Body Cameras: A question of privacy

Part 2 in a series on video surveillance. Read Part 1.

IOWA CITY - While police body cameras are expected to help law enforcement collect evidence and settle citizen complaints, they also most likely will create issues that need to be addressed.

For police, lawyers and the general public, possibly the biggest concern surrounding cameras is the issue of privacy.

Specifically, is there an expectation of privacy in the home? Or are images captured in private residences that aren't part of criminal investigations open for public consumption?

'If that's not the issue, it's at least one of the main issues in this debate,” said Matthew Feeney, a policy analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute think tank. 'Without good policies in place, body cameras really could do more harm than good.

'Anyone could look up footage of people who have been domestically abused, informants ...

All of that stuff is really quite frightening.”

Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine - whose department will be equipping all its patrol officers, investigators and much of its command staff with body cameras in the coming weeks - uses a hypothetical situation to describe how sticky the issue is:

Someone is at home watching a movie, the windows are down and the sound is turned up. A particular scene prompts the neighbors to suspect a crime actually might be taking place next door and the police are called. Body cameras are clicked on and the incident, which ends only with a warning about the TV volume, ends amicably.

Now, imagine what could be visible in the video of that interaction - children, valuables, clues to someone's sexual orientation. Should that video - which didn't result in an arrest and is unlikely to end up in a complaint about police conduct - be a public record?

It's an issue with which authorities continue to grapple.

'I think there are privacy issues,” Hargadine said. 'I think the legislature needs to address that. While the police have a right to be there, that doesn't mean the public needs to know.”

Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said the privacy issues stretch beyond the home. Police often respond to medical calls - are those recorded? What about sheriff's deputies doing civil commitments, when someone is taken to a hospital for being mentally unwell?

'People who say body cameras will solve the ills of the word have not thought through the ramifications,” Lyness said.

While the Iowa City Police Department only intends to turn on cameras during incidents that involve the collection of evidence or those that could lead to a citizen complaint, both the Coralville Police Department and Johnson County Sheriff's Office say they will activate their body cameras during all citizen interactions.

However, Coralville Police Chief Barry Bedford said citizens there shouldn't worry about police encounters inside their homes being made available to the public, provided no crime took place.

'I think people have an expectation of privacy in their homes,” he said. 'When they invite us into their home, they're inviting us, but they're not inviting the whole world.

'That's a major concern that all of us are frustrated with.”

Bedford, however, said he believes those videos collected by police are confidential under Iowa's record laws. The Iowa Code states that police investigative reports are confidential records.

Hargadine said he's not so sure the records law will protect him in instances that don't result in a criminal case, he said.

'I have no legal means to refuse it,” Hargadine said of records requests of videos that don't capture crimes.

The privacy concerns are one of the reasons the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa - while generally pro-body camera - has concerns about the technology, ACLU of Iowa executive director Jeremy Rosen said. Rosen noted he'd like to see the issue addressed by state lawmakers.

'There's not a lot of law (regarding body cameras), which is part of the concern that we have and why we think it's important, both in general and specifically here in Iowa, that there be good legislation to really outline what the protections are when body cameras are being used,” Rosen said.

'Right now, the law allows police departments to use body cameras, but there's not a detailed state law that talks about privacy and how they're used. We're hoping that rather than having this done on a police department by police department level ...

'We'd like to see state law on these issues.”

The position of the ACLU of Iowa is that videos that are newsworthy or depict significant uses of force or shootings should be made public. Videos without any public video should remain private, Rosen said.

'It's important to make those determinations quickly,” he said. 'Those without any value should be deleted quickly.”

Police and the ACLU want videos that depict use of force and arrests to be retained for a longer period of time to allow for the complaint window to close. In Iowa City, for example, complaints can be filed with the Police Citizens Review Board up to 90 days after the incident.

One potential solution is to allow citizens to request that cameras be turned off in their homes. That provision has been proposed by the national ACLU organization, Feeney said.

'I think it's a good rule,” he said. 'I can't complain if I ask them to turn it off and something isn't caught on film. That's a reasonable provision.”

Bedford said he hasn't had an encounter in which a member of the public has requested the cameras be turned off to protect their privacy and he instructs his officers to avoid doing so.

'If you're a suspect and you say you don't want it on and we're there legally, we're probably not going to turn that off,” he said.

Requests for camera footage will have to be handled on a case-by-case basis and passed through city legal services, Hargadine said. That said, he plans on leaning on the side of caution and protecting citizens.

'We've been very careful and very guarded, especially about incidents that portray our citizens in a negative light,” Hargadine said. 'If it's just to smear them, I'm not putting it out there.”

Cedar Rapids police could be next to get body cameras

The Cedar Rapids City Council approved a police department request to apply for a federal Byrne Justice Assistance Grant. If the department receives the $23,190, the funds will be used to purchase 28 body cameras.

Lt. Brent Long said the department has been looking at the technology for more than a year, but wanted to wait for other issues to be addressed before making the move. For example, there are no rules regarding privacy or mandating when the cameras should or shouldn't be activated, Long said.

Also, there were indications earlier this year that the federal government could mandate and provide funding for body cameras.

'We wanted a lot of that resolved,” Long said, noting the department wants to be fiscally responsible with their purchase. 'We didn't want to jump into that.”

The department employs 208 officers and the 28 body cameras would be 'experimental,” Long said. The department wants the officers to try the cameras and how they suit the department.

As with other agencies that have obtained body cameras, Long - who works in professional standards and internal affairs - said the hope is the cameras will tell another side of the story when it comes to officer complaints.

'I think throughout the country you've seen what social media has done in depicting certain situations and stories,” he said. 'Sometimes you don't see the whole story. That's what we need to get across to the public - there are two sides to every story.”

Long notes that 'cameras don't lie,” but are only one part of an investigation.

'They're a great tool as part of an investigation, but you can't have it as all of your investigation,” he said. 'You still need to get out and talk to people. There's always something you may miss.”

Long said he's hopeful the cameras will serve as a training tool, allowing officers to go back situations to analyze what worked and what didn't. There's also a hope that the cameras will make the public think about how they act toward police officers.

'The public needs to see in the mirror a little bit how they act,” Long said. 'Or at least (how) some of the public does.”

Long said it will be a month or more before the department knows whether they've received the grant and then decide which cameras best suit their needs.

- The Hiawatha Police Department has had 14 body cameras - one for each officer - since April 2013, according to Chief Dennis Marks.

- Marion Police Department Chief Harry Daugherty said that all his officers have been using body cameras for about three years. But with the next budget, which begins July 1, they'll be replaced with newer, high-definition cameras that hold more data and download wirelessly, he added.

- Col. John Stuelke with the Linn County Sheriff's Office said they do not have body cameras but are in the process of researching the technology.