Land Transportation Office in Central Visayas (LTO-7) Director Victor Caindec shows the body cameras that their agents will use. (DALE ISRAEL/INQUIRER VISAYAS)
CEBU CITY — The Land Transportation Office in Central Visayas (LTO-7) has started the deployment of the new body cameras for its agents in the region.
Strapped in the enforcers’ body during authorized operations, the 46 units of water-proof cameras are equipped with Global Positioning System or GPS to determine the specific location of their personnel.
Its videos are streaming real-time to a server connected to the local LTO-7 office and at the LTO central operations office in Manila.
If no mobile internet is available in an area, the video is recorded in its built-in storage cards. If there will be a need to review the video, the recorded file can be accessed.
The cameras’ deployment came days after a traffic enforcer from the Cebu City Traffic Office was caught on video receiving a bribe from a traffic violator.
Mayor Edgar Labella has already pushed for the termination of the traffic enforcer because of the incident.
According to LTO-7 Director Victor Caindec, the body cameras are tamper-proof and password protected. The passwords are only known to a select few people from the LTO main office in Manila.
Once the gadget is strapped to the enforcer, the cameras can no longer be turned off without authorization. The batteries can last up to eight hours.
During the launch, Caindec said they are on the “beta testing” stage as they await the specific guidelines from the Central Office on the use of the body cameras.
The enforcers, however, were already given their assigned body cameras with serial numbers. Its size is smaller than a regular mobile phone.
Caindec said the body cameras are not essential to any apprehension made as agents may still enforce traffic laws without them.
“But if somebody challenges the apprehension, then there are two things that we can use. We can use the evidentiary documents and the (new) body camera, or we can do it the way before these cameras have been deployed,” Caindec said.
“This is just a layer on top of what is already there.”
The initial 46 new body cameras are mostly given to agents assigned in the highly populated Metro Cebu area.