CCTV & Briefcam

The county-wide system is owned and managed by Cumbria Constabulary and currently consists of 125 CCTV camera feeds at various locations across the county.

The specialist Designated Monitoring Unit (DMU) located within Command and Control at Cumbria Police Headquarters, is operated by trained Police Officers and staff who control and monitor this system 24/7, 365 days a year.

The Dedicated Monitoring Unit support's Officers throughout the County dealing with a variety of live incident capture, intelligence development and evidence gathering helping to keep Cumbria a safe place to live, work and visit.

The usual investigative process for CCTV/video viewing and analysis is a manual labour-intensive task for officers which incurs a huge amount of time and money from CCTV Officers responding to urgent requests for analysis. A proof of concept of a Video Analytics tool was undertaken by the CCTV Replacement Project in 2022 and established the benefits of such a tool to the Constabulary in terms of time savings and efficiencies in analysing CCTV/video footage and identifying persons of interest.

The footage will be analysed within Briefcam, which uses algorithms to recognise, categorise and log moving objects on the screen. We will use the system to examine live monitoring or recorded footage for an image or description that we have been instructed to find. We will not use the system to scan footage and identify everyone seen in the footage. As Briefcam processes footage, it recognises and extracts objects, along with information about the type and attributes of those objects, e.g. people, bags, clothing, vehicles, animals, size, colour, speed, path, direction and dwell time. Briefcam also offers a facial recognition functionality, but at this stage we are not using it and any future use will be subject to a separate DPIA.

No Profiling capability is provided, and there are no automated decisions. The system will provide all results for the user to confirm their choice of a match to any image. Any decision about a positive identification will be made by the user not the system.

Prior to implementing video analytics the Constabulary consulted Cumbria’s independent Ethics and Integrity Panel and Strategic Independent Advisory Group

Briefcam will be available to members of the CCTV Dedicated Monitoring Unit and 53  specially trained officers for investigations. All users given access to Briefcam will have a policing purpose to use the system, and will be given training prior to use, which will be logged and managed by the training staff and CCTV Manager. Staff employed by the Processor in order to provide a managed service will also have access to the data, who have all been vetted and SC cleared.

Cumbria Constabulary utilise the innovative use of technology where the benefits of public safety, and officer efficiency are identified.

The Fūsus by Axon system allows for registration of residential and commercial CCTV systems and Doorbell Cameras across Cumbria.

The Connect Cumbria registry is a secure platform where you can register your CCTV and doorbell cameras.

By registering, you can help Cumbria Police identify potential CCTV or video evidence following an incident. Register today and help keep your community safe.

Through this registration process -

• Cumbria Police will not have access to your cameras.
• We will only be able to view the location of registered cameras.
• We will look at locations only if there’s been an incident nearby and footage can help support our investigations.
• In 2025 Cumbria Constabulary will also start to integrate with non-residential CCTV systems.

Cumbria Constabulary currently use CCTV for the purposes of reducing crime & disorder, providing real time information about ongoing incidents, assisting with the conducting of investigations, assisting with missing person enquiries, providing intelligence, reducing the fear of crime, and helping people feel safe.

All camera locations have a Privacy Impact Assessment in place to ensure that their scope of use is limited to lawful use.

Through the Fūsus platform, Cumbria Constabulary will operate a third-party CCTV integration of private and commercial property CCTV systems. Consisting of, but not limited to, shops, filling stations, licenced premises and sporting venues located across the County. These cameras will not be monitored 24/7 however, should a policing purpose present the requirement for real time viewing / historical review of these systems; this will be with the intention of preventing and detecting crime and reducing anti-social behaviour. This will contribute to providing a safe environment for those living, working, and visiting Cumbria.

The use of the Fūsus platform aims to enhance precision policing; rather than adopting a blanket approach to CCTV, Fūsus allows for a real time visibility of third-party CCTV and viewing specific incidents. This limits intrusive surveillance of the public and negates the requirement for large scale retention of unrequired footage. 

A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is in place to establish Cumbria Constabulary's policy and procedure for the effective use of the Fūsus platform. The SOP sets out further detail about the Fūsus platform and considers the 12 guiding principles of the Surveillance Cameras Code of Practice which must be complied with.