State Policies on Release of Police Videos – States Have Been Rushing To Catch Up With the Widespread Use of Police Body Cameras by Passing Laws That Govern When and How Footage Can Be Released To the Public

Police Body Worn Cameras: A Policy Scorecard

August 2016 The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has compiled current laws re: body camera and access to videos. See the map at http://www.rcfp.org/bodycams

A report prepared by the reporters group included the following findings;

• As of August 2016, of the 68 “major city” departments in the U.S., 43 now have body worn camera programs with policies in place. Two additional major departments appear to have cameras on the ground, but have not released their policies to the public — Detroit and Pittsburgh.

• Even when departments have policies in place, nearly half (24 of 46) don’t make them easily and publicly available on their department websites, which hinders robust public debate about how body cameras should be used. Many of the policies we analyzed were found externally on other websites.

• Increasingly, departments are establishing explicit procedures that allow recorded individuals — like those seeking to file a police misconduct complaint — to view the footage of their own incidents. Five departments we analyzed — in Cincinnati, Chicago, Las Vegas, Parker (CO) and Washington DC — now appear to provide special access to recorded individuals. These special access rights, tailored specifically for body camera footage, exist alongside state-level public records laws.

• None of the department policies we analyzed have a blanket limitation on officer review of footage before filing an initial written incident report. However, six department policies have partial prohibitions in place, for certain critical incidents like officer shootings.

• Due to concerns from civil rights groups about the increased potential for surveillance, leading departments have begun to include limits on their use of biometric technologies, like facial recognition, together with camera footage. In our initial release, only Baltimore’s policy addressed facial recognition. Since then, Baltimore County, Boston, Cincinnati, Montgomery County, and Parker (CO) have all followed suit.

  See full article at https://www.bwcscorecard.org/

Pew Charitable Trusts published an article summarizing many of the issues: See full article at http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/10/11/states-impose-wildly-different-policies-in-releasing-police-videos

States Impose Wildly Different Policies in Releasing Police Videos

October 11, 2016. Over the last two years, and without much regulation, police departments have hurried to strap body cameras to their officers, both to address demands for transparency and to protect police from accusations of wrongdoing. But once the cameras started rolling, many departments were left not knowing when or how they could show the footage to the public, prompting policymakers to act. At least 21 states and dozens of municipalities have instituted policies that range from treating body camera footage like other public records to imposing outright bans on releasing footage. And more could be on the way to locking down body camera footage.

Figuring out how to share what the cameras capture is a difficult balance, said Dave McClure, a researcher at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank focused economic and social policy research. “You want to be transparent with the footage, and let the public see it because they need to know what police officers are doing,” McClure said. “But it also contains information that is very sensitive and private.”

Steve Zansberg, a Colorado-based First Amendment attorney who has represented media companies, calls for greater openness and transparency. He said all recordings made in public spaces should be presumptively open because they document the conduct of public servants. .  . .Most states choose to enact more restrictive laws, Zansberg said, but he points to Oklahoma as a state with a more open policy. That law, enacted last year, generally allows for the disclosure of body camera footage, save for recordings that include nudity, children, criminal informants, victims of sex crimes or domestic violence and the personal information of innocent people.