The Public Security Secretariat (SSP) of Rio Grande do Sul expects police forces to begin using body cameras in 2024. The winning company was approved at the beginning of the second half of April and the equipment was included in the Minutes of State Price Registration this Thursday (25/4) by the Subsecretariat of the Central Tender Administration (Celic), linked to the Secretariat of Planning, Governance and Management (SPGG). Registration in minutes ensures that other interested bodies can join in contracting the equipment.
The competition for contracting the body camera rental service, with four participating companies, was held by Celic in May 2023. This was the second open tender to hire a company supplying the equipment. In the first of these, held in December 2022, no company had met the notice requirements.
At the end of March 2023, the fourth place in the competition was called for practical tests to be carried out, one of the requirements for approval of the winner. The company made the equipment and access to the system available in the first week of April for technical evaluation. The top three placed did not meet all the requirements of the notice.
In total, 48 requirements were verified, including: battery life; the chain of custody (integrity in documenting and maintaining the chronology of facts and ensuring that images can become potential legal evidence); full-time recording; and the ability to record event data.
User control, recording management, report by police operator, GPS location report, watermark (to identify the video) and the possibility of accessing cameras during an incident in progress were also evaluated. The equipment presented by the company met all technical requirements.
The next step will be the preparation of the contract with the winning company by SSP. Once signed, a delivery schedule for the equipment may be published. However, the expectation is that the use of body cameras will begin in Porto Alegre in 2024.
The notice includes the acquisition of 1,100 body cameras, but the quantity can be doubled if the Public Administration wants to make a new acquisition. The service has a unit cost of R$589, which represents an initial investment by the State in the new technology of approximately R$650,000.
The contracted company must provide the equipment on a lending basis. Furthermore, it will be responsible for capturing, transmitting, storing and sharing the data generated, following the determinations specified by the State security forces. Camera maintenance will also be her responsibility.
