Police double number of surveillance cameras in Charlottetown over past two years
Police say the E-Watch cameras used mainly to deter crime, not to watch citizens
Deputy police chief Brad MacConnell unlocks the door to the E-Watch Project Room — a small room at the Charlottetown Police Services building that very few people get to see.
The shades are drawn, with the only light coming from huge wall-to-wall video screens and a bank of monitors. Flickering comes from live images from almost 70 locations across the city — a number that has doubled over the past two years.
The room is usually only monitored by one person, and is often empty.
"We use what we call a passive monitoring approach to our E-watch," MacConnell said. "We don't monitor them for the sake of monitoring unless there's a policing use to do so."
The videos are erased after two weeks — unless they are needed as part of an investigation, or for education.
'99 per cent crime prevention'
The surveillance cameras across the city are marked with an E-Watch sign below each camera, with the hope that will deter crime.
"We say 99 per cent crime prevention and one per cent investigative tool," MacConnell said.
Many investigations involve car accidents. If the crash occurs near one of the cameras, police can zoom in to the accident scene in real time to to assess the situation.
The E-Watch system also allows police to play back a video where in the past they might have spent hours reconstructing an accident scene.
"It's very important when there's no other witnesses to be able to assess the situation and make determinations on any charges that may be laid."
A video from this past winter shows an accident involving two pedestrians in a crosswalk.
"Certainly a very frightening incident for everyone involved. But another example where it was caught on our E-Watch to tell us what happened," he said.
The pedestrians were not seriously injured, and the driver was charged under the traffic act, MacConnell said. He added the woman allowed police to share the video with CBC and that police sometimes use videos like this one for educational purposes, to illustrate dangers.
Similar videos have been shown to the citizens police academy.
An eye on traffic stops
E-Watch can also be used during police traffic stops.
Charlottetown officers don't wear body cameras, but when an officer pulls over a vehicle — if there's an E-Watch camera nearby — the dispatcher can rotate the camera and zoom in on the scene in real time.
Live video feeds from E-Watch cameras can be viewed inside patrol cars, giving officers a bird's eye view of an unfolding situation around them.
Dispatcher Joanna Weatherbie said the cameras can help her assess what kind of response is needed to a call.
"We may need fire, EMS. The accident could be blocking traffic," she explained.
Crowd safety
Police also review videos after big events to improve security measures, like Farm Day in the City last September, which drew thousands to closed-off Queen Street.
When reviewing the footage, MacConnell was shocked to see only a few wooden sawhorses between the traffic and the crowds.
"I gotta be honest. I was alarmed. I could see how vulnerable that crowd was," he said. "When people come to our city for large events like this, we have to do everything we can to protect them and that was an example of where we could have done better."
This year, police are looking at blocking off the streets with farm tractors.
Panic avoided
During the Gold Cup parade last year, as 50,000 people lined city streets, MacConnell was able to use E-Watch to find the owner of an unattended bag on the sidewalk.
Instead of stopping the parade and bringing in the bomb squad, MacConnell asked a dispatcher to rewind the video — through which they were able to determine it belonged to a man in the front row.
As it turned out, the bag contained bottles of water the man had left on the sidewalk because he didn't want to lose his spot in the crowd.
'It's an extra set of eyes'
In most cities, police departments pay for surveillance camera systems, but in Charlottetown, the department didn't have the money — and so reached out to the business community.
For a $5,000 donation to the program, police will place a camera in front of a business.
John Cudmore from Dyne Holdings Limited, which owns the downtown Confederation Court Mall, paid for three cameras placed strategically outside the mall.
"It was certainly more comforting for us to tell our potential tenants we have the E-Watch all around us," he said. "It's an extra set of eyes."
Privacy audits
Charlottetown resident and privacy advocate Peter Rukavina has concerns about the program — and says he's written to the city's police chief about them.
"If we're going to be watched all the time, the least that they can do is tell us how they're watching, what they're watching for and what the results are," he said.
MacConnell said the E-Watch system is operated under the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada guidelines — which requires periodic audits to make sure that the information provided by the cameras is being used properly.
An officer who needs to review a video is required to fill out a form, which is kept on file.
"We have not found any inappropriate uses of it," said MacConnell.
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