Lone workers often face the threat of danger in their daily lives. Lone working doesn’t always mean a higher risk of violence but it does make people more vulnerable, according to the Health and Safety Executive, which defines violence as “any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work” – including verbal threats.
For law enforcement agencies, the introduction of body-worn cameras marked a turning point in modern policing. A landmark study led by Cambridge University showed a 93 per cent reduction in citizen complaints against officers, which experts attributed to the presence of a “digital witness” encouraging cooler heads to prevail.
Wearable technology is now a fast-growing trend – a quick Google search yields more than two million results for ‘lone worker devices’ – but individuals and their employers can soon find themselves weighed down by multiple different gadgets such as two-way radios, wrist alarms, trackable pendants and SOS key fobs, many of which don’t communicate with each other or the head office.
Storm has launched a new service which brings together the increased transparency and other safety benefits of body-worn cameras with the company’s world-leading push-to-talk technology. This consolidates the functions of multiple lone worker devices into one body-worn camera equipped with push-to-talk technology and integrated into Storm’s workforce management system.
To deliver the service, Storm selected the Hytera VM780, a small, lightweight body camera which supports a range of features, including full HD video quality, night vision and integration with other wearable equipment. It enables users to capture and record what happens in the workplace and share photos and audio recordings with the command centre over a 4G network.
Luke Wilkinson, founding director of Storm, said: “Just as body-worn cameras marked a turning point in law enforcement, we believe our world-leading push-to-talk technology can bring extra safety and assurance to lone workers in other sectors such as security, transport and recycling.”
Storm supplies services such as push-to-talk, push-to-message, video and image sharing, location and SOS alerting capabilities to help organisations improve safety, increase productivity, reduce costs and enhance working relationships.
To find out more, contact us via hello@storm.co.uk
