BT’s Body Worn Video (BWV) was chosen as CCTV Product of the Year at the IFSEC awards in May.
Judges singled out its potential to "change the nature of evidence gathering."
Kate Gee, BT Security Solutionsโ Business Development Manager, who accepted the IFSEC award on behalf of BT, says: "BT Body Worn Video is proving an invaluable crime-fighting tool because of its ability to record and bring back evidential quality CCTV from places that traditional CCTV finds hard to reach."
BT Body Worn Video is being deployed for a range of security applications because of its ability to record what its wearer sees and hears in a secure, auditable way suitable for presentation in court. It’s in use by a number of UK police forces, as well as by council and housing association wardens and door supervisors.
Benefits include:
ß Supports victims of domestic abuse, as courts can see the reaction of the offender at the time of police attendance
ß Provides evidence in support of Anti-social Behaviour Orders (for example by Local Authority warden teams)
ß For Street Wardens and Traffic Wardens use of the unit can help to reduce risk of assault, as well as providing a record of the vehicle or the individual being issued with a penalty ticket
Cumbria Police is one of the UK police forces already using Body Worn Video โ sometimes called โheadcamsโ. Cumbria Policeโs Community Safety Officer Sergeant Richard Farnworth explains why: "We wanted a tried and tested solution that was lightweight, but that also had the required storage capacity โ the BT headcam unit, with its 100Gb capacity hard-disc drive made perfect sense. We also needed something that was easy to use and operate for our officers, and having looked at a few devices, the BT unit seemed the easiest to use, and was competitively priced".
The equipment’s recorded video can be viewed on a self-contained LCD screen, or burnt to disc for use in court. Features include:
Head camera
ß High resolution water-resistant colour camera โ lens approx size of 2p piece
ß Multi-adjustable strong, stable headset, which can be integrated into helmets and headwear
ß Record / information lapel button with built in high quality microphone
ß Instant colour playback screen, 4inch display. Near DVD quality
o Automatic day / night camera
o Comfortable 3-way headset
o Two touch on/off switch
o Safety cables
o Battery life of 12 hours with just 2 hours re-charge time
Hard-drive
o Time/Date & Unit Id embedded in video frames
o Evidence cannot be deleted from the hard-drive
Storage & Retrieval
ß 100Gb hard-drive DVR able to store up to 100 hours of VGA, 25 frames per second colour video.
ß Footage is easily transferred to PC via a USB cable. Simple drag and drop process to move CCTV files to the relevant folder (as with a normal digital camera).
ß PC specification of at least 2Gb memory, more than 2GHz CPU, a 64Mb+ graphics card and Windows XP Pro.
