My Questions and Concerns about Police Body Cameras

body cameraA week ago I attended this community meeting about a new pilot body camera program the Boston Police Department will be launching this summer.  Clearly, the city is trying to avoid a potential Trayvon Martin/Michael Brown/Freddie Gray situation by starting this much needed program.  BPD plans to have 100 volunteer patrol officers around the city equipped with Body Worn Cameras (BWC) for six months, starting possibly next month.  The goal for the pilot is to test out the technology and see how it impacts crime and interactions with the community.

This is a really interesting issue that brings up more questions and concerns than answers.  I jotted down some points made during the meeting below.  These are not in any particular order; just random thoughts:

Privacy

  1. Is there a right to privacy concern here?  Can police turn on and off the camera at their own discretion, or can the person coming into contact with the police ask to have the camera on or off?
  2. When should the camera be off?  Should confidential information be recorded, and what is considered confidential?
  3. Should cameras be off when the police enter a private residence?  What constitutes as consent?  Two-party consent (In Massachusetts we have a wiretap law that hasn’t been updated since 1968)?  Should an incident involving a young child or domestic abuse in a private residence be recorded?  Who consents for the child, especially if a parent or guardian isn’t available? If it is a domestic dispute, what happens when one partner consents and the other partner doesn’t consent to cameras?
  4. If a camera is on while in the private residence (with consent) and something is recorded that wasn’t intended to be recorded that might be illegal (i.e. a marijuana joint lying around…), can that be used against the consented person criminally?
  5. Police officers should always tell the person they are interacting with that they have a camera on.  Should the camera be on when the officer is making this notification and then turn it off if the person doesn’t consent?
  6. Do officers themselves have a right to privacy?

Limitations

  1. Cameras don’t follow the police officer’s eyes and see what they see all the time.
  2. Cameras have poor visibility in the dark.
  3. Cameras can never replace an in-depth investigation.

Storage

  1. During the pilot, both cloud-based and local storage options are being considered.  How long will the authorities keep a video?  Who has access to the video?  
  2. How much will this cost the taxpayers?
  3. Should videos of nonviolent, minor offenses be immediately deleted? Who is authorized to delete that video?
  4. How do you make sure there is adequate security for videos, and that they don’t get into the wrong hands?
  5. Can videos, especially ones that record controversial, high profile interactions, be made available for the public to view? How would it be distributed?   
  6. Will videos only be used for police training purposes?
  7. Can videos be subpoenaed?  Are they subject to public records laws?

ACLU

  1. The local ACLU chapter is requesting that officers be disciplined for violating camera rules. What are the disciplinary rules?
  2. They are also requesting that officers never record First Amendment activities – speech, protest, religion, assembly and press. What if a crime takes place during said First Amendment activities, like a physical assault takes place during a protest?
  3. They are requesting that cameras not be used for intelligence surveillance, biometric analysis, and facial recognition, especially with protesters or other First Amendment activities.  But what if a crime is taken place when there is a need for surveillance?

Administration

  1. How do you make sure videos are used to hold officers accountable for their actions?
  2. If the pilot goes well, the initiative could go full steam ahead in 2017 and all officers, except those working undercover, will be required to wear cameras.  How will undercover cops be held accountable?
  3. Will there be extra vigilance with cameras on alleged “bad” cops?
  4. Will officers be required to file reports before viewing videos so their reports won’t be biased?
  5. During the pilot, who is allowed to volunteer?  Apparently, cameras will be evenly distributed all over the city and in different operations.  Someone at the meeting suggested having 90 officers be volunteers and 10 of them be mandatory for the officers with the worst records, which is a good idea.
  6. Can videos be monitored in real time? Can administrators view videos as an interaction is happening?  What type of police interaction would constitute the need for such monitoring?

The Future

  1. Where does the future of police body cameras go from here?  Someone at the meeting who said they were a teacher wouldn’t mind if classrooms had cameras to record incidents with unruly students, which opens up a whole other can of worms.  Should security guards in schools and other public buildings have body cameras?

As one person at the meeting said, “The cameras are coming; it is just a matter of implementing them.”  The best thing about body cameras is that it opens up the door to seeing what is really happening beyond shootings and killing, and effectively dealing with those issues.  But it also creates more concerns about how society is slowly turning into a hyper-surveillance police state.  I am very interested in knowing what many of you in other states and even other countries that have more experience with this issue think.  Please leave comments below or email me.  I would love to hear what you think!