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Over the past fifteen years, countless stories have cemented the importance of body-worn technology in the public safety space, from supporting the police in their pursuit to combat domestic violence to helping officers affirm public trust.
Over this time, Axon has developed new features and capabilities to go beyond simply recording and storing evidence, all designed to keep officers safer in the field and more efficient with their time and resources.
Like a cell phone, Axon body-worn cameras are intelligent, connected tools for real-time collaboration and communication, as well as enablers to get things done more quickly. However, just as there may be features on a cell phone that not everyone is aware of, there are many lesser-known body-worn camera features that can make any given day easier and more efficient.
From easy registration workflows to effectively responding in the moment to managing and sharing evidence, Axon body-worn cameras streamline operations to help focus on what’s most important — serving the community.
Before an incident
Before officers go out into the field, the features and workflows in Axon body-worn cameras help to ensure they’re set up for success from the start.
Unboxing and registration
Previously, registering body-worn cameras could be tedious and time-consuming.
Now, program managers can register a high volume of cameras — up to 100 at a time — quickly, easily, and at once using the Axon Device Manager and Axon dock, with consistent settings across the devices that adhere to agency policy.
Role-based settings
Previously, agency settings applied to all body-worn cameras, giving reduced flexibility for those in specialized roles to do their jobs most effectively with tailored settings for their needs.
Now, a wide range of role-based settings can be configured to associate specific device settings with a certain role, meaning the cameras settings align with job responsibilities and unique needs of the role.
While there are many ways that role-based settings can be implemented, two examples that have proven helpful for agencies are adjustable resolution based on the role, and Sleep Mode, allowing users to mute automatic activations when not in the field.
During an incident
In the field, an Axon body-worn camera is a real-time tool for situational awareness and safer responses. With connected features, supervisors and officers can share information in the moment and use cameras not only to understand what happened after the fact, but also what’s happening in real-time as a situation unfolds through connected features such as automatic activation, live alerts, live streaming, and bidirectional communications.
Remote camera activation using CAD data
Sometimes an officer, especially a new one, may forget to activate the camera when they arrive at the scene, missing those first minutes of response that are often the most critical. That can affect court appearances, records, criminal investigations, and more.
Axon body-worn cameras ensure officers get the evidence needed, even if the camera is not manually activated, using back-up measures like automatic activation based on certain criteria or data sources, such as CAD data or a weapon being drawn from its holster.
With the Remote Camera Activation feature, which uses a cellular signal to automatically start recording on an officer’s body-worn camera based on configured criteria as they’re dispatched to a call. This feature signals the camera to begin recording as soon as an officer’s badge ID is assigned to a dispatch, or when an officer enters a certain radius of the service call location.
Even those who do turn on their cameras manually get the benefit of increasing the rate of captured evidence even more. Remote Activation helps the officer get better records of the truth for every critical interaction.
Connected capabilities
Public safety agencies face constraints -- in resourcing and in information -- that present barriers to having the most informed, efficient, and effective responses. With information gaps, supervisors and dispatchers are left wondering where officers are and whether they're safe, what is happening in a scene, whether backup is needed, and what additional resources can help resolve the situation safely.
For their part, between preparing to enter a scene, remembering to activate cameras, and managing communications on a radio, officers have a heavy cognitive load when they should be able to focus on the task at hand. Lack of connectivity and real-time information-sharing between response teams can have impacts on officer and community safety.
To address these concerns, Axon body-worn cameras provide real-time situational awareness through live locations, alerts, and streaming. Using bidirectional communications, officers can speak directly through the camera with supervisors or specialists, gaining guidance in a quickly-evolving scenario. They are also empowered to request that a supervisor live stream in to their camera with the push of a button when they want a second set of eyes. Supervisors can quickly make the call on sending additional resources or support by seeing what’s actually happening instead of piecing together fragmented communications.
After an incident
Once officers have responded to an incident, the next step is to upload, manage, and share the associated footage. Axon body-worn cameras have specific features to help do that as transparently and efficiently as possible.
Evidence Offload over WiFi
Depending on the footage and incident, offloading body-worn camera evidence may be more urgent than the time it takes to get back to the station.
With an Axon body-worn camera, wirelessly offload evidence through a trusted personal WiFi network, allowing it to be added to Axon Evidence in a timely manner to share with stakeholders, like the attorney’s office.
Video Recall
Despite the many features through Axon Signal technology designed to ensure footage is captured, there may be a scenario in which transparency is needed for an incident that wasn’t recorded. Let’s say a critical incident occurred and the officer forgot to activate the camera but Axon Signal wireless automatic activation wasn’t set up. How can stakeholders see how the incident unfolded and ensure the right visibility into the events?
Video Recall is designed as a last failsafe for missed evidence. With the Video Recall feature, body-worn camera footage can be recovered from up to 18 hours prior, helping surface the needed body-worn camera footage for transparency and communication with the community.
Get more out of your body-worn camera
With all of the features above, Axon body-worn camera helps make the day easier, safer and more efficient while capturing high-quality evidence. Learn more about our advanced body-worn technology here and reach out to the Axon team any time here.