Seattle PD Holds Hackathon To Solve Body Cam Footage Redaction Problem

from the putting-privacy-back-into-'no-expectation-of-privacy?' dept

Behold. The future of law enforcement.

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) held its first-ever hackathon on Friday. The event was focused on a single problem: How to redact the video streams recorded by police officers from their dashcams and (soon) body-worn video cameras.

This hackathon was inspired by a local privacy activist formerly known only by his email address (policevideorequest@gmail.com) and his FOIA request for every Seattle PD body cam recording in perpetuity. By leveraging transparency against privacy, the activist hoped to achieve a better balance of both -- but for a few moments, it looked like the only thing that would suffer damage was accountability. The expansive request caused the city to rethink its decision to put cameras on its cops. Now, the camera program is again moving forward, and with the activist's help.

No completely workable solution presented itself during the five-hour event, but progress was made towards achieving this balance. Many of the projects presented performed automatic blurring of persons encountered by police and offered rudimentary auto-transcription of recorded audio. Timothy Clemans -- the activist who is now working with the police to solve their redaction problem -- has a demonstration of his own prototype hosted at his website. He also voiced his support for police officers and suggested the default settings for FOIA'ed video.

Clemans… stated that most of the work done by police officers is saving lives through CPR or calmly working with drunken or angry citizens, yet the public rarely sees that on video. He also urged a report where all video would be initially over-redacted – essentially the whole frame is blurred – and then the news media or activists could ask for less redacted versions of the video of interest.

Although solid progress was made, there are a few caveats. First, as Marcus Womack of Evidence.com points out, the job can never be solely trusted to an automated process. Anything deemed "sensitive" would still need human review before release. Secondly, many of the tools demonstrated have their own limitations, like text-to-speech programs that only recognize English and the fact that much of the recorded audio is less than pristine.

Finally, whether privacy activists like it or not, there's not going to be a whole lot of redaction happening once the camera program is underway.

Seattle Police officials… admitted that about 90 percent of the video officers create probably needs no redaction at all. That’s because members of the public have no right to expect privacy in their interactions with police, unless they are juveniles or a witness or victim whose safety might be at risk if their identity is known.

Now, we just need the police to remember this 90 percent rule. With the police wearing body cameras and the public carrying cellphones, the playing field is as level as it's going to get. This means whatever lack of privacy the public is expected to deal with goes double for camera-wearing cops -- and this means no intimidation tactics, B.S. obstruction charges or seizing of cameras as "evidence." I only mention this because Seattle's law enforcement officers haven't proven themselves any more accepting of public recording than other PDs around the nation.

But the overall good news is that the body cam program is back on track and the Seattle PD actually seems interested in making it work for the betterment of everyone -- not just those wearing the blue.

Filed Under: body cams, bodycams, hackathon, police, privacy, redaction, seattle

LAPD Body Cam Footage Can't Be FOIA'ed; Used In Court Cases Only

from the and-this-fixes-what? dept

The Los Angeles Police Department is getting ready to deploy 7,000 body cameras. That's (mostly) good news. Body cams have the potential to deter bad behavior both by cops and by those they interact with. It's not a complete fix for police misconduct but it's far better than allowing things to continue to run as they have for so many years.

The first 800 cameras have been financed by private donors, including director Steven Spielberg and the Dodgers organization. While traditional public funding would likely have been available, this one-time fundraiser has allowed the process to move much faster than running it through the usual city channels.

This is also good news as 22 donors fronted $1.5 million, showing there's significant public interest in seeing police officers outfitted with body cameras. Now, here comes the bad news.

Privacy-minded groups like the ACLU -- while applauding the move towards greater accountability -- have expressed valid concerns about citizens being caught on camera. It's looking for the crafting of policies that will prevent the distribution of footage to "YouTube and TMZ," as well as safeguards against collected video being passed around departments for the amusement of police officers.

There are also unanswered questions concerning access within police departments. For instance: should officers have access to footage they've captured? -- Being allowed to do so may result in cops aligning their reports with their recordings. While that is a concern, there's no reason to believe officers shouldn't have access to applicable footage when writing reports -- but that does leave the door open for post-incident narrative-massaging. It will be up to those policing the police to determine whether the footage matches the story. That's part of the internal structure, unfortunately, and it's part of what keeps these cameras from being a better solution to the police misconduct problem. Independent reviews will be necessary, but there's been no indication yet that the LAPD is leaning that way.

The really bad news is the fact that the LAPD has opted to almost completely remove the public from the equation.

[LAPD Police Chief Charlie] Beck also said Tuesday that the footage would not be released to the public and would be available only through criminal and civil court proceedings.

And there goes the accountability. It's likely this move was prompted by certain activists in other cities who have placed FOIA requests for all body cam footage in perpetuity. This is an understandable reaction, but there is a middle ground that doesn't seem to have been contemplated. Limitations could be amended into local Freedom of Information statutes that would prevent overly-broad requests such as these. (And, of course, this too has the potential for abuse...)

As it stands now, body cam footage will only be viewed in a courtroom. This provides for almost zero accountability. The deployment of 7,000 body cams loses its deterrent effect if officers know that footage won't be seen unless it's showing their side of the story (criminal cases) or working against them in civil suits. Civil suits obviously aren't a deterrent, considering how many have been filed, how often settlements have been paid and how often officers are granted at minimum partial immunity in civil cases.

The LAPD may be ahead of the curve when it comes to full-blown body cam programs but if this doesn't change, the impact will be negligible.

Filed Under: body cams, foia, lapd, police, privacy

Seattle Privacy Activist Attempts To Kill Accountability With Transparency

from the it-was-the-requester-in-the-basement-with-the-gmail-address dept

You'd think that accountability and transparency would never get this screwed up. But theoretical good can sometimes become a practical nightmare.

The Seattle police department -- one of several police departments around the nation to have spent some time under the DOJ's microscope -- is only weeks away from starting their body cam pilot program. This is good.* Or was, right up until the unlikeliest of wrenches was thrown into the works: a Freedom of Information request.

*Caveats apply.

Now that plan may get put on ice, due in part to an overly broad public records requests. The Seattle Times reported this morning that an anonymous man, known only by the email address policevideorequests@gmail.com, has made an official request for "details on every 911 dispatch on which officers are sent; all the written reports they produce; and details of each computer search generated by officers when they run a person’s name, or check a license plate or address."

The requestor also wants all video from patrol car cameras currently in use, and plans to request video from body cams once they are implemented. He has requested the information "every day, in spreadsheet form."

Look, I'm one of the biggest fans of freedom of information laws and police accountability, but what the anonymous requester is demanding creates a massive logistical headache. The problem is the request can't necessarily be denied because the state law doesn't provide a legally-sound escape hatch to use to turn down overly-broad requests. Faced with this request, the city created it own exit strategy: pulling the plug on the body cam program.

Not that the requester's intentions were pure. The unnamed requester (who is in his 20's and lives with his parents, according to the Seattle Times) has an ideological ax to grind.

“I think what we need is some sort of balance between transparency and privacy,” the requestor said.

The man, who runs a YouTube channel of police video and audio, also spoke to Reuters, stating his belief that "state law is simply too liberal when it comes to privacy."

The requester is hoping to make the city realize that body cams create potential privacy problems, presumably by posting as many unredacted recordings as possible. Audacious, if a bit disingenuous. Fortunately, the city and the privacy activist have reached an agreement.

The programmer agreed to drop his requests if given videos in a deal that would then see him advise the department on thorny tech issues related to public-records requests for videos, such as how to more quickly redact footage and how to store it online for easy access by the public, media and lawyers.

"Under the law, they get requests regardless of whether or not I go away, and they view what I do as part of the solution," the programmer, a man in his 20s, told reporters at a joint news conference with police in which he declined to reveal his identity.

With this agreement in place, the body cam pilot program is back on track. The comfort level of Seattle citizens may not be where it once was, however, not after watching the city being extorted into handing the control of body cam footage over to someone who still lives with his parents.

In the long run, this will probably result in less information and less accountability. Someone has given legislators a pretty good reason to patch holes in their freedom of information laws, and given them every excuse to load up on additional restrictions and exemptions. The anonymous requester may have made a point about privacy, but the end result will likely be more secrecy.

Filed Under: body cameras, body cams, foia, police, privacy, seattle