PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — For the last few months, officials in Delaware County have used a surveillance system in the City of Chester, called Delco Connect.
“We’ve been able to solve multiple crimes already, in the few months that it’s been up and running,” said Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.
The system allows police to better access already installed cameras throughout the city. But they want to take it a step further by letting businesses and residents register their surveillance cameras with law enforcement.
“We have these cameras pre registered and we can just send emails out and find out who had their cameras on, it’s a huge saving to the taxpayers and on the other side of that, the real savings is if we can deter crime.”
“The interesting part about this particular platform is it allows real time looks from law enforcement through cameras that agreed to do this.”
He says building this network will help officials save time, energy and manpower.
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“Maybe even deter crimes from happening when people are aware that law enforcement has eyes out there.”
He’s hoping they can eventually implement this system across the county.
“It’s a tool most big cities are using these days to try and connect cameras and to have them operated and observed in real time by police officers, because it makes the whole community more secure.”
However, there’s been pushback on these kinds of surveillance programs from organizations like the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
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In a statement to KYW they said, “Connecting everyone’s camera to a platform that allows unfettered, real-time access by law enforcement is just one step closer to destroying any privacy in public we may still have and creating the dystopia of ubiquitous surveillance.”
They feel more funding should be put into the communities instead of using funds to watch communities 24/7.