Soon all Oakland Police will be outfitted with a video camera, and they may not have to tell you they’re using it.

In September 2010, the Oakland Police Department began testing a small video camera about the size of a cell phone worn on the uniform’s lapel. 20 officers participated in the testing period, a mix of officers from the traffic, crime reduction and patrol teams. OPD officer Holly Joshi reported that the initial testing went well and the cameras will be incorporated into OPD patrols in December 2010.

Currently 19 officers wear the cameras. OPD allows officers to turn the cameras on whenever they wish and requires the cameras be activated during car stops, walking stops, probation searches, parole searches, and search warrants. The cameras can record up to 4 hours of footage, and officers are unable to change the footage captured. Once downloaded to the server, the system administrator has sole access, and footage is stored for 5 years. The cameras will be paid for using leftover funding for the in-car camera system that was never fully integrated into the department.

Police usage of cameras presents a few interesting questions. It comes on the heels of the Mehserle trial for the murder of Oscar Grant, and at a time when the states of Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts made moves towards preventing citizens from recording on-duty police officers.

It also raises questions about the purported objectivity of video. Camera angles, when the camera is turned on and off, and how the viewers interpret what they see taking place within the frame all impact the determination of what “really” happened.

According to a KTVU article about San Jose’s testing of a similar device, Chief of Police Rob Davis said one benefit of cameras is their ability to provide evidence and save Internal Affairs the time and cost of pursuing complaints hinged on one person’s word against another.

As a citizen of Oakland, and someone who believes deeply in media literacy, I wonder about the embedded asumption that this kind of video is objective evidence. While video footage is likely to provide additional information, this could also eventually boil down to one person’s video against anothers.

                                                                                                                              I’d like to be able to assume that all police officers are driven by the “protect and serve” mantra, but situations are much more complicated, and abuse of authority happens. What does it mean to give authority the potential to support alleged abuse with footage shot literally from their perspective and automatically assumed to be objective? Does this serve to heighten the power differential between police officers and citizens who may not have the means to video tape police interactions?

Technology continues to move forward. It’s not unreasonable that cameras will be a standard law enforcement tool: the same way police use radio. My questions lie in the assumptions made about the technology. For example, when a communication via radio dispatch is unclear, I assume clarification is requested before action is taken. What’s the video equivalent of that request for clarification?

Perhaps it’s in the policies the department establishes about usage of that footage as evidence. Lets take a scenario in which a police interaction with a person escalates. The officer - sensing the escalation - turns on the camera as the person becomes angry. The officer restrains the person and the video is used as justification for the restraint in response to the complaint filed. Yes the video may show a situation in which an officer was justified in the use of restraint, but what happened before the camera was turned on? Did the person come running at the police officer unprovoked? Did the officer approach the person without cause? What had been the police’s interactions with this person during the last week, last month, last year? Now this “one person’s word against another secenario” is one person’s word against another who has a video that may or may not represent the context of the incident.

To date, it appears that the Oakland Police Department has set a date for full incorporation of the camera program, but has no policy regarding the ethical usage of the resulting footage or had any discussions about how video may not always be the gold standard in objectivity.