Some extra surveillance options may soon be on the way for Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) in the City of Kitchener, with a committee agreeing to move forward with potential CCTV cameras in a few key areas.
It comes as WRPS presented information on the initiative to the city’s Finance and Corporate Services Committee, a step which was taken prior to Waterloo approving a similar project in the past.
The presentation was given by Deputy Chief with WRPS, Jennifer Davis, who said the plan is to add CCTV cameras across the region through a 10-year expansion strategy.
“The plan would be to actually expand and roll out 2026 cameras, as well to more locations later this year,” Davis stated.
She specified that the intention is not to use the cameras as a live feed directly, but rather to access the footage retroactively through investigations as needed.
“A prior robbery here, for instance, we can add those license plates to what’s called a ‘hot list,’ so when that vehicle actually passes by one of the cameras, it would create an alert, and then we know that vehicle is back in our region,” Davis said.
“Then it allows us to actually start to deploy resources to the areas where we think that vehicle could be going.”
The cameras themselves would be placed on already present infrastructure in the city, with the current proposed locations including along King Street in Downtown Kitchener, as well as on Fairway Road near Fairview Park Mall.
While the presentation introduced many of the benefits of moving ahead with those potential CCTV cameras, some councillors brought up potential future issues around added surveillance.
“It is a positive step, but down a potentially very negative road in the future of surveillance,” said Councillor Scott Davey.
“My biggest concern is, yes, we’re covered off today, but I’m not sure who’s going to be covering us off tomorrow.”
Davey specifically cited the growing technological landscape across, not just the region, but across the country and the globe as some possible cause for concern.
“The, frankly, chilling advancements in artificial intelligence that we’re seeing, where they can monitor and analyze, and pick out what people are wearing, their demographics, facial recognition, (sort through) thousands of hours of video in moments. Frankly, it’s frightening.”
The committee ultimately approved the motion brought forward to adopt the CCTV cameras in the city, but it will still need approvals at the council level before it will be fully implemented.
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