About

What is it?

CAMSafe is a CCTV and security video registry aimed at keeping our community safe and assisting police solve crime.

Think of it like Neighbourhood Watch 2.0.

The program is set up to be a registry of anyone who owns security cameras, CCTV systems or doorbell cams in the province of Ontario. Only police have access to the database of registrants. CAMSafe only requests basic contact information and camera locations – nothing else. No account information or specifics required. And you can change or delete your information at any time.

All this program is aimed at doing is providing a starting point for police officers to find video footage to assist an investigation.

For example, if there was a break and enter to a home on a city street, the investigating officer can log onto CAMSafe and much like Google Maps, geofence an area and see if there are anyone who has registered a camera in the area. From that point, the officer – using the contact information provided – would request the footage from the owner.

A wee little bit of history

Inspired by similar projects in Red Deer Alberta (reddeercapture.ca) and in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia (safecam.phillypolice.com), CAMSafe sought to bring a registry to the next level through community sponsorship and integration.

In 2020, our founding sponsor Alarm Systems (alarmsys.com) partnered with Belleville Police (bellevilleps.ca) and a local website designer to develop a separate, innovative website to house the initiative.

In early 2021 as the project set to launch, partnerships were developed with government agencies and commercial businesses to ensure registered locations of cameras encompassed all regions and areas of the municipality.

As officers and investigators began utilizing CAMSafe to solve crime and the public increased registrations, the project began growing at a significant pace - spreading to other communities such as Petawawa, Pembroke and Peterborough.

As it stands, CAMSafe is being utilized by a number of areas in Ontario with the goal to provide communities across the province an opportunity to partner with their local police agencies to solve crime.

In early 2022, international web development firm Space-O Technologies (spaceotechnologies.com) came on board as a significant web partner and consultant, which has elevated the CAMSafe platform to a model that could be utilized as a crime prevention strategy in communities across the country.

Around that time the Ontario Provincial Police (opp.ca) came aboard as a significant partner, with plans to roll out CAMSafe to OPP detachments across the province within the next year.

A number of other policing agencies and communities across the province are scheduled to come on board as well in the coming months.

Partnerships aside, the success of CAMSafe is built on the participation of the pubic – so please, if you have security cameras in your home or business or you are a public agency, consider registering!

For more information about Camsafe or how you could partner with us, please contact us.