The Seattle Police Department held a “hackathon” in which recruits competed in coming up with ways to “redact” video recorded by police dashcams along with bodycams that their officers will soon be provided. Each participant was asked to demonstrate solutions or approaches they believed would make the video editing process more automated and efficient.
According to police, efficiency is the goal because they will have millions of hours to comb through.
“With 1,612,554 videos already on our servers — and more on the way through our upcoming body cam pilot program — our department is looking for a better, faster way redact those videos and make them accessible as public records,” Seattle police said in a statement.
Washington State law requires that police make such video public on request but authorities have expressed concern about the privacy of those recorded. Some of the tools included software that could automatically blur out moving faces and a program that could audio-index video by using a speech-to-text engine.
"SPD is working to release more video than ever before, while striking the right balance between transparency and privacy,” the department said. As such, “We’re looking for a few good hackers who can help."
However, the plan to edit video has some people concerned that law enforcement will be tempted to alter video in which they, say, shoot and kill suspects. Recent police shootings of unarmed African-Americans — such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, — has led a call for more police to wear bodycams but the ability to unilaterally edit them may defeat the purpose.
Author John Vibes wrote at the Free Though Project that protecting privacy isn’t likely the motivation.
“It is only a small change in coding that is necessary to alter how the entire footage is edited, so this cover story may be nothing more than an excuse to censor the footage,” Vibes argued. “This event highlights the vulnerability of police-worn body cameras and shows that they really do have the power to alter the footage if they are the ones in control of it.”
