Police body cameras

Con 1: Body cameras are unreliable and too expensive for many agencies.

Equipping police departments with body cameras is extremely expensive, as forces have to budget not only for the camera but also for ancillary equipment (such as a car charger or mount), training, data storage facilities, extra staff to manage the video data, and maintenance costs. Baltimore Police entered a body-worn camera program in 2016 for $11.3 million. As of June 25, 2020, the costs had tripled to $35.1 million. [25] [26]

Many police departments, especially smaller departments with smaller budgets, have suspended body-worn camera programs citing rising costs of the cameras, maintenance of the programs, employees, and data storage. [24] [27] [28] [29] [30]

A trial in Edmonton, California, found that body-worn cameras had an insufficient battery length for daily policing, especially in cold weather when battery life diminished more quickly. [9]

A sheriff’s office in Virginia stopped using body cameras due to the unreliability of their on-off buttons and poor integration with their IT systems that resulted in the system inaccurately matching camera footage to the officer wearing the camera. [31]

As the cameras, supporting equipment, and networks age, costs will only rise to maintain or replace equipment.

In a perhaps extreme but cautionary example, in October 2018 a Staten Island, New York, officer’s body camera burst into flames while the officer was wearing the device. He was luckily not injured, but the department was forced to recall thousands of cameras. [16]

Con 2: Body cameras are invasive, violating privacy and subjecting citizens to facial recognition software.

Recording police encounters with the public could lead to the public exposure of private medical conditions such as mental illness. Victims of crimes such as rape or domestic abuse may be further traumatized by recordings. Informants or witnesses may fear reprisal from criminals. People being arrested may fear the damage of public exposure, such as being fired from a job. [17] [19] [34]

Former Spokane, Washington police chief Frank Straub notes that “every day we are exposing persons challenged by mental illness, autism, developmental disabilities, addiction, etc. We are creating and making public recordings of their illness and potentially creating life-long consequences.” [22]

Former chief of police Ken Miller of Greensboro, North Carolina, says that if citizens “think that they are going to be recorded every time they talk to an officer, regardless of the context, it is going to damage openness and create barriers to important relationships.” [23]

One such barrier is fear of retaliation. A U.S. Justice Department report notes that some

people will be less likely to come forward to share information if they know their conversation is going to be recorded, particularly in high-crime neighborhoods where residents might be subject to retaliation if they are seen as cooperating with police. [23]

Another privacy fear, according to the ACLU, is that police body cameras will be worn as “roving surveillance devices that track our faces, voices, and even the unique way we walk” that could be used “to track, classify, and discriminate against people based on their most personal, innate features.” [15]

In February 2026, a New York Magazine article exposed that YouTubers have been abusing the Freedom of Information Act to obtain body camera footage of “lively, contentious arrests: DUIs, underage drinking, crimes committed on nights out … [in] college towns, girls dressed for clubbing, thumbnails sure to win a click.” The videos are then uploaded into one or more of the over 150 YouTube channels that exist only to feature the arrests of young women, mainly for drunk driving arrests even though men account for over 80 percent of DUI arrests. There is little, if anything, the young women can do to remove the videos from the Internet, making what is usually a one-time, youthful mistake into salacious fodder for YouTube viewers and potentially harming the woman’s career, school experience, and life options for years to come.[1]

Con 3: Body cameras decrease the safety of law enforcement agents and negatively affect their physical and mental health.

Assaults on police officers were 14 percent higher when body cameras were present. Some people may respond negatively or violently to being filmed by police, especially those who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or who are suffering from mental health problems. [18]

University of Oklahoma professor of law Stephen E. Henderson states that the use of police body cameras may be psychologically damaging to officers because “nobody does well to be under constant surveillance.” [21]

Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the city of New York, states that officers

are already weighed down with equipment like escape hoods [gas masks], Mace, flashlights, memo books, ASPs [batons], radio, handcuffs and the like. Additional equipment becomes an encumbrance and a safety issue for those carrying it.[17]

They can potentially also cause head and neck injuries, electric shock or burns from faulty or damaged equipment, and the spread of contagious infectious diseases if the equipment is shared. [17] [20]

New technology may also be able to detect law enforcement agents via their cameras, tipping off criminals. According to a social media claim in February 2025, an app that scans for Bluetooth low-energy devices like phones and smartwatches could detect agents with cameras from 100 yards away and even trigger improvised explosive devices. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection ordered all border agents to immediately stop using their body cameras until the claim could be investigated.[5]