Post by watertight on Apr 7, 2015 21:49:58 GMT -5
FEB 16 2015 10:36PM GMT
Body Camera Storage Could Cost Police Millions
privacy Security StorageA flurry of incidents involving police and suspects, and even innocent bystanders, is causing many police departments to implement body cameras to help collect records of the incidents – or, hopefully, forestall them. But police departments that have implemented the body cameras are finding out that the cameras themselves are just the half of it. The data they collect has a lot of cost and issues of its own.
“The storage expenses — running into millions of dollars in some cities — often get overlooked in the debates over using cameras as a way to hold officers accountable and to improve community relations,” write Brian Bakst and Ryan J. Foley for the AP. Some police departments are having to choose between hiring officers and storing the data, they continue.
Baltimore officials estimated costs up to $2.6 million a year for storage and the extra staff needed to manage body camera data
Duluth’s 110 officer-worn cameras generate 8,000 to 10,000 videos per month that are kept for at least 30 days
Wichita estimates that its program will cost $6.4 million over the next ten years
Berkeley expects to spend $45,000 a year to store and manage data, and that the time required for officers to manage the cameras is the equivalent of five full-time officers, for a total of almost $1 million
San Diego would pay $267,000 for five years, but $3.6 million for storage contracts, software licenses, maintenance, warranties and related equipment
Des Moines is looking for $300,000 to start a program. Las Vegas estimates that data storage could cost $1 million per month. Muskogee, Okla., paid $278,000 for cameras for 70 officers, as well as storage space for five years – which was most of the cost. In fact, like razors and razor blades, some companies are reportedly giving police departments the cameras for free or at a discount in return for contracts to store the data, which could amount to $20 to $100 per officer per month, the AP writes. Duluth, for example paid $5000 for its cameras but is paying $78,000 for data storage.
In addition to the cost of storage are all the security and privacy complications involved any time you have a lot of stored data. Who’s allowed to look at it? Who’s allowed to copy it? How do you keep people from hacking into it? How long are you supposed to retain it? What about the feelings of the families of the people shown in the films? What are the civil liberties issues associated with it? “Departments are being swamped with public records requests from watchdog groups,” reports ABC News. And police departments don’t always have the IT expertise to deal with these questions.
“Imagine a hacker who edits the data to change the identity of an assailant or leaks the footage of a victim immediately following a violent crime,” writes the Christian Science Monitor. “The concern is not speculative – at least one white hat hacker has shown he can break into a police video system and criminals have demonstrated the ability to penetrate police department networks.”
Just managing the data is a hassle. In Pittsburgh, for example, footage of a homicide scene is required to remain in the system forever, while traffic stops are automatically deleted after one year. But only a supervisor can manually delete footage — after the police chief and the lieutenant sign off on a memo, writes Action News. The city also hasn’t determined whether it has the bandwidth to send the camera data to the cloud.
Hastings, Minn., found that body camera data would be considered a public record, and was concerned about the privacy of crime victims, as well as records of innocent people. “I don’t want to have a bunch of pictures of Hastings residents doing nothing wrong sitting in our files,” Mayor Paul Hicks told the Hastings Star Gazette.
In response, the Minnesota state legislature is considering a bill to limit access to the data to law enforcement personnel and people actually in the video – though how you’re supposed to know if you’re in the video without looking at it, I don’t know. Organizations such as the ACLU are also concerned that such laws would defeat the purpose of having the body cameras in the first place.
Body Camera Storage Could Cost Police Millions
privacy Security StorageA flurry of incidents involving police and suspects, and even innocent bystanders, is causing many police departments to implement body cameras to help collect records of the incidents – or, hopefully, forestall them. But police departments that have implemented the body cameras are finding out that the cameras themselves are just the half of it. The data they collect has a lot of cost and issues of its own.
“The storage expenses — running into millions of dollars in some cities — often get overlooked in the debates over using cameras as a way to hold officers accountable and to improve community relations,” write Brian Bakst and Ryan J. Foley for the AP. Some police departments are having to choose between hiring officers and storing the data, they continue.
Baltimore officials estimated costs up to $2.6 million a year for storage and the extra staff needed to manage body camera data
Duluth’s 110 officer-worn cameras generate 8,000 to 10,000 videos per month that are kept for at least 30 days
Wichita estimates that its program will cost $6.4 million over the next ten years
Berkeley expects to spend $45,000 a year to store and manage data, and that the time required for officers to manage the cameras is the equivalent of five full-time officers, for a total of almost $1 million
San Diego would pay $267,000 for five years, but $3.6 million for storage contracts, software licenses, maintenance, warranties and related equipment
Des Moines is looking for $300,000 to start a program. Las Vegas estimates that data storage could cost $1 million per month. Muskogee, Okla., paid $278,000 for cameras for 70 officers, as well as storage space for five years – which was most of the cost. In fact, like razors and razor blades, some companies are reportedly giving police departments the cameras for free or at a discount in return for contracts to store the data, which could amount to $20 to $100 per officer per month, the AP writes. Duluth, for example paid $5000 for its cameras but is paying $78,000 for data storage.
In addition to the cost of storage are all the security and privacy complications involved any time you have a lot of stored data. Who’s allowed to look at it? Who’s allowed to copy it? How do you keep people from hacking into it? How long are you supposed to retain it? What about the feelings of the families of the people shown in the films? What are the civil liberties issues associated with it? “Departments are being swamped with public records requests from watchdog groups,” reports ABC News. And police departments don’t always have the IT expertise to deal with these questions.
“Imagine a hacker who edits the data to change the identity of an assailant or leaks the footage of a victim immediately following a violent crime,” writes the Christian Science Monitor. “The concern is not speculative – at least one white hat hacker has shown he can break into a police video system and criminals have demonstrated the ability to penetrate police department networks.”
Just managing the data is a hassle. In Pittsburgh, for example, footage of a homicide scene is required to remain in the system forever, while traffic stops are automatically deleted after one year. But only a supervisor can manually delete footage — after the police chief and the lieutenant sign off on a memo, writes Action News. The city also hasn’t determined whether it has the bandwidth to send the camera data to the cloud.
Hastings, Minn., found that body camera data would be considered a public record, and was concerned about the privacy of crime victims, as well as records of innocent people. “I don’t want to have a bunch of pictures of Hastings residents doing nothing wrong sitting in our files,” Mayor Paul Hicks told the Hastings Star Gazette.
In response, the Minnesota state legislature is considering a bill to limit access to the data to law enforcement personnel and people actually in the video – though how you’re supposed to know if you’re in the video without looking at it, I don’t know. Organizations such as the ACLU are also concerned that such laws would defeat the purpose of having the body cameras in the first place.
