SJUK hears exclusively from Cian Ó Cuinneagáin, Chief Technology and Product Officer, HALOS
At HALOS, we’ve always been focused on designing solutions that remove friction from the investigative process – whether it’s reviewing a passenger dispute, investigating an allegation of staff misconduct or responding to a safety incident caught on camera.
Video evidence is an incredibly powerful asset in security, compliance and operational monitoring – but it’s historically been time-consuming to work with.
When teams are reviewing hours of footage to find a key moment, every second spent manually scrubbing video is time not spent acting on the information.
We’re developing smarter, more intuitive ways to locate relevant footage faster.
HALOS was designed to work differently.
We take a machine-first approach to video evidence classification, with a system that starts indexing footage the moment it’s captured.
We use computer vision to identify visual elements in a scene – such as people, objects, gestures or environmental cues – and layer those with metadata like time, location and camera type.
This means every body-worn camera video is automatically processed into searchable components, making retrieval much faster and more reliable.
We’re also in the process of developing a new search capability – a tool that will allow users to retrieve video simply by describing what they’re looking for in plain language.
For instance, someone might search for “man in a blue jacket walking towards exit” or “aggressive behaviour near front entrance.”
As part of our ongoing development work, we’re developing ways to link related footage together, so if you’ve found one useful clip, the system can suggest others that may be relevant to the same incident.
That’s useful in environments with multiple cameras – like hospitals or retail floors – where activity moves across spaces and information can be missed in isolated footage.
Interoperability is something we see as fundamental to how modern video systems should operate — and it’s already built into how HALOS works today.
Too often, organisations are forced to manage incidents across disconnected and fragmented systems, where footage, reports and alerts live in disparate places.
That slows everything down and makes it harder to build a complete picture when it matters most.
HALOS is designed to work as part of a broader ecosystem.
Our platform can connect directly with other technologies — whether that’s incident reporting tools, access control systems, other sources of security footage capture or AI-powered analytics — so video evidence flows naturally into existing workflows.
That means no duplication of effort, no jumping between systems and no delays when teams need answers quickly.
We’re also seeing growing interest from clients in building more connected environments — places where body-worn cameras interact with other data sources, from fixed security footage to IoT sensors to real-time alerts. The value in that isn’t just operational; it’s strategic.
It allows organisations to respond faster, understand risks more clearly and make better-informed decisions across the board.
HALOS’ body-warn camera fits into that vision by being flexible, integrable and ready to scale with whatever infrastructure our clients already have in place.
One of our UK-based transport clients has been using HALOS body-worn cameras across its network to support both passenger and employee safety.
Like many operators in high-footfall environments, they were seeing a rise in verbal aggression and antisocial behaviour – and their teams needed a way to both de-escalate incidents in the moment and provide clear evidence when things did go wrong.
By rolling out HALOS body-worn cameras across the workforce, they’ve been able to create a visible deterrent that helps reduce the likelihood of conflict.
But, just as importantly, they now have instant access to secure body-worn footage whenever an incident is reported.
That’s improved response times and given both management and security teams greater confidence in resolving disputes – whether that’s reviewing an altercation between passengers, supporting a staff member who’s been verbally abused or simply confirming the facts of what took place.
The footage retrieved from the body-worn cameras, integrates into their reporting systems so incidents can be reviewed in context, with video forming part of the official case documentation.
We’ve had feedback that it’s not only made staff feel safer but also strengthened their relationships with law enforcement and regulators – because with these body-worn cameras, they can respond quickly, transparently and with evidence to back them up.
With privacy compliance becoming an increasingly complex issue, especially across different regions, we take a privacy-conscious approach to ensure we meet local and international regulations.
That starts with building secure, encrypted systems that give organisations full control over how footage is captured, stored and accessed.
We support flexible retention settings, strict access permissions and detailed audit trails to ensure transparency and accountability at every stage.
Importantly, we work closely with clients to understand the specific legal and cultural requirements of their region — whether that’s GDPR in Europe, state-level regulations in the US or sector-specific guidance.
Our goal is to provide the tools and frameworks organisations need to use body-worn camera video responsibly, with clear policies that respect the privacy of both staff and the public.
Surveillance technology can enhance safety and trust, but only when deployed with careful attention to ethics, transparency and local compliance.
This is one of the most common – and justified – concerns we hear from clients.
If AI is helping generate reports, how can you be sure they’ll stand up in a legal or regulatory setting?
HALOS’ technology will allow users to take a cautious and transparent approach to AI in reporting for body-worn cameras.
Our goal isn’t to automate decision-making but to enhance the consistency and completeness of case documentation.
Every action taken on the platform – from redaction to annotation to report export – is logged in our audit trail.
That makes it easy to demonstrate chain of custody, ensure evidence hasn’t been tampered with and verify how each report was created.
We’re also developing body-worn camera capabilities to generate case summaries and transcripts that link back to raw or redacted footage.
Our vision is to make every report traceable and transparent, so there’s always a clear evidential chain.
As these features evolve, we’re focusing heavily on accuracy, auditability and ensuring they support compliance across industries.
Ultimately, admissibility depends on transparency and we’ve built our systems with that principle at the core.
The future of AI in public safety isn’t about replacing people – it’s about augmenting their ability to respond, assess and protect.
Right now, AI is already playing a valuable role in helping teams make better use of their body-worn camera video data – through automation, redaction, transcription and smarter search.
But we see a much bigger opportunity in edge-based intelligence and real-time context for body-worn technology.
As sensors become more powerful and networks faster, we’ll be able to process body-worn camera video directly at the point of capture.
That opens up potential for instant threat detection – identifying aggressive behaviour, suspicious movements or policy violations as they happen – and alerting human operators in real time.
As well as more instantaneous reactions to incidents, this technology could also help security teams prevent them from happening altogether.
It also means AI can become more context aware.
Instead of applying a body-worn one-size-fits-all model, the system could adapt to the specific environment it’s deployed in – a school, a hospital, a factory floor – and understand what ‘normal’ looks like in that setting.
That contextual intelligence will be critical in reducing false positives and focusing attention where it’s truly needed.
Crucially, this shift must happen alongside strong ethical governance.
As we expand AI’s role in security and compliance, we need to ensure it’s always transparent, accountable and designed with human oversight in mind.
That’s the future we’re building at HALOS – one where technology supports people, rather than replacing them.
This article was originally published in the May edition of Security Journal UK. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.
