By: Angelica Diaz
Within the last year, the amount of news coverage on police brutality has increased tremendously. Unfortunately, it has become a part of society to see social media postings regarding different types of brutality and unlawful escalation of the use of force by law enforcement officials while on duty. As a result of these escalations, the public has begun debating and even in some instances demanding the use of body cameras on police officials in order to create a sense of accountability to the officers. What the public does not realize is that with their demands for accountability, may arise a constitutional issue of the invasion of their right to privacy.
The increasingly debated idea of police body cameras comes from the concept of body worn video that is a system which is normally used by police to record the interactions between law enforcement officials and the public, as well as to capture evidence that may be overlooked in a crime scene. The reason many more Americans are expressing their beliefs toward the use of body cameras on law enforcement officials is in order to increase accountability of police when there are claims of excessive force, unlawful arrest, and an endless amount of other issues that arise while officers are on duty.
Over time the Constitution and the protections that are expressed and inferred within it have changed, and in some instances, changed dramatically. The right to privacy was once a right that was only inferred within the United States Constitution; but after much debate, the right to privacy is now a constitutional right protected under the 14th Amendment. There are also other Amendments such as the First, Fourth, and Fifth, that attempt to expand on that right. The right to privacy expands over many aspects of one’s life, such as the privacy of personal autonomy, marriage, parenthood, and one’s home.
There are many avenues in which police body cameras can affect the constitutional right to privacy; but recently in a Boston Globe article, a debate by Massachusetts officials in deciding whether to use Lowell as the test city for these cameras in the Commonwealth has arisen and police officers have brought up their concerns for violating people’s right to privacy in their homes. Since there has yet to be much precedent decided on this issue, especially in Massachusetts, police are unaware of the procedures that will be used with the use of police worn body cameras. One particular officer brought to the attention of officials his concern regarding while at the home of an individual for police assistance, what will the procedure be if the individual requests the officer to turn off the camera; his question further expanded to whether the refusal by police to turn off the camera violate the individual’s right to privacy and more specifically the right to privacy in their home.
As previously stated, this issue of the right to privacy in one’s home being violated with the use of police body cameras is one that is very new and present in current events across this country. The only way to move forward in analyzing and finding a solution to this is to look to similar current practices and begin to tie them together. For example, a current practice police are known to use is, while conducting a search and seizure of one’s property, whether that be one’s person, home, or car, there is a limited right to privacy to the individual being searched. The reason this right is limited to a degree, is to allow police to complete their job effectively to ensure safety, and possibly the collection of evidence needed for further prosecution; even though police are given the ability to limit this Constitutional right, they are only given the ability to do so when there is probable cause.
Moving forward to connect the similar practice by police with the new issue, I believe that this issue in the future will allow police when called to a residence for assistance, may be given the ability to limit individual’s right to privacy to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Giving the police the ability to limit this right will ensure that everything that occurred in the home by the officer and the individuals involved, will be recorded for use either to protect all involved when issues of police brutality or excessive force are claimed and to use in future court proceedings when the events and evidence are in controversy.
As with all new legal issues, as soon one seems to be understood, many more issues arise. If a procedure or law were to be passed to the effect that police can deny the requests of individuals in their request to turn off body cameras in their home, ultimately limiting them to the right to privacy in their home, I believe this will cause more debate. It is foreseeable that debate would arise as to determining which calls where police assistance is sought amounts to giving police that particular right; is it any time police are called or only 9-1-1 emergencies. Also, if the law moving forward denied police the ability to limit the right to privacy in one’s home in regards to the use of body cameras, then the issue would escalate to who and when has the ability to turn off their body camera while on duty, changing the legal issue to perhaps chain of custody. Either way, police body cameras are a central debate everywhere across the country not just Massachusetts, and with more and more cities and states beginning to test out their benefits and downfalls, we may see fairly soon what effects they will have on our onstitutional rights and what the legal system will have to say in regards to judgments and statutes on those issues.
Angelica is a Staff Member of the Journal of High Technology Law. She is currently a 2L at Suffolk Law with an area of focus in Juvenile and Family Law. She holds a B.A. in Legal Studies from Bay Path University
