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Police Body Cam Privacy Exploitation
blindbat writes: A new YouTube account is pushing local police agencies to reconsider their use of body-mounted cameras. Poulsbo Police have been wearing body cameras for about a year, and the department says the results have been good. But last month reality hit, in the form of a new YouTube user website, set up by someone under the name, "Police Video Requests." The profile says it posts dash and body cam videos received after public records requests to Washington state police departments. "They're just using it to post on the internet," said Chief Townsend, "and I suspect it's for commercial purposes." In September, "Police Video Requests" anonymously asked Poulsbo PD for every second of body cam video it has ever recorded. The department figures it will take three years to fill that request. And Chief Townsend believes it is a huge privacy concern, as officers often see people on their worst days. "People with mental illness, people in domestic violence situations; do we really want to have to put that video out on YouTube for people? I think that's pushing it a little bit," he said.
"Information wants to be free. Nothing is taken from the people whose videos are posted."
So somebody somewhere on the internet seems like they want to abuse the cams and the ONLY feasible answer is to stop using them entirely? That has the stink of bad excuses to it. Anyone wanna bet that this 'anonymous' is someone in the department or a close reletive?
They could, of course, just adopt a sensible policy like releasing the videos only to the parties involved in the video or legal representative thereof. That would be just fine except then there would be no ' very good reason ' (TM, pat. pend., some restrictions apply, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear) to scrap the program.
As an aside, we probably already have similiar laws on the books. I'm pretty sure you can't just download
and listen to every private 911 call. You have to have a legitimate reason to want to access them.
I think this is a great idea. They should set up a site with every single second of footage on it, with all faces and letter/numbers fuzzed and all the audio turned into mwaw-mwaw-mwaw sound ala Peanuts-adult-speech. That's just not technically all that hard anymore. It doesn't require any human work. Then the cops'll know that if they use force or anyone or pass cash, bored seniors will see it and request the clear footage where a human would make sure that it would be acceptable (manual censorship). Don't like th emanual censorship in the clip you got? Fight that.
You get an honest police force and very little actual labor, as compared to people making blanket requests becasue they don't know what's there and they're looking for something good to show.
Yes, you can request the footage now of when that cop hit your kid, but you can't find out about someone getting a bribe unless you do the blanket requests described in the story.
A police bodycam doesn't record what the police officer is doing, it records what he sees - members of the public. It would be more sensible to ask around for CCTV footage of police officers as they go about their public duty. Ian Tomlinson's killer (PC SIMON HARWOOD) wouldn't have been convicted if he'd been wearing a bodycam for the simple reason that at the point where the data is seized it cannot be proved who was wearing the camera since it would have been the police own data officer who had first dibs at that data*. It was fortunate for the sake of justice that a member of the public recorded the assault which caused Tomlinson's death; unfortunate that that evidence, although damning, was not allowed to stand.
* I should also point out that the killing was investigated by the Police and prosecuted by the CPS rather than a private criminal prosecution - too late to do that now, Double Jeopardy is well and truly engaged, all the Tomlinson family had left was a civil suit for wrongful death which was pissed all over when they publicly and fairly comprehensively accepted the offer of settlement.
** I hereby revoke any implied consent to my visage being used, parodied or referred to in any video, news report or any other media known or unknown without my express prior written informed consent.
*** The right to bring private prosecutions is preserved by section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 which is still in force. This right has been codified since 1197.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I believe they should be required to make the footage available, BUT control its dissemination, just like clerks of court intermediate public access to recorded documents.
The footage should be filed with a government records office.
You can review the footage, and copy it for $10 per minute of video.
You should be required to show ID, and your copy should be watermarked with the ID information of the person who requested the record.
If you want to republish the video, you should be required to protect the privacy of people shown in the video or audio by obtaining a release for your commercial use, or clear the use of the video for newsworthiness through a neutral 3rd party, unless the person shown in the video is deceased or convicted of a crime.