[Silhouette]

This seems to be the most difficult issue with police body cameras, and I wonder whether it's even possible to solve it.

On the one hand, 100% on-time is obviously good for police accountability, and knowledge that the camera is always on is probably good for preventing potential violence against officers. Both of these are good things, and so far the evidence does support them.

On the other hand, there are genuine privacy issues for both officers and those they deal with, and there are plenty of non-threatening situations where I see no good reason to require recording. There are obvious situations like officers visiting the bathroom, where neither they nor anyone else using the facilities need anyone to have a permanent record of doing their business. However, there are also a lot of sensitive situations they might encounter while doing their job. I can hardly imagine what it would feel like to get a visit from police officers saying your child just got killed by a drunk driver, but you certainly don't need a camera in your face at the time making a record of your reaction to be kept on file forever. It's easy to imagine a chilling effect on useful information being volunteered discreetly as well.

[jonlucc]

These are certainly things that need to be balanced, but we already have a system for dealing with sensitive records. I think the ideal system goes like this: recording always on (keep working on battery issues), and anyone can request any video, but the police can ask a judge to withhold video of a sensitive nature.

[Silhouette]

The trouble with that idea is that some people are increasingly (and IMHO justifiably) skeptical about sensitive records being made or kept in the first place. Merely having some system for managing such records in accordance with whatever rules apply this week is not sufficient to retain the confidence of those people.

There will be mistakes. There will be leaks. There will be abuses. The possibility or likelihood of these things happening will surely have a chilling effect, even if serious problems are rare in practice.