Should Cops Wear Google Glass?

Nerval's Lobster writes "Over at The Kernel, staff writer Greg Stevens wonders whether police departments around the world should outfit their officers with Google Glass. There's some logic behind the idea. A cop with wearable electronics constantly streaming audio and video back to a supervisor (or even a Website) would be less likely, at least in theory, to take liberties with civilians' civil liberties. But not everybody thinks it's such a good idea. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, wrote in a recent blog posting that society needs to make choices 'about the extent to which we want to allow the government to store up that data so that it has the power to hit 'rewind' on everybody's lives.' In the view of that organization, 'that's just too much power.' That being said, law enforcement wearing electronics that streams constant video and audio data would still be subject to the law. 'If the officer is recording a communication he has in public with someone, there's probably no wiretap problem since there's at least the consent of one party and no expectation of privacy,' Hanni M. Fakhoury, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in an email to Slashdot. 'But if he's recording peripheral communications between two separate individuals, than there's potential wiretap liability depending on the circumstances.' What do you think? Are cops wearing Google Glass (or similar wearable electronic) a good idea?"

Rialto PD did a real world study.

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The Rialto PD did a real world study, with a write up in the New York Times [nytimes.com] plus a formal report by a Cambridge University Professor [policefoundation.org].

The results were overwhelming positive. Use of unnecessary force on citizens dropped. Bogus complaints against officers dropped. Time spent dealing with he-said she-said situations dropped.

Big cities should be jumping on this technology. In 2012 New York City spent 735 Million Dollars [businessweek.com] on settlements. I suspect cameras would dramatically reduce that number, both from officers being forced to be more careful but also from bogus citizen complaints being quickly dismissed with video proof.

Is Google Glass the right answer, no. It does way more than just video, and has cost and durability concerns. However personal video cameras are the answer, every cop (and probably firefighter and paramedic) should wear one.