The Reality of Body Cameras
Leaving aside the eavesdropping laws that don't yet cover body cameras, the complete lack of privacy if you are trying to develop leads from a neighborhood informant, and the HIPAA laws that come into play if you're at a hospital gathering info, has anyone actually looked at the cost? Not the cost of the units, but the cost of data storage?
- Here’s a calculation based on a 50-officer agency: say 60% of your cops work on a typical day, and each produces an average of four hours of video. If the video is encoded at 640x480 VGA (the format stored by the TASER AXON system, one of the more popular models) it’s going to take up 15-20 MB of space per minute (TASER may compress the video better than that— this is just an estimation). That’s just over 1 GB per hour, times four hours, times 30 cops, times three shifts: 360 GB per day, more than a terabyte every three days, ten terabytes per month.
How long do you want to keep that video on file before you delete it? If you say “forever,” get ready to write an increasingly large check each month. If you can live with, say, three months, that’s about 30 terabytes worth of storage, plus whatever you keep around for open cases.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the largest cloud storage services in the world. Netflix uses them for their trove of streaming video. There are a lot of variables, but the figure I got for keeping this volume of video online with AWS, creating a new volume at the end of each sift, is $6260.79. Apply whatever multiples you might need for more cops or a longer retention interval.
Let's just go with about 5,000 beat coppers (yeah, we know it's less, but it's a multiple of 50...cut us some slack). That's a monthly storage bill closing on $1 million for the first year alone (rounding up for Chicago's corrupt considering practices). Not really an amount that Rahm is going to part with easily...or any future mayors.
Labels: info for the police
posted by SCC at 12:04 AM
49 Comments:
I am aware of the cost and difficulty in storing vast amounts of video data. That is why I used to leave my video camera in the squad car on for the entire shift. I figured I might as well break the bank and pretty soon no one would give a shit if anything was being recorded or not. The volume would simply overwhelm anyone's ability to archive it. That and the wireless transmission of archived data became overwhelmed and didn't work much of the time.
These misguided fools yelling for a camera on every cop absolutely DID NOT take the economics of this into consideration...
Fuck you progressive twits...
Take the money from the government entitlements,
give-aways and inducements to pretty please play along and stop shooting everything that moves including each other.
(What up though Ceasefire? ;^)
Ugh!
Feel an "attack" coming on!
"I gits a check cuz I gots a bad temper, Office!"
Dafuck outta heah!
And The Police are the problem eh?
Maybe coppers should get a crazy check for riding around in a blue & white because insanity IS repeatedly doing the same thing while expecting a different result.
"Don't talk to the police." Says the "community activist," says the sheister. Says the good lawyer. Says everyone.
Now inject a camera and see what you get. Oh, there'll be a lot of hot he-say-she-say from the jacked-up idiots, maybe leading right to a lethal injection -- people who put beatdown videos on the tube never cared anyway -- but no rational person is going to say a word.
Face it. Can't see an improvement coming here...
Never you fear!
Rahm and his too cute and too clever
propeller heads are here!
Some fast and greasy operative with Rahm & Co. is already in front of the money curve on this.
One of them will chirp brightly...
"We'll set up our own proprietary storage and do it cheaper. (But still gouge the mother-lovin' shit out of the taxpayers.)
"Ohhh! My head!"
They always seem to find money for the things THEY want.
A 3 terabyte hard drive costs about $200, so you could store a years worth of body cam footage on $8,000 worth of hard drives. Even adding redundancy to that to cover hard drive failure and you're under $20,000 for a year, plus the servers. I really don't see why you'd need it for longer than that. So no, not millions of dollars per year.
How much does icloud cost
How about only Sergeants wear body cameras to save on costs?
This guy's info about video storage is *way* off. They'd probably be capturing frame rates in the neighborhood of 24 fps -likely lower in practice- at vga (640x480) resolution only. With average h264 encoding, that comes to 840 or so Kb/s bitrate. Which equates to 6.3 MB/minute, if every picture is very complex and nuanced. Dude is off by at least a factor of 2. An array to accommodate that amount of storage for 2-3 years is commonplace, I manage several, much larger SANs. Storage is cheaper than it's ever been right now and the price of it will continue to drop in the future.
Now add in "City of Chicago approved vendors". Vanecko/Daley digital storage Inc. will be making a hefty monthly profit.
Storage cost estimations there are wrong, as are the data usage figures.
Just saying.
Rahm will have the $$$, once he gets his pension changes!
Wow! Alright, let's get moving. Anyone ready to invest with me in a building full of cloud storage servers? Maybe we can get on the ground floor of that contract.
Follow the money back to Chicago.See who from Chicago is finacially benifiting from this.Who owns interests in body camera vendors???
I attended the joint legislative hearing on body cameras, as did PBPA and FOP, including Dean. The Police Executive Research Forum testified about the NOPD and how the body cams were not prohibitively expensive, maybe $800K-$1MM to buy, but the annual data storage cost nearly $2MM.
The additional problem is data storage and for how long? Similar to dash cams? Similar to radio communications? 30 day loops unless pulled?
Another very good point was raised about the cams that hasn't been exploited yet: they don't show everything. As you know from dash cams and surveillance videos, not everything is captured. However, on TV everything is captured in crystal clear footage; that is simply unreasonable for body-cams. For example: in a struggle, will the camera be turned away from the fight? For bike officers, the probability the camera will show footage of the ground or the street in front of the officer is high. Remember, these will not be Go-Pro, headmounted cameras. But even if they were, in a struggle, in a dark alley or dark building, reaching into a car on a traffic stop, the video quality may be poor. Consequently, the conspiracy theorists will allege the police altered the cameras or intentionally shut them off.
And not trying to be too pedantic, but HIPAA only covers health-care providers. If you are not licensed providers, you are not obligated under that law.
I hear there's this cutting edge technology that's gonna solve this problem.
There going to transfer all the video onto DVD discs! They are cheap & easily stored......
Oh wait, we do that now for court.......
Never mind........
You just made my head hurt with all these numbers.
right,but we don't have money for anything else, the city is broke. but we have money for cameraq storage, blow me.......
This will eventually fall apart like the in car cameras. Lack of care, maintenance. It will all be junk. Never user in car camera in court. Never saw it used, except by glenview police to jam up sgt. Jp.
http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-the-nsas-utah-data-center-2013-6
They have plenty of room to store data here. Only the "chosen" dogs, of which cops are NOT a member, won't be tracked. Cops. You're in their sites, no different than everyone else.
And the so-called "racist" White cops, top on the list.
Oh Whitey, are ya starting to see how the "game" is played?
Destroy Western man and they rule the world. What is Cultural Marxism for? Why, it is designed to eliminate you.
I bet there are companies already popping up: Daley Data Storage, Vanecko Video Media, or Walsh Recovery....
Maybe RAHM will implement a body camera tax to cover these astronomical costs. I'm sure all these protestors would have no problem paying said tax..... wait who am I kidding? The majority of the rioters and agitators don't pay taxes.
Taxes will rise to manage this must-need tool of law enforcement...that is all.
How much does the city pay out on lawsuits annually? Even at a million dollars per year, video storage would cost much less.
Hey man, Rahm's supporters got to make money somewhere somehow.
Have community volunteers.... Each one would follow the police with their phones & video each encounter...each beat will have their own utube channel... No need for court & special once those endorsements start rolling in!!!
You fools are quite uninformed. A 2 terabytes drive is about $100. Why use online storage when you can pay sii $200 for a $100 drive. Now say you need 1000 tb that's 500 2tb drives. 500x200 is a mere 100,000 bucks. Ez peezee japaneezee. Now add the necessary racks and storage facilities. No problem. It will all stop working anyway.
Just skip the pension payments that's all ya gotta do. Plenty of money just sitting there waiting to be used.
I mean it's for your safety!
Will it fit on a thumb drive?
Which one of Rahm's connected friends will receive this contract?
@Anonymous 12/06/2014 12:58:00 AM
I will reluctantly take the job and the city can deliver my truckloads of money directly to the Caymans. Better ding the taxpayers for the shipping too, it's only fair.
In theory the body cameras sound like a good idea. But this is Chicago, and if it can get screwed up, it will.
The data retention and storage will bankrupt the city. I'm guessing a copper shoots 10gb of video a day (HD video, 5mb/s, 6 hours of video). Do the math. The City won't be able to handle that amount of data unless we start building some bigass data center.
Using Amazon's storage is an idea because it's easier to cut them a check versus build it out. The numbers from PoliceOne seems somewhat accurate. Not to mention that you will need meatbags to actually properly manage the data.
Overall, this is a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
riq said...
This guy's info about video storage is *way* off. They'd probably be capturing frame rates in the neighborhood of 24 fps -likely lower in practice- at vga (640x480) resolution only. With average h264 encoding, that comes to 840 or so Kb/s bitrate. Which equates to 6.3 MB/minute, if every picture is very complex and nuanced. Dude is off by at least a factor of 2. An array to accommodate that amount of storage for 2-3 years is commonplace, I manage several, much larger SANs. Storage is cheaper than it's ever been right now and the price of it will continue to drop in the future.
12/06/2014 03:54:00 AM
NERD!
Does anyone know the monthly bill for uploading the in car cameras, as well as the cell phone bill for the pdt's?? Those would be some interesting numbers and at least give you a starting place.
I wonder who is getting kickbacks from this program?
Contact the IRS.
They're good at saving e-mails...
Crime will go up.
Aren't aldermen under city ordinance considered peace officers? So shouldn't they be required to wear one while they're "on-duty"?
Come on guys, I know you'll come up with something totally legal, and within GO's to handle this.
After all this is chicago.
Be Safe(Ret)
You fools are quite uninformed. A 2 terabytes drive is about $100. Why use online storage when you can pay sii $200 for a $100 drive. Now say you need 1000 tb that's 500 2tb drives. 500x200 is a mere 100,000 bucks. Ez peezee japaneezee. Now add the necessary racks and storage facilities. No problem. It will all stop working anyway.
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Actually you're the uninformed one. You forgot the Vaneko shipping and handling fee which adds another zero to the price. 100,000 bucks turns to a million like that.
Let's face it. These cameras will save your job and save the city millions in lawsuits. The cameras change the behavior of offenders if they know you have them AND they will change the behavior of the officers who wear them. They will either act more professional or they will avoid contact.
You fools are quite uninformed. A 2 terabytes drive is about $100. Why use online storage when you can pay sii $200 for a $100 drive. Now say you need 1000 tb that's 500 2tb drives. 500x200 is a mere 100,000 bucks. Ez peezee japaneezee. Now add the necessary racks and storage facilities. No problem. It will all stop working anyway.
The drive cost you are quoting is not server grade. Those are more expensive.
"Let's face it. These cameras will save your job and save the city millions in lawsuits..."
I'm a lawyer, and I can tell you that you haven't a clue what your talking about.
As a defense, I would use the video the same way the media does; Does Rodney King ring a bell to you - Does Ferguson - or New York?
Your video is worth millions- right or wrong- it's worth millions in front of the right jury.
Proponents say that body cameras reduce complaints.
I would say that this would be true, and not because the cameras are somehow modifying the behavior of the police. I would guess the reason is just like the affidavits did; the body cameras will reduce the overall number of false, lying, untruthful complaints against police officers who are doing their jobs.
As an aside, I commend those members of the Ferguson community, who spoke the truth to the grand jury, despite the fear and intimidation they encountered within their own community.
How about a class starting around 3rd grade in grammar school, to teach respect, and the handling and consequences of firearms! Instead they go home to the 22 year old mother and baby daddy, who teaches them hate !!
Hey! Lawyer! Here's your clue:
THE Rialto study began in February 2012 and will run until this July. The results from the first 12 months are striking. Even with only half of the 54 uniformed patrol officers wearing cameras at any given time, the department over all had an 88 percent decline in the number of complaints filed against officers, compared with the 12 months before the study, to 3 from 24.
Rialto’s police officers also used force nearly 60 percent less often — in 25 instances, compared with 61. When force was used, it was twice as likely to have been applied by the officers who weren’t wearing cameras during that shift, the study found. And, lest skeptics think that the officers with cameras are selective about which encounters they record, Mr. Farrar noted that those officers who apply force while wearing a camera have always captured the incident on video.
Google it to see the whole study.
Yo Boss! Here's your own clue...
"Rialto’s police officers also used force nearly 60 percent less often — in 25 instances, compared with 61. When force was used, it was twice as likely to have been applied by the officers who weren’t wearing cameras..."
This means that the officers wearing the cameras were less likely to involve themselves in the situation, while the officers without the camera were more likely to intervene.
So you want coward officers to stand around, scared, while others do the job!?
Next, Chicago isn't Rialto, it's CHICAGO, a whole different police world.
Chicago's criminal court and civil court are two completely different judicial playgrounds; an officer can be cleared in criminal court, but found liable in federal court; compare Rialto's police related arrests and law suits to Chicago's- HUGE stat differences.
If you put video in front of a federal jury, it won't matter whether the cop was doing his job the right way, the city will settle the case with a pay out, and the local "journalists" will be spoon fed police fodder for a lifetime.
Now if we use the proof of the camera video to protect an officer from lies and intentional hyperbolic allegations, through civil prosecution, to fullest extent of the law, AND allow for civil recourse for the officer if the media and a lawyer manipulates or slanders them, publicly, on bias, then I'm with video all the way.
But in order for you to show full support of the officers, then you would have to hire, permanently, a very large law firm to handle this, and I don't EVER see that happening here in Chicago.
And please STOP the statistical numbers BS, it doesn't work here, Chicago invented the shell game nonsense a long time ago.
Which raises the question, who is pushing for body cameras? My guess is the makers of body cameras. You don't really need body cameras when there's already cameras everywhere. Cameras placed by government authorities, cameras on businesses, on private residences , cell phone cameras, dash cams.... Do we really need friggin body cams? Hell no!
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