By Daniel Zehnder, Founder and President of Principis Group, Inc
In 2016, I began to follow the deployment of body-worn cameras (BWC) in private sector businesses in England. Our law enforcement counterparts in England were years ahead of us in the United States with BWC implementation so it seemed natural for them to also be forward thinking about migrating the technology to non-public applications. I saw a personal business opportunity here in the US with bringing lessons learned in England, combined with those learned in US law enforcement, to provide private sector businesses with a comprehensive plan for effectively implementing BWC. I started a second company, Body-Worn Camera Solutions, and went to work. The response from the business community was tepid at best. I spoke at several national conferences, consulted with some casino corporations, hospitals and security firms but the feedback was almost universal. With the exception of security companies, few other enterprises back then saw the rational, or more importantly, the cost-benefit for deploying BWC. I closed Body-Worn Camera Solutions in 2019 and combined operations with Principis Group. I continue to advocate that any business that has high-risk/high-liability/high-loss operations should consider BWC and still do the occasional business consultation.
Over the intervening years there has been a slow, and growing, application of BWC in business but mainly in the security and hospital (security) industries. So, it was interesting to read all the recent news about the deployment of BWC within the TJX family of companies (TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Sierra & Home Estate). According to a June 5th, 2024, article in the New York Post, a spokesperson for the company stated that the company was experimenting with BWC to “de-escalate incidents, deter crime, and demonstrate to our associates and customers that we take safety in our stores seriously”. Now, clearly, I was not privy to the company’s internal discussions leading to this decision, but the statement by the spokesperson raised a “red flag” that their understanding of BWC operations may be inadequate. Indeed, on the same day, CNN Business published a piece that dug a little deeper, adding that TJX wasn’t alone in looking into the technology. They stated that 35% of US retailers were examining the applicability of BWC technology. They also reported that the TJX Financial Chief, John Klinger, stated about BWC deployment, “It’s almost like a de-escalation, where people are less likely to do something when they’re being videotaped”. This reinforced my opinion that they may not have thought this fully through. The CNN piece went on to present comments by TJX loss prevention workers who doubted the usefulness of BWC in deterring theft. The coverage on the move by TJX was covered by much of the mainstream media. Few asked the real questions: Will it work and are they doing it right? One article in Techdirt on June 11th, by Tim Cushing, probably came the closest by writing “It’s truly a half-assed rollout and it’s setting everyone up for failure. Either it will make non-loss prevention hourly jobs more dangerous, or it will have zero effect because would-be criminals haven’t been deterred by dozens or hundreds of cameras already present in retail outlets”.
This was the reason I started Body-Worn Camera Solutions years ago to help companies not do something costly and “half-assed”. Clearly, I was ahead of my time. And now, companies seem to be racing to deploy BWC for the wrong reasons, spurred on by BWC manufacturers who have been eyeing this market space for years, and attempting to follow the law enforcement “template”. Good luck.
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