The Ministry of Citizen Protection’s plan to equip and operate 2,400 cameras on frontline police officers’ uniforms and vehicles is on schedule for execution.
Kathimerini presents the project’s details, outlined in a 109-page document that has been under consultation for the last few days.
It specifically provides for the purchase of 2,000 body cameras that will be integrated into the uniforms of police officers and 400 vehicle cameras, which will be mounted on patrol cars and motorcycles of the Hellenic Police (ELAS).
The purchase will be done through an open tender, which will be announced in the first 10 days of December, according to officials from the Ministry of Citizen Protection.
The decision to hold an international tender was made after the previous ministry leadership’s attempt to supply cameras through a direct award procedure was rejected by the Court of Auditors.
The 2,400 cameras will be constantly in pre-recording mode.
That is, they will be constantly recording on a loop and when the camera is activated, it will back up a pre-set time and begin.
Each camera will be able to transmit an image and its exact geographical position directly to an ELAS operations center, in order to improve the coordination of police forces by the heads of the operations centers.
At the end of each shift, the police officer will place the device on a special base through which the videos will be discharged or otherwise downloaded and registered in a central storage system.
According to a presidential decree signed in 2020, the data will be kept in the National Police archive for two days in cases of demonstrations and 15 days in other cases.
Videos intended for judicial purposes will be kept until they are deleted by authorized police personnel.
