The London Police Service's radios have been encrypted for a very long time. While some police agency's choose to encrypt only some of their radio traffic, our city is completely in the dark. There are many community members who actively listen to public safety to stay informed about dangerous incidents, or areas to avoid when their has been an accident. While the majority of us understand the need for operational security and safety, to completely cut off the public from a line of communication such as this, quite frankly is dangerous.

Being able to listen in on public safety communications can save lives. An example is when my mother and I travelled up to Orillia last winter. We were just on our way back to London when the weather became incredibly dangerous. We had to pull over several times due to extreme whiteout conditions. When we arrived in Listowel, I turned on my police scanner to see if there were any major accidents. The highway we were travelling on had just been shut down. As our van doesn't have an AM/FM radio we couldn't listen to the local news. If it weren't for me having the scanner, we could have continued home, and got into a serious accident and got injured, or worse. Being able to monitor the OPP saved our lives that day.

What needs to happen is for the general, day-to-day radio traffic, and dispatch, to have their encryption completely removed, and have separate, dedicated channels that are encrypted, for sensitive communications that could put officer's lives in direct jeopardy, such as SWAT operations, intelligence operations,  or guns and drugs operations.

It may not seem like it to the general public, but having Public Safety communications available, can and does save lives