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Body Worn Cameras

Please use the search button above to choose a jurisdiction or browse by jurisdictions. The survey includes all 50 states and the 15 largest cities in the country.

Information is available regarding all laws or pending legislation specifically dealing with body worn cameras, how those laws or bills deal with the subjects of:

1. when cameras must be turned on and when they absolutely should remain off while a police officer is on duty;
2. how long a video must be retained after it is recorded; and
3. how the recorded video is treated for purposes for the relevant public records laws.

For comparison purposes the survey also notes how the jurisdiction treats police dashcam videos for purposes of the public records law.

We have also created an Executive Summary, which identifies certain trends among the states on various issues.

We have chosen to host this research on GitHub to make the document easier to edit in the likely event that laws are changed or new legislation is introduced. We envision this to be a “living document” and rely on you to help us in that regard. However, the results of our original research, current as of June 12, 2015, are available here.

If there’s an error in the information, or you want to provide an update to the information, please let us know using this form or submit an issue at our GitHub repository.