient and improving the quality of evidence, so we can provide a great service to citizens”.

“The roll out of this technology will be a vital tool in bringing offenders to justice, especially those who take part in crime that is naturally more difficult to prosecute such as domestic abuse and public order offences.”

Before using the integrated body-worn camera solution, officers recorded different clips throughout their shift and tagged them back at the station when their shift ended - a time consuming and highly manual procedure that could lead to delays or inaccuracies.

The integration of the new cameras with the Pronto digital policing application increases efficiency according to the force in which frontline teams can now view lists of recordings stored on the camera, tag the recording using data from their Pronto app and link to incidents on-the-go.

A spokesman for Motorola Solutions said: “The new technology helps Lancashire’s police officers to significantly speed up decision-making, capture evidence and maintain accountability and transparency both within and between departments and communities. The Motorola Solutions body-worn camera solution provides an automatic 30 second video pre-recording feature so that officers are assured they will not miss the beginning of an incident.”

The camera also has features such as Wi-Fi streaming and Bluetooth sensor monitoring to deliver capabilities such as live streaming from the camera to a video management application and Pronto digital policing application software.