Police Body Camera Policies: Recording Circumstances

No department we looked at requires officers to have their body-worn cameras recording for the entire shift. This is due to both technological limitations and privacy concerns. As such, every policy must specify when the officer turns the camera on and off. This chart, in combination with the “Recording Exceptions” chart, outlines those circumstances.

“Who wears”: Some departments have provided BWCs to all of their officers. Among those that have fewer cameras, or that are in a pilot phase, some allow officers to volunteer for their program, while others assign cameras to officers based on high-crime districts or other factors. Some specify uniformed officers only, while others have plainclothes officers wear cameras as well.

“When to record,” “Notable omissions from required list,” and “When not required, does officer have discretion to record?” Most of the policies contain a list of types of law-enforcement encounters where recording is required. These categories do not include the full lists, but rather pull out notable features of each policy. A typical full list might include:

1. All calls for service and while en-route to emergency calls.
2. Pedestrian stops, including consensual encounters and “Terry stops” (a brief detention of a person by police on reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity).
3. Traffic stops.
4. Foot and vehicle pursuits.
5. Consensual or warrantless searches.
6. Executing search warrants.
7. Arrests and detentions.
8. Transports (driving with a prisoner).
9. Other adversarial encounters or situations where criminal activity is likely to be recorded.

If any of these key activities is missing from the list in a given policy, it will be noted in the “notable omission from required list” column. If the list includes a category such as “other circumstances when the officer believes recording would be appropriate” or the policy otherwise allows discretionary recording, it will be noted as a “yes” under “does officer have discretion to record in unspecified circumstances?” If there is a list of prohibited recording circumstances constraining this discretion, then it will be noted in the same column. If the prohibited recording pertains to witnesses or victims, privacy, or First Amendment activity, then it will instead be noted in our separate “Privacy and First Amendment Protections” chart.

“Notify person being recorded?”: Some departments require or encourage an officer with a BWC to inform members of the public that they are being recorded. There are two frequently-cited reasons for this approach. One is a concern for privacy. Another is the possibility that people will be less confrontational when they know they are being recorded. The counterarguments are that notification is inconvenient for the officer, and that a person in the presence of a police officer already has a low expectation of privacy and thus does not need to be explicitly notified they are being recorded as well.

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