The Dallas Police Department (DPD) has unveiled the new “Connect Dallas” initiative, hoping to collaborate with residents, businesses, and organizations by using registered cameras as a tool to fight crime.
The innovative new program invites residents and business owners to register their security cameras through the Fūsus platform, which creates an interactive map accessible only to authorized DPD personnel, according to the Connect Dallas website.
The Connect Dallas camera initiative hopes to address challenges faced by investigators in gathering evidence during emergencies or criminal investigations.
“Part of building trust with the community is engagement,” Christopher Lindenau, CEO of Fūsus said.
Traditionally, police rely heavily on eyewitness accounts and lengthy investigations to piece together their criminal cases. With this new Connect Dallas registry program, the DPD claims they can quickly identify nearby cameras in the event of a crime, enabling them to request digital footage directly from the camera’s owners.
“You choose how and when your camera would be accessible to the DPD. By continuing to partner with us you are helping us protect our city, and together we will keep Dallas safe,” said Police Chief Eddie Garcia in a recent social media post promoting the camera collaboration initiative.
Registering your camera is free, requiring less than a minute to complete via a secure online portal, according to the DPD.
The DPD also claims they will not have live access to any registered cameras. Instead, the camera registry will help officers pinpoint cameras that may have captured crucial evidence during crimes without eyewitnesses or any other supplemental evidence found on or near the scene.
The Connect Dallas initiative allows camera owners to have complete control over their video systems. The DPD cannot access live feeds without explicit permission from those who own the camera and register it with the police. Owners allegedly also can revoke that access at any time to the police.
In addition, the Connect Dallas initiative also will include emergency features for businesses and schools, allowing them to use a panic button to activate real-time streaming during emergencies, per the ConnectDallas website. This live-streaming capability during emergency situations can provide first responders with immediate visual information on what type of emergency situation they are walking up on, as opposed to going in “blind.”
Other cities in North Texas, including Arlington, have also implemented similar camera-sharing programs.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – crime is not just a policing issue, It’s a community issue. We need the community’s help and support to address crime in our city. One of the most impactful ways our residents and businesses can do that is by providing us with quick access to surveillance footage when an incident occurs,” Arlington Chief of Police Al Jones said via press release.
At the time of publication, Connect Arlington’s camera registry program had 1949 “registered cameras,” and 305 “integrated cameras.” Dallas has quickly surpassed those numbers with 2306 active “registered cameras” and 276 “integrated cameras.”