Downside of police body cams
Nov. 11th, 2014 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrSeems some reality show (or website) is filing public info requests for *all* the footage from the cams of several Washington state police departments.
One of them (for a small town I forget the name of) noted it'd take them three *years* to get that done (only so much "spare" time to copy the videos, y'know).
But they also raised a very important point.
Requests like this raise *severe* privacy concerns. Not for the officers. For the *public*.
After all, cops tend to encounter folks who are in bad situations or a ting badly (or victims of people acting badly).
Releasimng video of folks with mental health issue, or victims of domestic abuse, or any number of other things is a major violation of *their* privacy.
Obviously the rules for this sort of thing need a lot more thought than they've been given.
I'd say that as a rule, the "give us everything" type requests should be automatically denied unless a case is made that they are looking for patterns of abuse.
This outfit that is apparently trying to become a low budget version of COPS should be right out.
Also, for outfits like that, they should have topo *pay* costs of copying and a bit nore (to help offset the costs of the actual "public interest" requests).
Also, thjere needs to be provisions that given the people in the videos a right to decline to have them released if the request is for "curiousity" much less for public display.
One of them (for a small town I forget the name of) noted it'd take them three *years* to get that done (only so much "spare" time to copy the videos, y'know).
But they also raised a very important point.
Requests like this raise *severe* privacy concerns. Not for the officers. For the *public*.
After all, cops tend to encounter folks who are in bad situations or a ting badly (or victims of people acting badly).
Releasimng video of folks with mental health issue, or victims of domestic abuse, or any number of other things is a major violation of *their* privacy.
Obviously the rules for this sort of thing need a lot more thought than they've been given.
I'd say that as a rule, the "give us everything" type requests should be automatically denied unless a case is made that they are looking for patterns of abuse.
This outfit that is apparently trying to become a low budget version of COPS should be right out.
Also, for outfits like that, they should have topo *pay* costs of copying and a bit nore (to help offset the costs of the actual "public interest" requests).
Also, thjere needs to be provisions that given the people in the videos a right to decline to have them released if the request is for "curiousity" much less for public display.
