Tension between privacy and transparency is leading the discussion surrounding legislation that would keep certain police body camera footage from being seen.
The bill, House Bill 425, provides 17 instances in which the footage would not be available to the public. These instances include medical records, certain investigatory records, the death of a first responder, grievous bodily harm (unless it was caused by police), victims of sex crimes, a nude body and video of the interior of a home or business (unless there was an adversarial encounter with police within the home or business) among other things.
This bill’s primary sponsors are state Rep. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, and state Rep. Hearcel Craig, D-Columbus. The bill passed the House 88-0.
The Ohio American Civil Liberties Union and the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police are both defending the bill as necessary for individual privacy. However, the Ohio News Media Association voiced concern that some exemptions may be unnecessary or too broad, which could mean journalists may be unable to get information that is in the public interest.
“[This bill] creates transparency because it says [body camera footage] will be a public record, unless it falls within an exception,” Antani said. “Current law doesn’t provide this. [The bill] creates privacy by saying videos inside the home are not a public record.”
Michael Weinman, director of government affairs at the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, said his organization supports the bill because it protects the privacy of officers and the privacy of victims and others who interact with police.
“[This bill] strikes the correct balance” between transparency and privacy, Ohio ACLU Chief Lobbiest Gary Daniels said, echoing the same concerns as Antani and Weinman.
“Public records shouldn’t be a vehicle to check on what your neighbor is doing,” he said, pointing out that recordings of sex victims or recordings in homes will be prohibited, but altercations with police officers will be public record, which he said showed a good balance.
However, Daniels said that actually getting requested information from law enforcement doesn’t always go as planned.
For example, confidential law enforcement investigatory record exemptions, also known as CLEIR exemptions, require police to withhold the following from the public: the identity of a suspect who has not been charged, information from a witness who received a promise of confidentiality, investigatory techniques and procedures and information that could put law enforcement personnel, victims, witnesses or confidential information sources at risk. Daniels said that these broad categories sometimes result in gray area in which individuals disagree as to what this pertains to. It can also result in police departments willfully or ignorantly misapplying the the exemptions, he said.
Dennis Hetzel, executive director of the Ohio News Media Association, said the confusion stems from “murkiness” in the law.
Law enforcement, he said, sometimes tries to control information. Although he said it is often “coming from a good place,” they sometimes try to exploit loopholes, which then prevents journalists from getting important information that is in the public interest.
Technological advancements, such as body cameras, Hetzel said, create new issues that must be dealt with. However, he said that governments have to “be smart” and maintain a presumption of openness to ensure that privacy concerns don’t unilaterally trump the public interest for certain information.
While issues such as footage of child victims and rape victims do establish some tension, he said that some exemptions are quite broad. For example, he pointed out that this bill would prevent footage of the death of a first responder, which Hetzel said was “special treatment” to first responders. Although some people might misuse such videos, he warned that the existence of bad actors should not force the state to go too far toward secrecy.