How body cams create a culture of fear

Thanks to an underage relative who’d stolen my driving licence, I recently found myself ID-less at the local Co-op. I know the woman at the checkout reasonably well, so I said hi, enquired about her day and then asked if I could have my usual vape anyway. She had the decency to look shifty and said: ‘Sorry love.’

Did she not remember me and my ID from just a few days earlier? Was she senile? Did she hate me? I suspected that the reason she was unswayable was because she was bugged. She was wearing a body worn camera and the Co-op’s Security Operations Center was spying on us.

The public is accustomed to, or at least aware of, the police’s use of body worn cameras (BWCs). But in recent years, the technology has been proliferating at a dizzying rate. BWCs are now standard among prison staff, council officials, parking wardens, firemen, nightclub bouncers, train guards, football match attendants, ambulance drivers, hospital staff on mental health wards – and coffee shop baristas.

People are sporting BWCs to protect them from us, us from them, and everyone from themselves

A sign in the Earl’s Court Caffè Nero assured me that for my safety and that of my barista, body cameras would be in operation. But why? I understand they might be handy for a prison guard or a bouncer. But, who are these nutters aggressing and committing ‘workplace violence’ against their barista?

A Transport for London worker I met in King’s Cross was also BWC’d up.

‘Everyone has to wear them,’ he told me. ‘It’s part of the network’s essential kit.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since the beginning of the year.’

‘And how does everyone feel about that? Do you like it?’

He shrugs and says: ‘Not really.’

A quick look on the TfL website informs me that it was only trialling the technology in 2021.