University of Oklahoma professor of law Stephen E. Henderson states that the use of police body cameras may be psychologically damaging to officers because “nobody does well to be under constant surveillance.” [21]

Former Spokane, Washington police chief Frank Straub notes that “every day we are exposing persons challenged by mental illness, autism, developmental disabilities, addiction, etc. We are creating and making public recordings of their illness and potentially creating life-long consequences.” [22]

Evaluations of our officers’ use of both body-worn and in-car cameras have found evidence that the technologies help create a more efficient accountability process and reduce incidents where force is used.

The recordings are disclosed to the courts and the Crown discloses to legal counsel when required, but private third-party information captured in any recording is redacted or edited for legal, police tactical or security purposes.

Video recorded from police body cameras can be used to train new and existing officers in how to perform during difficult encounters with the public. The Miami Police Department has been using body cameras for training since 2012. Former police major Ian Moffitt states, “We can record a situation, a scenario in training, and then go back and look at it and show the student, the recruit, the officer what they did good, what they did bad, and [what they can] improve on.” [17]

Assaults on police officers were 14% higher when body cameras were present. Some people may respond negatively or violently to being filmed by police, especially those who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or who are suffering from mental health problems. [18]

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A Privacy Impact Assessment was completed in January 2019 to assess and mitigate any risks posed to privacy using body-worn cameras. Any recording made by CPS cameras are subject to the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

In the six months since body cameras were deployed in Burnsville, police recorded video for almost every domestic violence case, something former chief deputy of the Dakota County Attorney’s Office, Phil Prokopowicz, finds useful. He states that camera footage “can be influential in resolving the case in terms of negotiations. The defendant gets to see the act and know what will be displayed in front of the jury. The documenting of those first moments is very critical to those types of cases, as well as any admissions that may occur as officers are entering.” [51]

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Police officers are entrusted with extraordinary powers and often work in dynamic and high-conflict situations. Cameras that record police interactions with the public can play a crucial role in protecting both the public and our officers, as well as supporting a fair justice system.

If you choose to obtain a copy, a Disclosure Analyst will prepare a fee estimate for you. Once we have received payment, we will provide you with a copy. Please note that third-party information will be removed or blurred from the video. You may also view the video as part of a Professional Standards complaint. The Professional Standards Section will allow you to view the video in the presence of an investigator.

Recording police encounters with the public could lead to the public exposure of private medical conditions such as mental illness. Victims of crimes such as rape or domestic abuse may be further traumatized by recordings. Informants or witnesses may fear reprisal from criminals. People being arrested may fear the damage of public exposure, such as being fired from a job. [17][19][34]

Police body cameras (also called body-worn cameras) are small cameras worn on a law enforcement officer’s chest or head to record interactions between the officer and the public. The cameras have a microphone to capture sound and internal data storage to save video footage for later review. [37][41]

Other potential health and safety issues include head and neck injuries, electric shock or burns from faulty or damaged equipment, and the spread of contagious infectious diseases if the units are shared. [20]

In Baltimore, Maryland, an officer was convicted of fabricating evidence and misconduct in office after being caught by body-worn cameras planting fake drug evidence. [14][49]

A file will be opened and a PSS investigator will ask you questions as to what happened and why you believe the officer acted inappropriately. The investigator will also ask you how to resolve this issue, which may take the form of explaining a police procedure, or an informal conversation between you and the officer or the officer’s supervisor, or by having the officer reviewing training materials and policy expectations.

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These cameras have a light that visibly indicates it is recording. However, officers can disable this when required for officer safety (for example, if the light would give away their location at a nighttime incident involving a person with a firearm).

When an officer wearing a camera arrives at a domestic violence scene, the camera is able to record the immediate aftermath of the attack, including injuries the victim has suffered, as well as victim statements that may be more honest than later statements once victims remember emotional and financial ties to their abusers. Victims may also feel more secure in their testimony with video evidence backing up their statements. [51][52]

Once your request is approved, you can choose to either attend police headquarters (5111 47 St. N.E.) to view it or request a copy for a fee.

Police body cameras provide visual and audio evidence that can independently verify events. In Texas, a police officer was fired, charged with murder, and sentenced to a $10,000 fine and 15 years in prison after body-worn camera footage contradicted his initial statement in the Apr. 2017 shooting of an unarmed youth. [12][48]

Officers are required by policy to have their body-worn camera activated during a law enforcement interaction with a member of the public, however, the officer will continually assess privacy considerations and prohibitions outlined in the CPS Body Worn Camera Policy if recording should continue or stop.

The camera is attached to the front of an officer’s uniform near the chest area. It is black and about the size of a deck of playing cards. A red light indicates when it is turned on and recording. An officer will turn on the camera when attending a call for service or an investigation and will turn it off when the call for service or investigation is complete, when in a hospital setting, or when the officer determines that continuous recording is no longer serving its intended purpose.

Officers use body-worn cameras to record law enforcement interactions with the public in the course of their duties, including, but not limited to:

According to the Bureau of Justice Assistance, “[t]he video and audio recordings from BWCs [body-worn cameras] can be used by law enforcement to demonstrate transparency to their communities; to document statements, observations, behaviors, and other evidence; and to deter unprofessional, illegal, and inappropriate behaviors by both law enforcement and the public.” [41]

The use of body-worn cameras requires many staff and resources that are dedicated to implementing and operating the CPS program. The program costs about $5 million annually to operate, including hardware, software licensing and staffing.

A RAND study found that use of force by police officers dropped if the officers wearing cameras kept the cameras recording for the officers’ whole shift. In Miami-Dade County, Florida, researchers found a 19% reduction in police officers using physical force against citizen resistance, and civil cases against the police department for use of force dropped 74%. [50][47]

Equipping police departments with body cameras is extremely expensive, as forces have to budget not only for the camera but also for ancillary equipment (such as a car charger or mount), training, data storage facilities, extra staff to manage the video data, and maintenance costs. Baltimore Police entered a body-worn camera program in 2016 for $11.3 million. As of June 25, 2020, the costs had tripled to $35.1 million. [26][59]

In a perhaps extreme but cautionary example, in Oct. 2018 a Staten Island, New York, officer’s body camera burst into flames while the officer was wearing the device. He was luckily not injured, but the department was forced to recall thousands of cameras. [61]

Many police departments, especially smaller departments with smaller budgets, have suspended body-worn camera programs citing rising costs of the cameras, maintenance of the programs, employees, and data storage. [27][28][29][30][60]

Police body worn cameras offer transparency and accountability to the public, which is an attempt to “mend that frayed relationship between the police and the community,” according to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. [56][57][58]

Patrol officers, traffic officers and some specialty officers carry a camera approximately the size of a pack of cards on the front of their uniform. The officers turn the camera on and off to record audio and video for law enforcement purposes. Every recording includes the 30 seconds before the camera was activated.

Police body cameras are in use around the world from Australia and Uruguay to the United Kingdom and South Africa. [19][32][35][36]

A privacy impact assessment was completed in January 2019 to assess and mitigate any risks posed to privacy through the use of body-worn cameras. Any recording made by either of our cameras are subject to Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Health Information Act when officers are in healthcare facilities.

Frontline police vehicles are equipped with both dash cameras and back seat cameras that record audio and video. They are automatically activated when the emergency lights are turned on or when the vehicle is involved in a collision.

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The recordings are disclosed to the courts when required, but private information of third parties captured in any recording is first redacted.

The CPS Professional Standards Section opens a file when it receives information from a citizen, or when asked by the Chief Constable or his designate to investigate any perceived misconduct, including Police Service Regulation breaches and criminal acts.

Police officer performance and accountability are government by the Police Act and Police Service Regulation. The Act sets out the requirements of a valid complaint and outlines the process for filing a complaint.

Reviews of both camera systems were conducted in late 2020 to evaluate the impact of these tools, provide improvement recommendations and help guide future strategic decisions.

These cameras constantly store 30 seconds of footage, so every recording includes the 30 seconds before the cameras were activated and ends only when an officer manually shuts them off.

As of Oct. 29, 2018, 36 states and the District of Columbia had specific legislation about the use of police body cameras. At that time, another four states had pending body camera legislation. However, by July 14, 2022, the most recently available survey, all but six states had body camera specific legislation: Alabama, Alaska, Maine, Mississippi, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. [45][64]

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If a recording becomes part of a case file, it will be retained according to the CPS Records Retention Schedule, depending on the type of case and the retention category.

If you attend the CPS headquarters to view the recording, you will view the video with a Disclosure Analyst from the CPS Access and Privacy Section, who may be accompanied by a police officer.

Officers are expected to use these cameras whenever they have an investigative contact with the public, are transporting an arrestee, are in a pursuit, or if it would benefit an investigation.

Another privacy fear, according to the ACLU, is that police body cameras will be worn as “roving surveillance devices that track our faces, voices, and even the unique way we walk” that could be used “to track, classify, and discriminate against people based on their most personal, innate features.” [62]

Amid the Black Lives Matter protests after the death of George Floyd, a June 2020 Reuters/Ipsos poll found 92% of Americans wanted federal police officers to wear body cams. A July 2020 University of Maryland School of Public Policy survey found 90% support for all police officers being required to wear body cameras, including 85% of Republicans, 86% of independents, and 94% of Democrats. [54][55]

Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the city of New York, state officers “are already weighed down with equipment like escape hoods [gas masks], Mace, flashlights, memo books, ASPs [batons], radio, handcuffs and the like. Additional equipment becomes an encumbrance and a safety issue for those carrying it.” [17]

The cameras also protect police officers against false accusations of misconduct. In San Diego, California, the use of body cameras provided the necessary evidence to exonerate police officers falsely accused of misconduct. The number of severe misconduct allegations deemed false increased 2.4% with body camera footage, and the number of officers exonerated for less severe allegations related to conduct, courtesy, procedure, and service increased 6.5%. [11]

One such barrier is fear of retaliation. A U.S. Justice Department report notes that some “people will be less likely to come forward to share information if they know their conversation is going to be recorded, particularly in high-crime neighborhoods where residents might be subject to retaliation if they are seen as cooperating with police.” [23]

In Phoenix, Arizona, complaints against officers wearing cameras decreased 23%, while complaints against officers not wearing cameras increased 10.6%. [13]

In-car cameras have been used by our Service since 2012 and body-worn cameras were deployed to all patrol members, the Traffic Section and some other frontline officers in April 2019.

If you believe an officer is not using a body-worn camera appropriately, you may file a complaint with the CPS Professional Standards Section.

Elliott Knetsch, prosecutor for the city of Burnsville, Minnesota, whose police department uses body-worn cameras, states, “When the cops are called and come through the door, the victim is very happy and relieved to see them. They feel safe. They tell the officer what happened. That statement given right at that moment is more likely to be the truth than what comes out even half an hour later, when the implications of what has happened start to set in.” [51]

An evaluation of the body-worn camera project was conducted from June to November 2020 to assess the first year of body-worn camera operations, impact on key groups and baseline measures, such as complaints against officers and use-of-force incidents.

Former chief of police Ken Miller of Greensboro, North Carolina, says that if citizens “think that they are going to be recorded every time they talk to an officer, regardless of the context, it is going to damage openness and create barriers to important relationships.” [23]

If you believe an officer is using a body-worn camera inappropriately, you may file a complaint with CPS Professional Standards Section (PSS).

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After the police shooting death of Michael Brown on Aug. 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, President Barack Obama requested $263 million to fund body camera programs and police training on Dec. 1, 2014. As a result the Department of Justice (DOJ)  implemented the Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program (BWC-PIP). Between fiscal year (FY) 2015 and FY 2019, the BWC-PIP gave over 493 awards worth over a collective $70 million to law enforcement agencies in 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Agencies in Maine, Montana, and North Dakota have not been awarded federal body camera funding. [38][40][42][43][44][46]

On June 7, 2021, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, directed the ATF, DEA, FBI, and U.S. Marshals “to develop and submit for review” body-worn camera policies in which agents wear cameras during “(1) a pre-planned attempt to serve an arrest warrant or other pre-planned arrest, including the apprehension of fugitives sought on state and local warrants; or (2) the execution of a search or seizure warrant or order.” [63]

Cameras that record police interactions with the public can play a crucial role in protecting both the public and our officers, as well as supporting a fair justice system.

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There are about 1,350 CPS officers currently using body-worn cameras. All patrol and traffic officers use them, along with uniformed officers in some specialty units, such as the Child at Risk Response Team (CARRT), the Police and Crisis Team (PACT) and the Tactical Support Unit (comprised of the Tactical and Canine teams).

If you would like to view or request a copy of a body-worn camera incident that you are involved in, you can make a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request through the CPS Access and Privacy Section.

Body-worn camera recordings will be automatically deleted after 13 months if officers have not identified their association to a case file.

Officers in the United Kingdom and Queensland, Australia echoed this benefit, stating some abusers plead guilty because they knew there was video footage evidence against them. [52][53]

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Officers issued a body-worn camera receive training about how and when to use the cameras properly. The CPS’ Body Worn Camera Policy governs their use. Any breach of the policy may be regarded as misconduct and may be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with the Police Act. Unauthorized use of body-worn camera video or images may also constitute an offence under the Criminal Code or the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

A sheriff’s office in Virginia stopped using body cameras due to the unreliability of their on-off buttons and poor integration with their IT systems that resulted in the system inaccurately matching camera footage to the officer wearing the camera. [31]

A trial in Edmonton, California, found that body-worn cameras had an insufficient battery length for daily policing, especially in cold weather when battery life diminished more quickly. [9]