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Here’s where better technology could help. Body cameras could be automatically activated immediately when certain cues are triggered, such as when the officer e

by nkurz 10y ago

Here’s where better technology could help. Body cameras could be automatically activated immediately when certain cues are triggered, such as when the officer enters a crime hot spot, leaves a police vehicle, takes out handcuffs or a weapon, turns on the siren, or makes a call for assistance on the radio. This way, the officer doesn’t have to think about activating the body camera in a tense situation. I'd taken it for granted that a police body camera would not require manual activation. I'd also assumed that they should be always on. Is there really need for better technology here, as opposed to just a change of political will?

mistermann 10y ago
It's probably hard to close a sale if they can't be deactivated on demand.
ktRolster 10y ago
I'd also assumed that they should be always on. Is there really need for better technology here, as opposed to just a change of political will? I think you can easily fit a day's worth of video on an 8GB ssd, so I'd think the problem here is not really technological. Although storing that much video is a pain.
- DINKDINK 10y ago
  >I think you can easily fit a day's worth of video on an 8GB ssd I'm not a video expert but 8GB seems drastically inadequate for meaningful resolution / frame rate. I estimate roughly 291 Kbps which does allow you much resolution / frame rate.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- chx 10y ago
  Let's simply take what Netflix recommends: 3 megabit / second for HD video, that means 32GB for 24 hours. Not too bad given you can get a 32GB microSD for below $10.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    Netflix gets to squeeze and optimize in advance, once, for hopefully many hundreds of thousands of streamings. Police body cameras are going to be a lot more like the dash came I recently installed for a trip. 1080p at 30FPS and slightly blurry gets me about 5 hours to a 32 'billion byte' uSDHC card. That isn't so bad, you can fit a normal shift in to a 64 GByte space, and if you double that up again you'd get almost a whole day's worth of time. The battery is an issue for sure, but then again Police already come equipped with a belt that has a lot of other stuff, and are usually deployed with a moving vehicle OR are stationed in an area where they will have a regular chance to return to a break room (which is where a natural battery swap would occur).
- curun1r 10y ago
  Might battery the more limited resource when it comes to body cameras? After all, given that these are mounted on someone who has a job to do, they have to be pretty small/light and batteries for always-on devices that last that long tend to be pretty big.
sleepychu 10y ago
I used to work for a body worn video manufacturer as an SE. Your children comments are neglecting the battery cost (it's a lot cheaper to run a camera waiting to record than recording all the time). Device size is important to customers as is how often they'll need to refresh their hardware and both of these things are affected by required recording time. >I'd taken it for granted that a police body camera would not require manual activation. I'd also assumed that they should be always on. Is there really need for better technology here, as opposed to just a change of political will? When the government in area mandates the technologies use in an 'always-on' way then this is easy to sell, otherwise you tend to find that the enforcement officers give a lot of resistance to being monitored, it's not because they're doing anything nefarious it's just because people don't like being watched 24/7 and they don't want video evidence of them checking their smart phone (because maybe they shouldn't be) or taking a shit (because who wants someone seeing that?) on the job.
- marincounty 10y ago
  Battery cost? I'm sure tax payers would happily pay for extra batteries. I can't imagine couple of extra batteries would be a weight problem? Or, if the unit cost is low enough, extra cams could be tossed in the trunk of the cruiser? After all, the cameras are for the officer's protection. If I was an officer, I would demand to have the camera on at all times. I'd even buy my own cams from China--if the department decided to cut back on funds. I bought two dash cams. They were $15 a piece. The darnedest thing--I haven't been pulled over since my purchase. Think of the valuable police time I saved by my simple purchase?
- swombat 10y ago
  Policemen are public servants who are trusted with use of force in normal society. If they want to keep their privacy they should go and do something else where they don't get to occasionally legally beat up or shoot someone.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Both battery requirements and basic privacy expectations (officers are humans too) deserve some balancing versus the public's interest in always on cameras. I wonder how much of a middle ground could be reached by turning off-switches into maybe-off-switches or very-very-low-quality switches. While maybe-off could greatly reduce the "ready for mischief" effect of off switches while keeping much of the battery advantage, I doubt they will bring much relief in terms officer privacy: the great majority of all that toilet/smartphone footage won't ever be reviewed anyway, so reduction by one more stochastical factor won't make much subjective difference. But low quality is an accepted privacy feature. Think blurred faces etc, it's everywhere. Of course the "nearly off" camera would low-res the whole frame instead of faces and preferably at a not only very low but also jittery frame rate. This could be enough to take the sting out of both battery drain and privacy intrusion, while at the same time yield sufficient information to determine wether the switch has been used in an acceptable deactivation situation or not (e.g out on the street vs at the office). Since this world not only reduce abusive camera deactivation but also make it easier to defend acceptable deactivation, this could even be sold as a plus to both sides.
Silhouette 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
Navarr 10y ago
One of the concerns my local precinct was that body cameras would hamper the right to privacy of the general public. Always On would mean a task force of moving cameras watching everyone(?)

by nkurz 10y ago

mistermann 10y ago

It's probably hard to close a sale if they can't be deactivated on demand.

ktRolster 10y ago

I'd also assumed that they should be always on. Is there really need for better technology here, as opposed to just a change of political will? I think you can easily fit a day's worth of video on an 8GB ssd, so I'd think the problem here is not really technological. Although storing that much video is a pain.

DINKDINK 10y ago
>I think you can easily fit a day's worth of video on an 8GB ssd I'm not a video expert but 8GB seems drastically inadequate for meaningful resolution / frame rate. I estimate roughly 291 Kbps which does allow you much resolution / frame rate.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
chx 10y ago
Let's simply take what Netflix recommends: 3 megabit / second for HD video, that means 32GB for 24 hours. Not too bad given you can get a 32GB microSD for below $10.
- mjevans 10y ago
  Netflix gets to squeeze and optimize in advance, once, for hopefully many hundreds of thousands of streamings. Police body cameras are going to be a lot more like the dash came I recently installed for a trip. 1080p at 30FPS and slightly blurry gets me about 5 hours to a 32 'billion byte' uSDHC card. That isn't so bad, you can fit a normal shift in to a 64 GByte space, and if you double that up again you'd get almost a whole day's worth of time. The battery is an issue for sure, but then again Police already come equipped with a belt that has a lot of other stuff, and are usually deployed with a moving vehicle OR are stationed in an area where they will have a regular chance to return to a break room (which is where a natural battery swap would occur).
curun1r 10y ago
Might battery the more limited resource when it comes to body cameras? After all, given that these are mounted on someone who has a job to do, they have to be pretty small/light and batteries for always-on devices that last that long tend to be pretty big.

sleepychu 10y ago

I used to work for a body worn video manufacturer as an SE. Your children comments are neglecting the battery cost (it's a lot cheaper to run a camera waiting to record than recording all the time). Device size is important to customers as is how often they'll need to refresh their hardware and both of these things are affected by required recording time. >I'd taken it for granted that a police body camera would not require manual activation. I'd also assumed that they should be always on. Is there really need for better technology here, as opposed to just a change of political will? When the government in area mandates the technologies use in an 'always-on' way then this is easy to sell, otherwise you tend to find that the enforcement officers give a lot of resistance to being monitored, it's not because they're doing anything nefarious it's just because people don't like being watched 24/7 and they don't want video evidence of them checking their smart phone (because maybe they shouldn't be) or taking a shit (because who wants someone seeing that?) on the job.

marincounty 10y ago
Battery cost? I'm sure tax payers would happily pay for extra batteries. I can't imagine couple of extra batteries would be a weight problem? Or, if the unit cost is low enough, extra cams could be tossed in the trunk of the cruiser? After all, the cameras are for the officer's protection. If I was an officer, I would demand to have the camera on at all times. I'd even buy my own cams from China--if the department decided to cut back on funds. I bought two dash cams. They were $15 a piece. The darnedest thing--I haven't been pulled over since my purchase. Think of the valuable police time I saved by my simple purchase?
swombat 10y ago
Policemen are public servants who are trusted with use of force in normal society. If they want to keep their privacy they should go and do something else where they don't get to occasionally legally beat up or shoot someone.
usrusr 10y ago
Both battery requirements and basic privacy expectations (officers are humans too) deserve some balancing versus the public's interest in always on cameras. I wonder how much of a middle ground could be reached by turning off-switches into maybe-off-switches or very-very-low-quality switches. While maybe-off could greatly reduce the "ready for mischief" effect of off switches while keeping much of the battery advantage, I doubt they will bring much relief in terms officer privacy: the great majority of all that toilet/smartphone footage won't ever be reviewed anyway, so reduction by one more stochastical factor won't make much subjective difference. But low quality is an accepted privacy feature. Think blurred faces etc, it's everywhere. Of course the "nearly off" camera would low-res the whole frame instead of faces and preferably at a not only very low but also jittery frame rate. This could be enough to take the sting out of both battery drain and privacy intrusion, while at the same time yield sufficient information to determine wether the switch has been used in an acceptable deactivation situation or not (e.g out on the street vs at the office). Since this world not only reduce abusive camera deactivation but also make it easier to defend acceptable deactivation, this could even be sold as a plus to both sides.

Silhouette 10y ago

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 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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.

Navarr 10y ago

One of the concerns my local precinct was that body cameras would hamper the right to privacy of the general public. Always On would mean a task force of moving cameras watching everyone(?)