Model of a body camera.
Placing body cameras on police officers brings into question who officers are supposed to be protecting, says Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
There are two concerns that arise with the use of these devices, says Des Rosiers. First, there is the debate of how exactly these cameras will be used.
Des Rosiers says the cameras are mostly there to protect the officers by providing evidence for their account of an event. She questions whether or not the police can engage in a helpful interaction with members of the community while wearing a camera.
“You don’t want people afraid of going up to police because they’re afraid of being taped,” says Des Rosiers.
The proposed cameras fit around the ear of the officer or in the middle of the chest attached to a shirt or vest, says Magdy Rafla, a sales representative at MD Charlton Co. Ltd, which sells recording devices to law enforcement organizations.
Body cameras have been used by police in the U.S., Australia, and the United Kingdom. The proposal to equip local officers initially came from the Ottawa Police Association as a means of accurately capturing an altercation between an officer and resident.
Rafla says recordings are useful for training situations and for when an officer is unable to record exactly what happened during an altercation.
To ensure police accountability, it must be clear if the camera will be recording all the time or if the officer will regulate it. If the officer wearing the device controls it, this raises concerns about the accuracy of the footage.
“If they are engaging in some form of brutal action and then turn it on only when the suspect responds in an aggressive fashion, then this doesn’t help very much in getting the whole story,” says Des Rosiers.
Staff Sgt. Richard Bail, at the RCMP Access to Information and Privacy Branch, says he thinks body cameras would protect both the officer and the citizen.
When video recordings were made on VHS tapes from inside the officer’s car, Bail says he saw a shift in the behaviour of other officers.
“To be honest, I found most police officers in my mind would go overboard in trying to appease these people and talk to these people,” says Bail.
One of the reasons these cameras are being introduced is in response to the increased taping of officers by members of the public. Des Rosiers says police are now trying to create their own tapes to serve as evidence if a video made by a citizen may have been tampered with.
Recording interactions with citizens also raises the debate over the right to privacy, including how long the footage will be kept for and who will have access to it.
Because of the storage capacity of new technologies, Bail says there would need to be a policy for how long the recordings are kept.
“I’ve had it happen to me personally where I arrested someone and it takes up to six months for them to make a complaint,” says Bail. “What are you supposed to do with this stuff? Keep it?”
The expense of the program is a main reason why the proposal for body cameras on police officers in Victoria, B.C., fell through.
The cost for one camera can range between $800 and $2,000 depending on the device, says Rafla.
The price for the cameras proposed for Ottawa police is about $1,800 each. Storing and reviewing the footage also adds to the program’s overall cost.
“I think the hope is that police officers knowing that their behaviour is taped and that their interactions is always recorded, will be more careful,” says Des Rosiers. “They will not engage in abusive behaviour.”