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Good practice Imported

Nassau's Real-Time Crime Center — The Bahamas' AI-Enabled Facial-Recognition and Gunshot-Detection Policing Network

Bahamas · Nassau · See the Bahamas profile · See the Nassau profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 76% 47/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

The Royal Bahamas Police Force runs Nassau's Real-Time Crime Center: 750+ cameras, BriefCam facial recognition and ShotSpotter gunshot detection. A vendor case study cites fewer fatal traffic incidents (69 to 33); independent press flags unresolved accuracy and privacy concerns.

750+ cameras
Camera network size (as of 2024)
69 to 33 incidents/year
Fatal traffic incidents (vendor-reported, pre-upgrade) (2018–2019)
Nassau's Real-Time Crime Center — The Bahamas' AI-Enabled Facial-Recognition and Gunshot-Detection Policing Network

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF)
Period
2012-2024
Keywords
public safety, policing, surveillance, biometrics

Context

The Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) operates a Real-Time Crime Center in the capital, Nassau, integrating video management software (Milestone XProtect), BriefCam facial recognition, automatic license-plate recognition and ShotSpotter gunshot-detection across a network of more than 750 cameras (roughly 500 supplied by Axis). The original camera network dates to 2012; a video-management-system upgrade began in early 2020, and the Real-Time Crime Center became operational in early 2021. Facial-recognition CCTV was piloted for roughly two years before a major 2024 expansion that began drawing on private-business camera feeds.

Results

A vendor (Milestone Systems) case study reports that fatal traffic incidents fell from 69 in 2018 to 33 in 2019 — a period that precedes the 2020-2021 VMS/RTCC upgrade, so the figure describes the pre-upgrade camera network rather than a validated outcome of the current AI-enabled system. Prime Minister Philip Davis publicly announced the facial-recognition expansion in January 2024, and independent trade press (Biometric Update) covered the announcement alongside the government of Guyana's parallel plans, but also noted unresolved concerns about false-match accuracy and privacy that the government had not yet addressed.

Conclusions

No independent, post-2021 evaluation of the Real-Time Crime Center's own effectiveness (arrest rates, false-positive rates, crime reduction attributable to the AI components specifically) was found in any source reviewed.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Camera network dates to 2012; VMS upgrade began early 2020; Real-Time Crime Center became operational early 2021; facial-recognition CCTV piloted for roughly two years before a major 2024 expansion drawing on private-business camera feeds.
Staffing & skills
Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) operates the Real-Time Crime Center

Conditions for success

  • Integration of multiple vendor systems (Milestone XProtect VMS, BriefCam facial recognition, ShotSpotter gunshot detection, Axis cameras) into a single command centre

Common failure modes

  • Independent trade press flagged unresolved concerns about false-match accuracy and privacy that the government had not yet addressed as of the 2024 expansion announcement
  • No independent, post-2021 evaluation of arrest rates, false-positive rates or crime reduction attributable to the AI components was found

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National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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