South Africa seeks facial recognition for police body, dashboard cameras

South Africa’s State Information Technology Agency is seeking a supplier to equip its national police with facial recognition integrated with body-cams and dashcams.

The agency plans to provide body-worn cameras, vehicle dashboard cameras and related software to the South African Police Service. In addition to face biometrics, the software must also include automatic number plate recognition (ANPR, also known as automatic license plate recognition, or ALPR).

Facial recognition will be used by police as one of the access controls on the cameras themselves, as well as in its suite of video analytics capabilities. It must be possible to integrate the capabilities “with various security platforms” and issue alerts.

A tender launched last week specifies the contract will run for three years, and includes training and maintenance. It does not specify a target budget, or how many cameras the agency plans to procure.

TechCentral reports that South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) appears unlikely to apply to police body-cameras, so the country’s body of law may not include any governance of the technology.

The exemptions POPIA grants police from its data processing restrictions drew warnings from civil society at the time of the law’s passage. Police do not have direct access to the National Population Register (NPR) and the facial images it includes, but can request access to records from the Department of Home Affairs.

Bids for the contract close September 29, 2026.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  body cam  |  facial recognition  |  law enforcement  |  procurement  |  South Africa  |  tender