London Police To Wear Video Cameras In Pilot Project

An anonymous reader writes "The London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is reportedly engaging in a year-long pilot program to determine the benefits of its police force wearing video cameras during interactions with the public. 'The pilot will include a total of 500 cameras distributed across ten city boroughs.' London joins some major U.S. cities in this endeavor to improve the quality of policing through the use of wearable cameras. Privacy advocates argue, however, that police officers having these devices on their persons is not enough: 'the efficacy of police body-mounted cameras as a crime reduction and accountability tool hinges on enforcement of good policies and procedures—including something as basic as preventing officers from being able to deactivate the cameras at their own discretion.'"

Comments

Can't turn them off?

[mrxak]

You can (effectively) turn any camera off. Just "accidentally" point it the wrong way, or "accidentally" cover it up with something.

Re:Can't turn them off?

[canthusus]

You need to turn them on first...

From BBC article: "The force said officers taking part in the pilot must comply with guidelines about when cameras are to be used, but that they will not be permanently switched on."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

Re:Can't turn them off?

[Threni]

And, as the police supporting the government during the Miner's Strike in the 1980's, you can simply leave it at home (in that case it was the unique ID they were supposed to wear in case - and of course this never happened - there was any accusation that they were involved in acts of illegality).

Re:Can't turn them off?

[gnoshi]

One possible solution to the 'recording everything' issue is to encrypt things as they are recorded, and to require a representative from the police and a representative from a civil liberties organisation to provide keys in order to decrypt the video. That way, even constantly-recording video couldn't be used for wholesale surveillance (theoretically).

I imagine the intention is that video would only be viewed if a complaint was made or there was some contention about the events between a member of the public and the police so having a bit of an overhead for viewing the videos wouldn't be unreasonable (I don't think).

Re:Can't turn them off?

[Zocalo]

Being able to turn it off is fine; running a video camera continuously will eat batteries for the sake of recordings that will mostly be useless. The trick is to make sure that the camera is switched on when it is required, and it the heat of the moment I would imagine it would be very easy to genuinely forget to turn the thing on. Perhaps a very noticeable "recording light", similar to that on Google Glass, so that people interacting with the police will both be aware they are being recorded and be in a position to insist the interaction be recorded if it's currently turned off. The whole "my client alleges that he was abused during the arrest, you *do* have the recording, right?" issue should make sure the police want the cameras on as much as possible.

The real trick will be making sure the camera is switched on for spur of the moment stuff, like where an incident happens when the officer is actually present, so perhaps some kind of automatic activation based on feedback from accelerometers and similar activity detectors is also required. If the sensors detect that the officer has started to run, there is a jolt to the camera, or some other abnormal activity, then start recording until the camera is manually disabled again.

Re:Can't turn them off?

[Immerman]

No? How about that Occupy woman who was just sentenced to 7 years for elbowing a cop, but was prevented from rewinding or zooming out the video evidence to provide context to the jury?

preventing officers from being able to deactivate

[Chrisq]

I think it is unlikely that police would deactivate it without good reason. Where cameras have been used they have resulted in a large reduction in complaints against police . If they were widely used then switching them off would be seen as suspicious if a complaint was received.

There are some times when an officer might want to switch it off - for example when taking a toilet break or dealing with a vulnerable victim. Ideally switching on should be easy; a "one touch" operation, but switching off harder (hold two buttons for 10 seconds) so it cannot be done (or claimed to have been done) accidentally.

A step in the right direction

[GeekWithAKnife]

Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I think this is overall a good thing. It will require more discipline from police and help reduce the number of unjustified police action.

As the same time this will serve to catch criminals and is a precursor to automatic face recognition (like they have with car number plates)

Just remember the next time you see police, you're on camera.

Re:A step in the right direction

[digitig]

Not actually true -- I live in London, and it's a five-minute walk from my house until I get on camera (basically, when I get to my local high street). The majority of the cameras you see reported in London (and the UK as a whole) are private security cameras inside shops. And the figures for the vast number of cameras in the UK are bogus -- they were based on counting the number of cameras on two busy shopping streets and multiplying by the total number of streets in the UK.

Turning camera off

[bradley13]

Turning a camera off - this should work the same as things like medical hotlines. For most hotlines, every call is recorded. You, as a patient, can request that the recording be turned off. Your request will be recorded, and then nothing more (at least, that's how it is supposed to work).

It should be the same for police officers: Sure, there are times they may need to turn the camera's off, but the reason should be clear and should itself be recorded. In the absence of a justification, the camera should always run.