An RCMP officer wears a body camera at the detachment in Bible Hill, N.S. on Sunday, April 18, 2021. The RCMP will begin its rollout of body-worn cameras for RCMP officers across the country next week.

Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

Mounties are steadily getting loaded up with body cameras over the next year-and-a-half, and Kamloops is expected to be one of the first detachments to see them.

Kamloops RCMP was chosen among the first five BC detachments to deploy the cameras. Beginning this month, the rollout will extend to thousands of officers across the country over 18 months, according to an RCMP news release.

More than 10,000 cameras will be rolled out in that time, which will be mounted to their chests.

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Officers will be required to turn on the cameras during service calls or active investigations. They will then turn them off. The cameras flash a red light while recording.

"The muscle memory that we're training officers to build in is essentially seatbelt off, camera on," said Taunya Goguen, the RCMP’s corporate management officer, at a press briefing Thursday.

There are also privacy restrictions surrounding their use in private homes, in hospitals or during strip searches, for example. They also can't be used for surveillance or 24-hour recordings.

Trenton Entwistle, the program manager for the camera program, said video from the cameras won’t be used for facial recognition "at any time."

The videos can’t be edited, and officers can’t delete their own videos. The length of time each video is retained will vary from 30 days to more than two years, depending on the type of incident, the RCMP outlined.

The RCMP has been preparing for the camera deployment for years with its operational policy completed in 2022. The federal government allocated $238.5 million toward the initiative in 2020, but it's not clear whether that cost will continue to cover the program. They're being introduced in an effort to bolster trust between police and the public by documenting officer interactions with the public.

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Goguen noted the program came "in response to concerns raised by racialized communities and (is) meant to address systemic racism."

She said the initiative "will be important for the police and communities to increase transparency, providing information about what occurs during those interactions."

RCMP in BC is expected to provide more details on the provincial rollout next week. Local detachments wouldn't be commenting until after that announcement, according to a notice to media.

Once deployed, a detachment may distribute camera footage to the public when RCMP determines it's "in the public interest." The video may also be obtained through Access to Information and Privacy requests to the federal government.

— With files from The Canadian Press

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