7 ms·

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

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.
- bunderbunder 10y ago
  Officers are humans, too, and should get intense protection of their privacy whenever they are off duty. When they're on duty, though, they are acting in the service of the public, not as private citizens. We need to be very careful about letting them have much or any privacy while they're at work. There's just too much opportunity for abuse. No, I don't think this is unfair. It's certainly no less unfair than when restaurants like Chipotle and Steak n Shake use open kitchens. Having employees do their work in full view of the customers is not very different from requiring police to use body cameras from a privacy-at-work perspective, and is done for much the same reason.
  - brador 10y ago
    How about always on recording but only a court can authorise viewing? So if someone has a complaint the video is pulled out and watched, else it goes in a vault and is auto deleted after 60 days. I'd happily pee while wearing one if that was the case.
    - Eridrus 10y ago
      If we start allowing any deletion, police will simply find a way to stall until the deadline is passed. This has happened several times in Seattle with dash cams
  - RobertoG 10y ago
    I certainly would hate to be watched all the time in my job, I don't see why officers should be. It seems to me that a compromise can be reached. Probably the rules already exist about reporting the headquarters when they are starting a police action, you just have to add the requirement to start the camera.
    - leesalminen 10y ago
      Are you provided a firearm, taser, mace, and baton as part of your job? Is your job funded by taxpayer money? Are you expected to be able to deal with stressful situations that could endanger your life daily? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, I think it's an apple to oranges comparison.
tremon 10y ago
it's a lot cheaper to run a camera waiting to record than recording all the time That does not mean the decision to run the camera should be in the officers' hands though. It should be possible to design an algorithm that automatically starts and stops recording based on officer location (like "shut off the camera when the officer is facing a car dashboard"). Then there's also the option to continuously record audio, even when video recording is turned off. There's so many better alternatives than "give the police officer discretion over when to hide their actions".
746F7475 10y ago
>it's just because people don't like being watched 24/7 Unless you work at very odd hours, you probably aren't out on the streets 24/7. You are most likely on the streets for 4-6 hours a day, which really isn't that big of a deal. As for checking smartphones, maybe, just maybe, when police are out protecting people they shouldn't be hanging on social media or playing games on their phones? If you don't want to "get caught" using a smart phone, leave it at your locker. About shitting, maybe there could be a mechanism to turn off the camera for few minutes, so you could do your bathroom stuff in private and there really wouldn't be anyway way to abuse it since you'd see from the context of the video what was going on, e.g. if you are approaching a suspect, then video cuts off for a minute and next thing we see is bloodied suspect then obviously the cop should get penalized for that.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Even with regular working hours, it's not without problems to record everything that happens during the shift on video. Starting with bathroom breaks.
  - msandford 10y ago
    It's not that difficult to take the camera off before going into the bathroom. And if you forget to put it back on after and then some questionable stuff happens afterwards, well, it's going to look very bad. If you can remember to punch in and out for your shift, you can remember to take the camera off and put it back on around bathroom breaks.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      And when you take away or turn off the camera at some point, you have the problem that the camera wasn't on when someone thinks it should have been. The policeman is attacked in the bathroom. Or he or she gets an urgent distress call and rushes away and does not have time to fiddle with the camera. There are no very simple solutions to this, no silver bullet.
      - 10y ago
Eridrus 10y ago
Has anyone experimented with turning cameras on when officer heart rate increases? Potentially with a notification sound and a button to explicitly turn it off if this triggers when you're taking a shit.

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.

bunderbunder 10y ago
Officers are humans, too, and should get intense protection of their privacy whenever they are off duty. When they're on duty, though, they are acting in the service of the public, not as private citizens. We need to be very careful about letting them have much or any privacy while they're at work. There's just too much opportunity for abuse. No, I don't think this is unfair. It's certainly no less unfair than when restaurants like Chipotle and Steak n Shake use open kitchens. Having employees do their work in full view of the customers is not very different from requiring police to use body cameras from a privacy-at-work perspective, and is done for much the same reason.
- brador 10y ago
  How about always on recording but only a court can authorise viewing? So if someone has a complaint the video is pulled out and watched, else it goes in a vault and is auto deleted after 60 days. I'd happily pee while wearing one if that was the case.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    If we start allowing any deletion, police will simply find a way to stall until the deadline is passed. This has happened several times in Seattle with dash cams
- RobertoG 10y ago
  I certainly would hate to be watched all the time in my job, I don't see why officers should be. It seems to me that a compromise can be reached. Probably the rules already exist about reporting the headquarters when they are starting a police action, you just have to add the requirement to start the camera.
  - leesalminen 10y ago
    Are you provided a firearm, taser, mace, and baton as part of your job? Is your job funded by taxpayer money? Are you expected to be able to deal with stressful situations that could endanger your life daily? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, I think it's an apple to oranges comparison.

tremon 10y ago

it's a lot cheaper to run a camera waiting to record than recording all the time That does not mean the decision to run the camera should be in the officers' hands though. It should be possible to design an algorithm that automatically starts and stops recording based on officer location (like "shut off the camera when the officer is facing a car dashboard"). Then there's also the option to continuously record audio, even when video recording is turned off. There's so many better alternatives than "give the police officer discretion over when to hide their actions".

746F7475 10y ago

>it's just because people don't like being watched 24/7 Unless you work at very odd hours, you probably aren't out on the streets 24/7. You are most likely on the streets for 4-6 hours a day, which really isn't that big of a deal. As for checking smartphones, maybe, just maybe, when police are out protecting people they shouldn't be hanging on social media or playing games on their phones? If you don't want to "get caught" using a smart phone, leave it at your locker. About shitting, maybe there could be a mechanism to turn off the camera for few minutes, so you could do your bathroom stuff in private and there really wouldn't be anyway way to abuse it since you'd see from the context of the video what was going on, e.g. if you are approaching a suspect, then video cuts off for a minute and next thing we see is bloodied suspect then obviously the cop should get penalized for that.

ptaipale 10y ago
Even with regular working hours, it's not without problems to record everything that happens during the shift on video. Starting with bathroom breaks.
- msandford 10y ago
  It's not that difficult to take the camera off before going into the bathroom. And if you forget to put it back on after and then some questionable stuff happens afterwards, well, it's going to look very bad. If you can remember to punch in and out for your shift, you can remember to take the camera off and put it back on around bathroom breaks.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    And when you take away or turn off the camera at some point, you have the problem that the camera wasn't on when someone thinks it should have been. The policeman is attacked in the bathroom. Or he or she gets an urgent distress call and rushes away and does not have time to fiddle with the camera. There are no very simple solutions to this, no silver bullet.
    - 10y ago

Eridrus 10y ago

Has anyone experimented with turning cameras on when officer heart rate increases? Potentially with a notification sound and a button to explicitly turn it off if this triggers when you're taking a shit.