Body-worn cameras by law enforcement raise myriad legal, policy questions

Police departments continue to rapidly adopt body-worn camera programs, but even as more officers don cameras, there are many legal and policy questions that remain unanswered.

The development of small, easy-to-use ruggedized cameras and the tragic police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., have fueled much of this demand, with both law enforcement and the public seeing the value of video documentation. Some legislators have vowed to require officers to wear the cameras.

But there remain many unclear policy and legal issues about how exactly the cameras should be used and the video managed. Those questions include whether video should be recorded when an officer is on private property, as well as if the videos should be subject to disclosure under open-records laws and how long the video should be retained as a record.

The Tampa Police Department is in the process of equipping 60 of its officers with Taser International’s Axon Flex cameras, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Taser, better known for its stun guns, has a five-year, $287,220 contract with the city, which intends to eventually have cameras on all of its 750 patrol officers.

Tampa plans to address many of these issues internally through the development of a standard operating procedure. Likewise, Buncombe County is adopting self-imposed rules on video retention: Video of extraordinary incidents, such as a police-involved shooting, will be automatically saved, and all other video will be deleted after about 45 days.

“The only pushback that we’ve gotten from the public is, ‘Yes, we want you guys to have cameras. But, if you respond to a call at my house and you turn [the camera] on, I don’t want somebody to be able to get [the video] through a public-information request,’” Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan told IWCE’s Urgent Communications in an earlier interview.

“A lot of the real issues around the camera are not around the use of the camera but the logistics of how long you keep the video, retention schedules, what’s a public document, who’s going to administratively go in and decide what videos we keep and what videos we get rid of after 30 days, because you’ve got a big storage issue, as well.”