Automated Activation on ICE Body Cameras Is Common Sense |
The Government Accountability Office, an independent non-partisan watchdog agency, released a report this month finding that the US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have unsuccessfully implemented their body camera programs, with ICE failing to meet its own policy initiative of “accurately documenting events” to promote transparency and enhance public trust.
The GAO report noted, “ICE lacks a reasonable assurance of compliance with activation requirements in policy” and for this reason recommended that automated camera activation be used to ensure that body cameras are activated in accordance with its policy. ICE policy stipulates that agents activate their body cameras “as soon as practical at the beginning of an Enforcement Activity and deactivation when the activity is concluded.”
Automated activation technology guarantees that a body camera is automatically switched on the moment an officer draws their firearm or conducted energy device (commonly TASER) to capture as much as an enforcement activity (from start to finish) as possible.
Automated activation for body cameras is already used by federal law enforcement officers, so why not for ICE?
ICE however rejected the recommendation to implement automated activation technology for use with its body cameras citing “significant operational risks, including inadvertent or false activations during routine movement,” while suggesting that accidental activations of its body cameras could record sensitive information, violate privacy, and even contravene the First Amendment.
These claims are baseless and somewhat puzzling especially since some federal law enforcement officers already use automated activation, as do other police agencies across the country.
Consider the VA Police who are federal law enforcement officers of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. According to their policy, body cameras are automatically activated when an officer draws their firearm.
In the case of an accidental activation, VA Police policy classifies such footage under the category of “false activation” and when designated as such, denotes that the accidental footage can be stored for 30 days before deletion whereas the........