Here you will find an article wherein the Toronto police are considering using lapel cameras. In short, the officer will be perhaps recording everything. Or not: who gets to decide what gets deleted? (I suspect the cameras will not have infinite memory onboard; will they link to some cloud storage repository for all this image data?)

I have an idea for the police, and chief Bill Blair. Some cameras have limited on-board memory which can be used when a memory card is not inserted. I use this to photograph myself with my own camera, then install a card (SD in this case); at this point, a thief is unaware of the image on the internal memory as the camera will only display from the card, if there is one installed.

My idea is this: in some way, put the image and badge number of the officer on/in the proposed lapel camera’s memory. Arrange the camera so that this image is always displayed on the camera front: in short, announcing the officer videoing or photographing you has this badge number and this name.

Why would I suggest this? Remember the G20 where officers removed their name tags? How much real disciplinary action happened to them?

Do you think police, who will now be photographing you (which, like their notes, you have to hope will be correct and complete, not edited after the fact, eh?) … do you think a police officer should be able to record you when you cannot record his/her name or badge number?

Feel free to respond here. Cogent comments will be aired.