Body-worn cameras for police accountability: Opportunities and risks

Abstract

The use of body-worn cameras by police forces around the world is spreading quickly. The resulting mobile and ubiquitous surveillance is often marketed as an instrument for accountability and an effective way of reducing violence, discrimination or corruption. It also involves remarkable potential for intrusion into the privacy of both individuals and police agents. We analyse the deployment of police body-worn cameras in five countries, investigate their suitability as an accountability tool given the associated privacy threats, and discuss the societal impact of their deployment as well as the risk of function creep.

Body-Worn Cameras and Internal Accountability at a Police Agency

“…The more compatible an innovation, the more likely that innovation is to be adopted by social entities (Rogers, 2003). In the case of body-worn cameras, this technology addresses a need for police agencies who seek to improve transparency and community relations in an environment that has been critical of the police (Coudert et al, 2015;Cubitt et al, 2017;Harris, 2010;Tankebe & Ariel, 2016;White, 2014). Research suggest that citizens are generally in favor of police body-worn cameras whether they are community stakeholders or "frequent-flyers" (Taylor, Lee, Willis, & Gannoni, 2017;Todak, Gaub, & White, 2018) as the presence of the cameras (if recording) make citizen encounters more transparent and thus can help ensure that individual, citizen rights are protected (Koen et al, 2018;White et al, 2017).…”

“…These cases involved the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of the police. Not only is this detrimental to already fragile police-minority community relations, but in many of these cases, the evidence regarding the particulars of each case had been unclear, which has added to the tensions between the police and the public (Coudert, Butin, & Le Matayer, 2015). Consequently, public outcry eventually led to rioting and violence (Koen & Willis, 2017) and police reform discourse would switch to issues of police accountability and transparency.…”

“…To some extent the term "body-worn cameras" has become virtually synonymous with "accountability." Proponents of body-worn cameras purport that they can be used to hold officers accountable for their behavior by making their actions more transparent to others (Coudert et al, 2015;Cubitt, Lesic, Myers, & Corry, 2017;Harris, 2010;Ortiz, 2018;Tankebe & Ariel, 2016;White, 2014;Scheindlin & Manning, 2015) and therefore officers become more self-aware (Ariel et al, 2016b). The assumption is that the "awareness of being videotaped leads to transparency, and transparency leads to accountability; ergo, greater awareness leads to increased police accountability (Ariel et al, 2016b, p. 305)".…”

Stop-gaps, lip service, and the perceived futility of body-worn police officer cameras in Baltimore City

“…Findings suggest the BWCs may reduce civilian complaints against police officers (Ariel, Farrar, & Sutherland, 2015;Ariel et al, 2017) and result in quicker resolution of civilian complaints that are filed and sustained (Katz, Kurtenbach, Choate, & White, 2015). Footage can also be used to enhance training protocols (Coudert, Butin, & Le Métayer, 2015;Willits & Makin, 2018) and pinpoint how evidence-informed policy can be best deployed (Voigt et al, 2017). Other studies challenge the benefits of BWC implementation, citing that officers are tempted to obscure or manipulate the devices' recording capacity (Taylor, 2016b); that officers share an institutional knowledge of how to consciously build recorded narratives that corroborate justified search practices and the use of force (Crespo, 2016;Fagan & Geller, 2015); that proper data storage and management are too costly for city budgets (Lin, 2015); and that access to the footage must be regulated to protect the rights and privacy of recorded victims, the accused, and passersby (Pagliarella, 2016;Taylor, 2016a).…”

Debate Introduction: The Privacy and Surveillance Implications of Police Body Cameras

“…Yet, little empirical work exists about the privacy and surveillancerelated implications of police-worn body cameras (cf. Newell 2016), although more critical and analytical pieces are emerging in the literature (see e.g., Brucato 2015;Coudert, Butin, and Métayer 2015;Tanner and Meyer 2015).…”