ABSTRACT
As this chapter is being written, the United States is convulsed in an intense discussion about the desirability and operationalization of so-called “body cameras,” lightweight, miniaturized digital video cameras that can be mounted on the clothing (and cars) of police officers to record their interactions with the public (e.g. Mateescu et al. 2015; Simon and Bueermann 2015; Stalcup and Hahn 2016). This discussion has been prompted by a convergence of technological developments, which have rendered such cameras ever smaller and more affordable, with a significant number of high-profile, mostly racially charged, incidents, some of them fatal, between police and citizens, which were recorded either with body cameras or with increasingly ubiquitous privately held video recording devices, such as those on many mobile telephones. This discussion is very unlikely to be confined to the US; it has begun, or should be expected to soon begin, around the world.
