Hacker News Reader

> for example, in jurisdictions where body-cam data is a matter of public record, should officers be recording while inside someone's house where that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy?

Public records laws already generally anticipate that public records will frequently contain sensitive, protected data and have general processes (involving redaction or denial of unprivileged general public access, depending on the circumstances) for handling public records to which that applies (source: spent a couple decades in government dealing with public records containing PHI, other PII, and other legally restricted-access information.)

If you listen to a police scanner for a bit, you'll probably hear at least a few social (security number, full name) pairs. If you're in range, a $20 SDR dongle let's you listen and record on your own, or you can just google your way to an online stream from someone else with an SDR.

If you watch BWC footage on the completely public COPA (the civilian office of police accountability, an organization empowered by the govt of the city of Chicago to investigate complaints against CPD) case portal [0], you'll see a lot of intimate, unredacted footage, BWC and otherwise.

I don't think the privacy laws have caught up with the tech. Or maybe the privacy is sacrificed in the name of transparency and accountability. I was not in the room where these decisions where made, so I couldn't say.

[0] https://www.chicagocopa.org/data-cases/case-portal/

Right, but also consider that what you're describing is a matter of law, and we're already talking about changing law (to require body cameras to be always-on), so why not change the other stuff too?

Change the "plain view" exception to only apply to stuff the officer notices while physically there; if they see it in footage later, it's not admissible in court, and not grounds for a search warrant. Change the recording-consent laws to not apply to police body cameras.

And regarding privacy, have retention policies: if there's no legal hold on some body cam footage (part of an active investigation or court proceeding, etc.), it gets deleted after 90 days (or whatever time period sounds reasonable). That way we don't have recordings of people's private residences living in storage indefinitely.

No, there are no "privacy considerations" to body camera footage. Those only into play when the footage is made public. When you cite "privacy," you're letting the police dictate the terms of the discussion.

The footage must be recorded and retained, with the decision to edit and/or release it left up to courts or other independent authorities.

As for two-party laws, those have to go. They don't have a place in a society where the people need the ability to hold police and other officials accountable. If the police are doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear, right? Isn't that what they tell us?

The party in question that might object is the person being recorded, not the officer.

Too bad. The camera, like the officer himself, is supposed to be there for the individual's protection. Or, more accurately, the officer's job is to protect and serve those in his or her charge, while the camera's job is to protect society. That's a compelling interest if there ever was one.

The courts can decide when it's appropriate for the footage to be viewed where privacy concerns exist. They can't do that if the footage never existed in the first place... but they will cheerfully take the officer's word regarding what he saw. It's misguided at best to think that this state of affairs is preferable from a privacy and security standpoint.

Police officers go to the bathroom. They take lunch breaks. They go to doctors appointments. They notify next of kin after a death.

> The courts can decide when it's appropriate for the footage to be viewed where privacy concerns exist

Any data that is recorded will be made public eventually, one way or another, which is why it shouldn't be recorded in the first place.

Again: too bad. There are other professions besides law enforcement, if you can't deal with the requirements.

It's certainly one of those jobs that I could never do. I have nothing but respect for ethical, professional LEOs. They are among the people who will benefit the most from having a full AV record of their interactions with the public.

At the very least if any situation requires official capacity, the officer shouldn't have the camera off. The camera should have features like "toggle off for 5m" or "turn off persistent but you can't act as LE".

The situation remains that law enforcement has no real checks on their own power, and they've moved to restrict or block such checks on their power.

I don’t think it is complicated at all. At least not based on the examples you gave here.

Of course the video will be admissible as evidence. It’s a lot better in fact than relying on the officers memory.

I’d much rather innocent people are exonerated based on video than that guilty people go free because a police officer happened to miss the evidence of a crime.

What are we even talking about here?

If you are being stopped by police, you are generally already not doing that voluntarily, so saying you need consent to record audio or video in such a situation strikes me as weird too.

I believe when video exists (or at least is used in a trial), there's an obligation that the plaintiff receives a copy. I don't know how common this actually is, but I've seen speculation that in some circumstances (e.g. domestic and/or sexual violence) this could cause problems for the victim.

I don’t think anyone has, or should have, a reasonable expectation of privacy when there is a uniformed officer there - for exactly the reason you say, the plain sight exception, the fact officers are armed agents of the gov’t, etc.

If they could see it (real or imagined) and arrest you for it, having a camera to prove if they could or could not even actually see it seems like a pretty reasonable safeguard!

> should officers be recording while inside someone's house where that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy?

The officer has the opportunity to plant drugs if he is not being recorded.