Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently signed House Bill 315 into law, allowing law enforcement agencies to charge the public up to $75 per hour and up to $750 total for retrieving, redacting, and producing police video records, including body and dash cam footage. Legislators added these provisions to the omnibus bill at the last minute, with no prior notice, hearings, or public testimony. 

The bill creates significant financial barriers to public access to police records. The fees will be prohibitive for journalists, civic organizations, and the broader public, making it harder for them to access video footage that can expose police misconduct and hold officers accountable for their actions. 

Barriers to Body-Worn Camera Public Access

Ohio is not the only state where fees for body-worn camera footage are a reality. States like Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas also impose charges for obtaining police video records. While the hourly rates vary, these fees similarly serve as a significant barrier to public access. 

In addition to fees, there are other significant challenges to accessing body-worn camera footage. One of the most common hurdles is the more general lack of availability—many police departments simply do not make footage viewable to the public, or they restrict its release to certain individuals or organizations. Furthermore, even when footage is available, its release is often delayed for months and sometimes years, preventing timely scrutiny of police actions. Exemptions also play a role in restricting access. Many states like Illinois, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have exemption clauses that allow law enforcement to withhold video footage under certain circumstances, such as ongoing investigations or the potential to infringe on privacy rights.

Time to Address the Unfulfilled Promise of Body-Worn Cameras

On the heels of the Ferguson Uprising in 2014, body-worn cameras were widely touted as an essential reform for increasing police accountability. In 2015, this led the Obama administration to announce $20 million in grants to help police departments purchase and adopt body-worn cameras. By 2016, it is estimated that nearly half of the country’s local police departments were using body-worn cameras. 

Ten years later, this promise has gone largely unfulfilled and actively undermined by police departments who have maintained tight control over what happens with the body-worn camera recordings. As ProPublica’s recent reporting shows, departments across the country deliberately manipulate publicly released footage, or fail to disclose important footage altogether. Under police control, body-worn cameras have been manipulated into a police tool for public relations rather than the public’s tool for police accountability. 

To restore the intended function of body-worn cameras, we must undo the police’s exclusive control over the technology and establish clear, independent oversight and standards around footage access and release. Specifically, we believe states and local jurisdictions should at a minimum adopt the following standards:

1. Require body-worn camera recordings to be considered public records at the state level. Body-worn camera footage should be clearly identified as public records rather than personnel records, making them generally accessible under state laws and under the broader umbrella of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
2. Expand the ability of police oversight structures to access and disclose body-worn camera recordings. Independent police oversight structures, where they exist, should have a) direct and immediate access to all unredacted body-worn camera recordings to investigate instances of alleged police misconduct or use of force; and b) authority to release body-worn camera recordings of critical incidents (including any incidents involving police use of force or relating to civilian complaint) to the public.
3. Require mandatory public disclosure of recordings of critical incidents (incidents involving police use of force, significant bodily injury, or death) within 30 days. Critical incidents require immediate scrutiny by the public due to implications of police misconduct and abuse. Regardless of whether the police department or an independent oversight agency is responsible, recordings of these incidents should be released to the public without delay. 
4. Prohibit fees for public records requests of body-worn camera recordings and other police misconduct records. As we saw above, many states including Ohio charge fees for producing records that should be readily available for the public to begin with. To achieve true public transparency and accountability, it is necessary to eliminate these fees entirely. 

Campaign Zero is currently conducting additional research on the state of public access of body-worn camera recordings, in terms of both codified policies and the actual response and release rates of police departments. In the meantime, we call on lawmakers around the country to pass these public transparency measures and echo the demands from individuals and families impacted by police violence for police departments to release the tapes. 
There can be no public accountability without full public access. Sign up for our campaign updates to stay informed about this fight, and you can also reach out to [email protected] to learn more about our campaign.