CAMSafe founder & Belleville police sargeant Jeremy Ashley. Photo by Jacob Willis, QNet News
By Jacob Willis [1]
BELLEVILLE – The Quinte West OPP is calling upon the public to register their security/doorbell cameras after the service announced Tuesday they have joined the CAMSafe program.
First launched by the Belleville Police Service in June 2021, CAMSafe is a web-based app that allows officers on patrol to quickly find where cameras are located in a neighbourhood. From there, they can contact the owners and request access to the footage for use in ongoing investigations.
Belleville Police Sgt. Jeremy Ashley, a Loyalist College graduate, created CAMSafe as a way to make sourcing video evidence easier.
“It’s a phonebook,” Ashley said. “It points you in the direction of where evidence could be, and it’s up to the officer to make contact and request the footage.”
Ashley told stories of the great lengths officers sometimes had to take to acquire video evidence in neighbourhoods.
He said they would have to canvas the area at times, going door-to-door asking households for footage.
“Video footage has become a huge part of criminal investigations. It’s the best evidence,” Ashley said.
“But it’s hard to source. If neighbourhood cameras are registered, that information is usually kept in a silo somewhere – it’s not shared. CAMSafe makes it accessible for officers on the road, from their phone, tablet and desktop.”
Residents in Quinte West who wish to register their doorbell cameras, CCTV systems or Wyze Cams can go to CAMSafe.ca [2].
Quinte West OPP media relations officer Devin Leeworthy says that even after registering, they have the right to deny access to their cameras.
“We don’t actually have access to anybody’s cameras. CAMSafe only provides us information on who has cameras and where they’re pointing, so that we can reach out to residents in the area of an incident and ask if they would like to voluntarily check their cameras and provide us any footage they might have,” Leeworthy said.
He said he is excited to add CAMSafe as “another tool in the toolbox” for his policing unit.
“I think it’s a big step forward,” Leeworthy said.
“It really comes down to community participation. The more people we have registered, the more we can utilize that information to help solve crimes in the community.”
Leeworthy went on to talk about the importance of video evidence.
“It’s easy to understand how valuable of an asset this could be, I know you’ve heard of the incidents that have occurred in our community and surrounding communities, in regards to cemetery mischief [3] and vehicle break-and-enters. The quicker we can access security footage, the sooner we can bring those responsible involved to justice,” he said.
“At the end of the day, the police are the community and the community is the police. We have to work together to create a safer community.”
Quinte West OPP is the first policing agency outside of Belleville to adopt the program. In Belleville, CAMSafe has been a success with over 600 cameras registered. The service is used “daily” by officers on patrol, for cases ranging from break-and-enters to kidnappings.
Ashley says the CAMSafe web app is fully scalable, able to withstand growth on a provincial and even national level. With growing interest from policing units near Belleville and beyond, Quinte West may be the first of many cities to join the program.
“Just this week I was giving a presentation near Ottawa to a police service interested in coming on board. It’s neat to see something you started grow like this,” he said.