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> A COMPENDIUM OF LAW ENFORCEMENT SURVEILLANCE TOOLS

By Edward F. Loomis

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O Facial Recognition Systems o GPS Trackers o License Plate Readers o Drones • Body Cameras o Cell Tower Simulators o Parallel Construction

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Body cameras provide a convenient means to capture and record both audio and video encounters with the public from an officer's first-person perspec­ tive. The most popular camera models are as light as 2.2 ounces and as small as 1.9" x 1.9" x 0.75", and deliver resolutions from 480 VGA to 1080 HD with viewing ranges up to 142 degrees. Some body cameras contain added features provid­ ing 32 GB of internal storage, GPS for geo- location tagging, and infrared LED lighting for night and low-light situations.

In September 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a $23.2 million grant program to purchase body cameras ($19.3 million), training and technical support ($2 million), and studying the impact of their use in law enforcement jurisdictions within

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thirty-two states ($1.9 million). The presumed benefits of the program were that both the public and police might exercise better behavior with awareness that their encounters were being recorded. The cam­ eras would serve as a reminder for officers present to adhere fully to departmental pro­ tocols, and the images and audio recordings would serve as eviden­ tiary documentation in resolving complaints and court cases.

Body cameras surveil everything in the vicinity of the lens, capturing both audio and video—including innocent parties nearby who may be unaware they're being recorded. The captured video may include the date, time, and GPS coordi­ nates of the recording. Some cameras deliver livestream communica­ tions to a remote server for live monitoring.

Body cameras have gained increased public acceptance since being deemed valuable in accountability disputes between cops and the public. However, due to fear of retaliation or fear of public expo­ sure, there exists the concern that the use of body cameras may discourage bystanders from coming forward as credible witnesses to help assist with investigations.

The effectiveness of their use is somewhat mixed based on the results of two con­ trasting studies. The first yearlong study was conducted within the Rialto, Calif., Police Department from 2012 to February 2013. Use-of-force incidents occurred twice as frequently during patrol shifts where cameras were not worn as during those in which the cameras were used. For the Rialto PD, the use of body

cameras reduced the use of force incidents for the year studied to 60 percent of what they had been in the previous twelve-month period. Also, there was an overall reduction in the number of com­ plaints lodged against the police, dropping from twenty-eight filed during the year before the study to just three that year.

More recently, a study conducted by The Lab @ DC on the employment of body cameras by the Metropolitan Police Department of Wash­ ington, DC, during the eighteen-month period ending in December 2016 revealed no statistical difference caused by their use. The study found that the devices "have no effect on the mea­ sured behaviors, and the video footage they produce has no effect on judicial outcomes." The study posits that

A Compendium of Law Enforcement Surveillance Tools

O Facial Recognition Systems O GPS Trackers O License Plate Readers O Drones • Body Cameras O Cell Tower Simulators O Parallel Construction

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"perhaps neither the officer nor citizen involved in an interac­ tion are actually aware of the camera, either due to attention being diverted elsewhere or desensitization over time to the presence of the cameras." The study concluded that it was unable to detect any statistical effect from the officers wear­ ing body cameras. It further cautioned law enforcement agencies in environments similar to Washington, DC, that may be consid­ ering adopting body cameras not to "expect dramatic reductions in use of force or com­ plaints, or other large- scale shifts in police behavior, solely from the deployment of this technology."

A November 2017 report produced jointly by Upturn, Inc. and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights examined police department policies on

the use of body cam­ eras. From the data collected in seven­ ty-five major depart­ ments and jurisdictions across the country, the report concluded that police body camera policies vary widely.

The report examined the jurisdictions' use policies that were pub­ licly available in order to determine whether or not they met the Con­ ference's eight criteria of civil rights principles on body-worn cameras: policy availability, officer discretion, personal privacy, officer review, footage retention, footage misuse, footage access, and biometric use. Departments that met a simple majority of the criteria were those from Baltimore City, Md.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Montgomery County, Md.; and Parker, Colo., each having satisfied but five of the eight criteria.

The ratings were categorized into four

classes: those fully satisfying the specific criteria, those par­ tially satisfying the criteria, those in which the policy either did not address the issue or ran counter to the principles, and those where the department had not issued a pub­ licly available policy on the issue. For the seventy-five depart­ ments and the eight issues examined, six hundred policy issue ratings were reported. 143 issues fully met the Conference's crite­ ria, 126 issues partially satisfied the criteria, 303 failed to meet the criteria, and 28 ratings could not be deter­ mined because those departments' policies either were not made public for review or did not exist.

The 2017 study reported the following results for the eight criteria against the publicly available body camera policies of the

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seventy-five depart­ ments examined:

• Twenty-three depart­ ments did not post a policy on their web­ site at all.

• Twenty-seven departments clearly described when offi­ cers must record, but did not require offi­ cers to provide con­ crete justifications for failing to record required events; six departments lacked any policy on when to record.

• Eight departments did not address personal privacy concerns of those being filmed.

• None of the seven­ ty-five departments had a policy requiring officers to file an initial written report or statement before relevant footage was reviewed for all incidents; fifty-nine

departments had policies allowing or encouraging officers to view relevant foot­ age before filing an initial written report or statement; and four departments had no specific policy regarding foot­ age review by their officers.

Sixty-one depart­ ments lacked any policies requiring the department to delete unflagged footage.

Thirty-six depart­ ments did not expressly prohibit either footage tam­ pering or unautho­ rized access.

restrictions on use of biometric technol­ ogies to identify indi­ viduals in footage.

While policy improvements were noted by the 2017 study compared to results from the initial 2015 study, all police departments still have considerable room to improve protections of the First and Fourth Amendment rights of individuals whose images are captured. •

• Sixty-four depart­ ments did not expressly allow individuals filing police misconduct complaints to view relevant footage.

• Sixty-eight depart­ ments imposed no