Beyond Access and Control: Body Camera Footage as Document

Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, salle C-2059
3150, rue Jean-Brillant

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Jean-François Blanchette is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. He is the co-Director of “On The Record All the Time”, a research project that seeks to connects together law enforcement and information professionals so as to identify the emergent core-skills needs of those who will be working with evidentiary recordings over the long term. He is the author of Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents (MIT Press, 2012) and co-editor of Regulating the Cloud: Policy for Computing Infrastructure (MIT Press, 2015).

Summary

We are currently witnessing the explosive growth of audiovisual evidence generated by widespread deployment of bodycams in law enforcement. As public officials struggle to define policies that can ensure bodycams fulfill their promise for greater police accountability, the status of bodycam footage as document has been a central concern. In particular, archival institutions are arguing that footage be classified as public record, to ensure broad access, while civil rights organizations are arguing that LEOs be given limited control over the creation and review of the record. In this presentation, I use recent work in document theory to analyse BWC footage as material traces, texts, and media and illustrate the changing conditions of document production, circulation, and preservation induced by information technologies. Such an analysis demonstrates the urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration between information and law enforcement professionals to craft effective policies.