After testing body-worn cameras on a small group of officers for nine months, the Calgary Police Service has decided it wants to eventually equip all its uniformed officers with the devices.

But police are still developing policies and guidelines about how the cameras will be used and what authorities will do with the recordings they capture — and privacy experts said it’s essential to address those questions before going much further.

“One of the principles about privacy is openness and transparency. Their policies and practices should be readily available to the public,” said Kelly Ernst, senior program director at the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership.

“They probably shouldn’t be putting the cart before the horse.”

The privacy questions haven’t caught police off guard; Supt. Nina Vaughan acknowledged Monday that the department will have to develop more detailed rules as it expands its use of the cameras.

“There will be policy around when to turn them on,” Vaughan said.

During a pilot project that began last November, police distributed 50 cameras to officers working in several areas, including patrol members, the K-9 unit, the gang suppression team and the traffic section.

Officers shot approximately 2,700 videos, activating their cameras while responding to a dispatched call or coming across a situation that required investigation.

“Really, (the videos) span the spectrum of every situation that police officers find themselves in every day,” said Vaughan.

Just over 30 of those videos have been used as evidence in court cases, with 13 of those cases ending with early resolutions — presumably, most of them guilty pleas hastened by incriminating footage.

“That old adage, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words,’ comes true,” said Howard Burns, president of the Calgary Police Association, which represents rank and file officers.

The police association backs wider use of the cameras, not just as an evidence-gathering tool, but as a way of increasing accountability and transparency in cases when people lodge complaints against officers.

“It just makes sense we have the ability to record certain instances of our interactions with the public,” Burns said.

“I see it as a necessary thing and as a positive thing.”

During the pilot project, officers activated the cameras at their discretion. Police officials said officers had no requirement to tell people they were being recorded.

Footage can be stored for a minimum of 13 months and up to 25 years, if needed, police said.

However, police said they haven’t developed policies about how long they will keep videos not used in ongoing investigations, or under what circumstances.

“They have to address all these issues before they put out a program like this any further,” Ernst said.

In the meantime, the 50 cameras that were used in the pilot project will remain on the streets.

“Certainly, the goal will be to roll them out to all uniformed officers throughout the service,” Vaughan said.

Technology and expense, as well as ethics, will also govern how police expand the camera program.