ACT Policing flags system upgrades for use-of-force tracking

ACT Policing is set to upgrade its central crime reporting system to better track body-worn camera footage, particularly during use-of-force incidents.

Policing, which sits under the Australian Federal Police, plans to introduce a mandatory field within its case management system PROMIS for officers to indicate whether body-worn camera vision exists and, if not, specify why.

The field is intended to help supervisors track and report cases where body-worn camera footage is missing, identifying potential issues for review.

The measure, expected to go live by October, follows recommendations from an ombudsman's report [pdf] on the use and misuse of force by ACT Policing.

Among the recommendations is a call for clearer processes for reviewing use-of-force incidents based on risk.

In a partial acceptance of this recommendation, ACT Policing said it is working with the AFP’s CIO Command to develop a capability that will automatically categorise body-worn footage when use-of-force incidents are uploaded to its cloud platform, Evidence.com.

The hope is that such a measure will improve accountability by enabling a supervisor or auditor to search for all footage related to a specific type of force used.

However, ACT Policing said full implementation of the capability would require both project funding and endorsement from the AFP.

ACT Policing is also working with the AFP’s CIO Command to refine its central business intelligence tool, SAS Firefly, by April 2026.

This, ACT Policing said, would focus on improving its “capability to easily extract, analyse and report on use-of-force data”.

The recommendations follow a review of 6200 use-of-force reports recorded between January 2019 and December 2023 and 201 files of body-worn camera or CCTV footage for 54 separate incidents.

Responding to the ombudsman’s findings, ACT Policing said: "Whilst the vast majority of our interactions with the community are undertaken professionally and to a high standard, where mistakes are identified, ACT Policing and the AFP are committed to ensuring that these matters are reviewed, learnings are identified and appropriate action is taken.”

Of the recommendations it accepted, either partially or in full, the force added: “Work has already commenced on process improvements that are being implemented now”.