BUFFALO (WBEN - Brendan Keany) - The Erie County Legislature is communicating with the sheriff's office to help implement a body camera program for deputies, and the goal is to roll out a program in October.
However, there are some hurdles to clear before body cams become a reality. Sheriff Tim Howard sent a letter to Legislature Chair April Baskin last week expressing the need for a position to oversee the safety of all video footage obtained by the body cams.
"The sheriff sent over a letter that noted his concern about other entities outside of county law enforcement having access to any footage that is retained on body cams, which I completely understand," said Baskin. "He also expressed that he would like support for a supervisory position, someone to have a focus and a key role in managing the footage and the evidence."
"We run a 12-hour platoon shift, so we need a battery that has a minimum of a 12-hour battery life. If the vendor does not provide that, obviously they will be disqualified," said Zylka. "We will then look at the redaction software and audit trails of the evidence, and then we will look at the cloud-based system, how much that will cost us, what options there are and if we can expand it at a future date...Finally, we have to review the security of the cloud-based system. It doesn't matter if we host the evidence or if the vendor hosts the evidence, security is of the utmost importance for this, and as we see almost every day, companies, governments get hacked, and there servers and information is jeopardized."
And Baskin explained the next step of the process.
"When they are ready to select, they will come before the legislature, present their scoring sheets and why they are choosing this particular organization to go with," Baskin began. "The legislature will then have the opportunity to ask questions, and I'd also like to see the Division of Information and Support Services and the DA's department weigh in on that discussion as well so that we're making a collective decision just like when the legislature collectively decided to fund these cameras, there's no reason why we should abort the process of working together right now. At that time, we will do what we need to do to make sure the purchase happens appropriately and through the correct budget line."