Des Moines police are asking residents and business owners to register their private security cameras so authorities can quickly request footage if a crime happens nearby.

WatchDSM hopes to capitalize on the growing number of residential cameras, such as Ring and Nest, to solve crimes more quickly, said Sgt. Paul Parizek, a Des Moines Police Department spokesman. Police are asking businesses to register their surveillance systems, too.

About 24 hours after the community camera program launched Monday, 86 residential and three commercial cameras had been registered.

"This truly is taking the neighborhood watch to the next level," Parizek said.

Des Moines joins a growing number of cities that have launched similar programs as the number of homeowners who have installed indoor and outdoor personal surveillance systems has grown.

More than 3.4 million doorbell recording devices were expected to be sold last year. Market research firm Strategy Analytics expects sales to reach $1.4 billion by 2023, up from $500 million last year.

Two years ago, Portland, Oregon, and Kansas City, Missouri, became among the first cities to ask for private camera registrations. About 950 residents and businesses have registered their cameras in Kansas City so far, according to officials there.

In Iowa, both Cedar Rapids and Waukee have established voluntary camera registration programs. Since its program's launch in June, Waukee has registered 93 cameras.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office has partnered with Ring's Neighbors app, which shares video uploaded by Ring system users with law enforcement. The sheriff's office gets an alert when publicly available content is posted to the app. Lt. Heath Osberg, spokesman for the Polk County Sheriff's Office, then forwards those videos to the proper jurisdiction.

"It's like any other social media platform, except you're seeing a lot of videos," said Osberg, "It's just an extra little tool."

In Des Moines, a handful of detectives and shift commanders will have access to a map of registered cameras. When a crime occurs nearby, detectives can prioritize which neighbors to speak with based on camera locations. If a camera captures video of a crime or provides a glimpse of a perpetrator, detectives will ask the camera's owner for a copy.

Both the camera registration and sharing of videos are voluntary.

Nationally, the American Civil Liberties Union has generally been OK with similar programs. Rita Bettis Austen, legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, said it's important that police do not have remote access to the cameras, "and that police would need consent or a warrant to access footage."

Des Moines police do not have remote access to the systems, Parizek said. Additionally, the addresses listed on the registry are not public record, he said.

"This is for the people who may be unaware that there was a crime in the neighborhood. For us to go to them," he said. "There's no 'Big Brother' stuff going on here."

But Jay Stanley, the national ACLU's senior policy analyst, said consent could still put homeowners in a tricky situation, according to a posting on the organization's website.

"Many people are not going to feel like they can say no to law enforcement," Stanley wrote in a blog post for ACLU's speech, privacy and technology project. "A police 'request' of a resident to voluntarily turn over video footage will never be entirely uncolored by coercion and will often come across as a demand."

Parizek maintains the program, in all capacities, is voluntary.

"Once you register, we can't demand access," he said. "It's 100% voluntary."

One thing for homeowners to think about, however, is that turning over evidence to police may result in a subpoena for their testimony if a case goes to trial, said Bob Rigg, a law professor at Drake University. A criminal defense lawyer may question the validity of a video and want the camera's owner to testify.

But Rigg said he largely sees the community camera program as a "powerful tool that police can use."

"I don't see any potential problem with police using that information, developing leads with that information or subsequently making an arrest based on that information," he said.

Had the community camera program been in place earlier, police would have been able to make an arrest much sooner in the death of 69-year-old Charles Childs, Parizek said. A neighboring business owner happened to come across surveillance footage that police said showed Donterius Bomar allegedly running over Childs with a car as he walked on the city's northeast side in January. That was about a day after police found Childs' body, Parizek said.

The registry would have allowed police to approach the business immediately and potentially arrest Bomar within hours, Parizek said.

"A neighborhood canvass takes time," he said. "We're still going to go door-to-door, but this pinpoints some priority doors to knock on."

Video footage from a home security camera in Brooklyn, Iowa, led police to the car of Cristhian Bahena Rivera, the man accused of killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts in summer 2018.

And Cedar Rapids police said private video footage from a 2018 burglary helped them locate a murder suspect. The man later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office has not yet solved a crime based on a video posted to Ring's Neighbor app, Osberg said.

Those interested can register for WatchDSM on the Des Moines Police Department's website.

Kim Norvell covers growth and development for the Register. Reach her at knorvell@dmreg.com or 515-284-8259.