Should retail staff members wear body cameras?

staff at two stores in Calgary are now wearing body cams much like police do it's a pilot project by lbla to try and Detour violent incidents trying to serve a customer and sometimes you're coming into work and there's things that are happening that are out of your control it can be very difficult for colleagues you know we're going to pile up body cams in a store which is something we haven't done before a Real Canadian Superstore and it's adjacent Shoppers Drug martyr taking part in the three-month trial staff started wearing the cell phone sized cameras this week they record video and audio Calgary is one of two Canadian markets piloting the projects the other is in Saskatoon and with me now is retail expert Bruce wer Bruce thanks as always for joining us thanks for having me on the program what do you think of this idea well I think something has to be done because if you look at um shoplifting and uh organized retail crime you know it's ballooned over the last call it two to three years and uh there seems to be a bit of a loophole there where people can really take whatever they want and walk out with it and there's limited consequences so I think this is a good step a good move in the right direction to try to hold shoplifters and organized retail crime members accountable for their actions is this going to make a difference though will will this stop those people I mean they already know they could walk out with impunity so do they even care that they're on camera now with it well it might make a difference because it's one thing to sort of you know you know walk out like you said but it's another thing to have you know your face plastered over a video and it might deter them a little bit if they see that employees are wearing these cameras it might deter them from shoplifting in that particular store I mean when time will tell right and proof will be in the pudding and the test but something has to be done also to protect retail workers because a lot of folks are abusing retail workers you know they're afraid of getting hurt some are getting hurt so I think something has to be done to try to circumvent this now is there not a concern though that that a thief might try and grab the camera off the person if definitely that that's definitely a concern I mean that's something that hopefully will come out in the test but that's definitely one of the risks is that they would try to grab it from the person but even by grabbing it because it's live um it's going to be recorded anyway so it'll just be a video of them coming up to them and grabbing it so they're not really off the hook it just it just might startle the employee quite a bit though now these are the first two places Saskatoon in Calgary first two in Canada uh has anybody else tried this and have they had success there's been some success I believe in the United Kingdom so I think a couple of uh Grocers or stores have tried it in the United Kingdom with some success not sure if it's been pilot in the US there might have been a couple stores but definitely we need to come up with some different solutions here um and it's probably a combination of something like this tighter tighter laws greater punishments um things of that nature because uh it sure has gotten a lot worse over the last few years absolutely I mean the thieves know that the that the staff are not supposed to stop them at all the uh the they've we've seen videos of um people shopping and they try to stop them and they're being told don't stop them it's pretty much Wild West for them isn't it it really is and we have to remember all this goes back into the cost of goods right so if you have uh people doing this you you and I are paying for this in the retail prices that we uh buy products and services for so I think uh you know I think more needs to be done on this and uh it's probably going to take an effort you know that would involve government at some point and police forces at some point litigators Etc but uh we have to find a way to uh to stop this real soon and any chance we might see because we've heard of a few stores starting to go back to Cashiers and getting rid of the cashierless experience yeah that's definitely a trend we've noticed uh over the last call it year year and a half uh because a lot of people were helping themselves during self checkout and uh there are some other Technologies they're working on but yeah some some uh stores have had no choice but to go back to using cashiers uh and you know some people love cashiers some people say you know what I really wish I could go back to using self checkout it's quicker it's easier Etc so yeah this is definitely a thorn in the side of the whole retail industry right now all right Bruce thanks as always for your Insight yeah thanks have a great day you too Bruce wer is our retail expert