Mission critical: the evolution of BWV

Land Mobile talks to the head of Motorola Solutions’ evidence management portfolio, Stuart Boutell, about the ongoing shift towards body worn video streaming.

One of the most significant pieces of public safety communications technology to emerge in recent years has been body worn video.

This has been particularly true in the realm of policing for instance, where the tech has been used primarily for the gathering of evidence. Officers wear the devices, switch them on to record appropriate incidents, before bringing the equipment back to the station to upload the videographic material via a docking station.

At the same time, BWV has also proved itself beneficial as a means through which those who come into contact with the police can be encouraged to ‘moderate’ their behaviour. Or to put it another way, if someone knows that footage of them is likely to end up being viewed by a judge, there’s more chance they’ll behave themselves.

Discussing how important body worn video has become to UK policing, acting chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police - and the NPCC lead for BWV - Jim Colwell, says the technology has become “an everyday tool for policing in this country, and one which many users would not want to be without.”