San Jose police turn into cyborgs with head-mounted cameras
The San Jose, Calif. police are slowly turning into cyborgs with the addition of head-mounted cameras.
Dashboard cameras became commonplace in police cars many years ago, but they are limited in their field of view, so if an officer goes behind the car or in a foot pursuit, the camera does no good. So, now as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, why not go one step further and put camera on the officers themselves?
According to the Mercury News, the San Jose police department has had several recent dust ups with civilians that have caused a lot of distrust between the citizens and the police. To help solve some of these issues, 18 officers have been issued a personal camera system named AXON which is about the size of a Bluetooth headset that they will activate every time they interact with a citizen. At the end of their shifts all of the video footage is downloaded to a server for future review if a situation calls for it.
San Jose is the first city in the country to use the system, but if it proves successful this is something we begin seeing a lot more of here in the United States.
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