Johannesburg – Cape Town’s mayor has outlined plans to put more surveillance and accountability tools in the hands of the metro police.
Geordin Hill-Lewis was giving the opening address at Africa Tech Week, a two-day conference for tech business delegates covering topics from basic service delivery to cloud technology.
His address covered the City of Cape Town’s efforts towards ensuring energy security and promoting a globally competitive business environment.
He used the opportunity to showcase upcoming projects aimed at increasing safety and police efficacy through technology.
Hill-Lewis made the ambitious claim that the Cape Town Metro Police would be the first law enforcement agency in the country to have body cameras for all its officers by the end of this year.
He also plans to have dashboard cameras installed on all department vehicles.
Aside from recording for evidence, these cameras will also stream in real-time to licence plate recognition software. This will allow for identification of vehicles connected to outstanding warrants and for officers to intervene immediately.
The City will be installing a gunshot echo-location system, which will have its first test demonstration at the start of October. This will use audio sensors installed around the community alongside machine learning to identify and locate gunshots as they happen.
The Metro Police are already in the process of implementing on-demand drone surveillance.
This isn’t constant surveillance, but rather aerial drones about 3km above the city which can be called to the scene of police action.
The size of the drone fleet is unclear, but they will enable high-resolution video day or night and can reportedly be deployed to anywhere in the city within minutes.
This video can be streamed live to officers’ mobile devices in what the mayor describes as a “game changer for officers on the ground”.
This investment into crime-fighting technology is an ongoing effort, and will be overseen by the newly created position of Chief Technology Officer in the Cape Town Metro Police.
IOL Tech
