A Laval, Que.-based security tech firm says it’s seeing customer interest rise for its body cameras from a surprising source—retailers looking to equip their workers with portable eyes on the sales floor.
“Bottom line, we can’t control what the people do with our camera.”
Eric Tasso, Ionodes
Ionodes, which sells video surveillance software and hardware, released its PERCEPT BC200 body camera this week. The new model can shoot high-definition video, function as a location tracker, and offer real-time video analytics powered by AI that connect to an open-platform software system.
Though that can all be useful for law enforcement—where body cameras have been deployed to varying ends—Ionodes is tracking a newer client base.
“We’re seeing a big push in retail,” Eric Tasso, CEO of Ionodes, said in an interview with BetaKit this week. At the National Retail Federation’s Protect trade show last year, Tasso said he saw a surge in interest for body-worn cameras “not only on security personnel, but on employees at cash registers and customer service.”
Founded in 2007, Ionodes is one of the few Canadian suppliers of video surveillance software and hardware in a domain that’s dominated by US companies like Axon and Motorola. The company raised over $1 million CAD in venture funding from Anges Québec and Desjardins in 2016.
The 50-person company says it has sold to more than 400 customers worldwide, and the majority of its revenue comes from the US, Europe, Latin America, and Canada. Tasso said more of the company’s future revenue is expected to come from retail.
Retailers aim to reduce theft
The retail push extends to bank branches and shopping malls, as Tasso says retailers are looking to ostensibly reduce theft and violence. “From a corporate perspective, they’re not giving the best employee experience or customer experience,” Tasso said. “They’re trying to improve on that.”
The Retail Council of Canada, which advocates for retail member companies, said in a September 2025 report that retail theft in the country is a “national crisis” that cost 11 percent of national annual sales, or about $68 billion CAD. The report also noted that three-quarters of retailers reported increased violence during theft incidents. However, experts and numerous reports call into question whether this is in fact a trend, noting a lack of reliable data from police departments and an overall decrease in shoplifting in major US cities from 2019 to 2023.
Despite the conflicting statistics on crime, Canadian stores are moving forward with security measures. Retail and grocery chains have run pilot projects to equip security staff with body cameras, seen by management as a deterrent to theft and violent crime, in places like Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart. Experts raised concerns when grocery stores owned by Sobeys in Toronto piloted body cameras for staff, as customers weren’t explicitly notified they were being filmed.
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Canada’s privacy commissioner told BetaKit in an emailed statement that any organization subject to federal privacy laws is required to inform the public that they are under video surveillance, and that personal information (which would include recordings) is destroyed or anonymized once it is no longer required.
The consensus on whether body-worn cameras reduce theft or make shopping safer is unclear and requires more independent research, academics say. Vass Bednar, managing director of the think tank Canadian SHIELD Institute, wrote in an opinion article for The Globe and Mail last year that “adding a camera as an accessory isn’t about investing in worker safety,” but rather “about a creeping shift in responsibility where firms are asking front-line retail staff to quietly take on the roles of loss prevention, security and even delicate customer de-escalation without commensurate pay, training or legal protections.”
Ionodes also sells to governments and local law enforcement agencies, where the evidence for the effectiveness of body cameras in deterring crime is also mixed.
Facial recognition concerns
Another concern advocates have raised is the potential for body cameras to use facial recognition—which has led to people being incorrectly identified as criminal suspects and raised privacy concerns about collecting biometric data. Axon recently signed a partnership with the Edmonton police department to test this technology and “make officers aware of individuals with safety flags.” The RCMP explicitly bans the use of body cameras for any biometric analysis, including facial recognition.
According to Tasso, Ionodes uses a different approach, called “face-matching.” Public Safety Canada defines face-matching as a way to authenticate faces visually by confirming a positive match to an existing entry in a database—while facial recognition searches through a database to try and identify an individual. The Canada Border Services Agency uses facial matching at airport and NEXUS kiosks, which it says allows for faster processing of travellers.
Tasso said Ionodes’ technology is sold to the federal government and to local law enforcement, including municipalities across Canada. While other Canadian companies, like Hootsuite and Roshel, have come under fire for contracting with the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Tasso was clear that Ionodes does not contract with them.
When asked if ethical issues could interfere with Ionodes choosing to contract with law enforcement, Tasso said the company hasn’t run into that issue yet—but he foresees that it could.
“It’s an interesting debate, because a body-worn camera, in our sense, is a tool that promotes accountability,” he said, adding that Ionodes’ design ensures that officers can’t see or edit what was recorded and that the video is encrypted. “Bottom line, we can’t control what the people do with our camera.”
“We want to stay clear from any risk that our technology could be misused for the wrong reason, or create some kind of a negative impact,” Tasso said.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Image by Franki Chamaki.