WATCH | Cape Town law enforcement unveils bodycams for 800 officers

Mayor of Cape Town Geordin Hill-Lewis and mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith unveiled dashboard and body camera technology for the city's law enforcement division on Wednesday.

Hill-Lewis said he decided to invest in technology after being convinced by Smith and his team that no amount of human resources can make Cape Town truly safe without advanced technology.

“I'll never forget that conversation [where Smith said] that you will never, ever be able to afford the number of officers required to make Cape Town truly safer. Especially if we have to pick up all the slack of other struggling law enforcement agencies. So what you have to do is to empower the officers that you have with much more technology and overlay that technology on top of one another so that you make each officer a centre of real crime-fighting and telling,” said Hill-Lewis.

“Cape Town’s overall tech investment amounts to R860m over the next three years, including CCTV, dash cameras and bodycams, aerial surveillance, drones, gunshot detection tech, and the master digital system to co-ordinate it all — known as EPIC.”

The investment includes:·      

• R118.4m on CCTV;
• R118m on dash and bodycams;       
• R109m for aerial surveillance;     
• R22m on drones;
• R10m on gunshot location tech; and       
• R442m on licence plate recognition, EPIC digital co-ordination, radios, comms systems, IT and network upgrades.

Smith said this technology will save the lives of law enforcement officers.

“We have shameful figures by international comparisons and if you can't protect your officers, your officers can't protect the public,” he said.

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