Police cameras are susceptible to breaching an individual's privacy and confidentiality

The argument

Over the past six years there has been a great demand for police cameras to be made the norm quickly, in light of the police shootings. That demand has been urgent and largely unexamined, and the use of police body cameras is not universally welcomed by the people it is supposed to protect. Some human rights campaigners are against the idea of police wearing body cameras because of the privacy concerns they raise, especially in relation to ethnic minority groups, or in instances where domestic violence is an issue. The objection is that a body camera does not only record officers; it records everyone an officer encounters, in the moments when they are least able to consent — inside their homes, in crisis, reporting an assault. Nor can the footage fully be relied upon, as it may not show the full picture of the incident recorded and can be misconstrued: a camera has one angle, one position, and no account of what preceded it. There are fears that if police departments have control of the footage, it can be collated and used later to prosecute minorities — the same record that was justified as a check on the police becomes an archive held by the police about everyone else. Other critics assert that the use of facial recognition can impinge upon the privacy of individuals, allowing their personal data to be collected and leading to their movements and personal information being traced. This is where an accountability measure turns into an infrastructure. A camera on every officer, paired with software that identifies faces automatically, converts routine patrol into continuous identification of the public in ordinary streets. If aware of it, this can discourage individuals from taking part in lawful political activities, such as peaceful protests — and a technology that quietly deters lawful assembly imposes a cost on everyone, not only on those it records. Police cameras are therefore not beneficial.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Although there are concerns about privacy and confidentiality over the use of police cameras, this should not suggest a blanket ban. There is a balance to be struck here between protecting people's privacy, and at the same time promoting police transparency and accountability. As in Illinois, there must be measures that control police discretion on when to record, and when to stop to ensure protection of an individual's privacy. There have been attempts in different states to promote a blanket ban of footage, which is counterproductive to the aims of having a police cameras, and may be open to abuse as they may be disclosed to evidence the position of one side. To avoid this, automated technology that redacts footage should be made available. This provides disclosure, and does not take up departmental resources in redacting the material. An additional safeguard to protecting privacy is to give the more vulnerable, for example, a domestic abuse victim, a say in the filming of the footage. Allowing police to have the discretion creates an environment where a victim, out of fear of themselves, or their loved ones being identified in the footage, will not even call for help. It may also impinge upon privileged conversations. It would therefore be more appropriate to ask a victim as soon as practicable whether they consent to a recording.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The privacy risk is real on the counter's account but addressable by design rather than by abandonment: it proposes asking a domestic abuse victim as soon as practicable whether they consent to being recorded, and notes that leaving the decision entirely to officer discretion is what deters victims who fear identification from calling for help at all. [Rejecting P2] Uncontrolled departmental handling of footage is treated as a defect to be regulated, not an inherent property — the counter points to rules of the kind adopted in Illinois governing when officers may start and stop recording, and to automated redaction as a way to release footage without exposing identities or consuming departmental resources. [Rejecting P3] The conclusion does not follow from the risks, since the counter holds that a blanket ban on disclosure is itself open to abuse, allowing footage to surface only when it supports one side, and forfeits the transparency and accountability the cameras were introduced to provide.