Richard Stallman: Police body cams should turn on automatically

Body cameras have become an important topic of discussion amid the string of police brutality cases we’ve seen over the past year or two, and Richard Stallman has his own proposal for how body cameras should be used by police officers. One of the most important people in the tech world, Stallman recently published an essay in Technology Review in which he explains that body cameras should automatically turn on when a police officer pulls out their weapon, rather than having them always be on or be manually switched on and off. 

Around the U.S., the agents that control the public have been observed to beat up, shoot, kill, and arrest members of the public, with a special focus on protesters, members of minority groups, and people making recordings of the actions of those agents. This is often followed by fabricated accusations against the victim, meant to create false justification for the attack itself. To control these abuses, parts of the U.S. have begun ordering these agents to wear body cameras. Body cameras help restrain agents’ violence, but create problems of their own. For instance, when should the cameras record? There are occasions when the cameras should be off, including confidential discussions that are important not to record. Sometimes agents are invited into homes; it would be intrusive for them to make video recordings of everything visible inside the home, because the recordings might be studied later for signs of anything that could be prosecuted.