Les caméras de vidéosurveillance renforcent la sécurité dans toute la région
In September 2025, we added additional cameras to our existing network, integrated with Automated Licence Plate Recognition technology
York Regional Police is working tirelessly to detect, deter and arrest dangerous criminals, keeping our region a safe and secure place to live.
At a press conference on September 22, 2025, Deputy Chief of Community Safety Paulo Da Silva announced the expansion of the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Community Camera program, through which police install CCTV surveillance cameras to capture crimes happening in real time, find criminals and even to deter crimes from taking place at all.
The CCTV Community Camera program was initially launched in spring 2024, but the fall 2025 expansion saw cameras installed at 22 new locations across York Region, thanks, in part, to a funding boost of $255,000 from the provincial government. There are now over 60 cameras across the region.
“We have heard overwhelming support from our residents at town hall and community safety meetings. People want us to leverage CCTV to keep our neighbourhoods safe,” Deputy Chief Da Silva said.
The cameras, now equipped with Axon Fusus Automated Licence Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology, help to notify frontline officers if a stolen vehicle is driven into the region.
ALPR technology uses object character recognition to pick out characters on a licence plate and looks for matches with lists of stolen vehicles from our law enforcement partners. If there is a match to a stolen vehicle, the Real Time Operation Centre receives a notification, and a nearby officer is dispatched to respond.
“The message is clear for criminals: If you come here with a stolen vehicle, we will find you and arrest you,” Deputy Chief Da Silva said. “The CCTV Community Camera program has already delivered positive results, and we are confident the addition of ALPR technology will further support our frontline officers in keeping communities safe — helping us detect, deter and arrest those who commit crime.”
Frontline officers already have ALPR software in their police cruisers, but according to Nicholas Brisson of the Corporate Security Unit, who has helped to implement the technology, the stationary cameras help fill a significant gap.
“You’re not relying on the cruiser to be in the right place at the right time. The stationary cameras are in place to receive vital information, as opposed to a cruiser being two kilometres out and not capturing that data,” Brisson said. “It supplements it really well.”
Having ALPR-enabled CCTV cameras across our region also provides the opportunity to share information with our policing partners who are also running CCTV programs.
“We don’t need to operate in silos. We can connect our systems together,” said Alfonso Adamo, executive director of Technology Services.
To ensure privacy, the program operates under the principles of the Information Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Video footage is only retained for three days.
When it comes to the program’s impact on community safety, it can be measured in a number of ways.
“We have found a lot of violent crime or calls for service happening within York Region are tied to a stolen vehicle,” Adamo said. “So if a stolen vehicle is caught, I think the question becomes, how many guns or drugs were taken off the road, how many criminals were arrested?”
The other less tangible impact of the presence of cameras is making the community feel safer.
“The community can be assured that there’s more information available to the officers to solve crimes,” Adamo said.
