Skip to main content
May 13, 2020

New white paper investigates public's right to record police in public

Albert Fox Cahn

The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy is pleased to announce the release of its newest white paper: Turning the Camera Around: The Public’s Right to Record Police in Public. We are publishing the paper with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP). Engelberg Center Fellow Albert Fox Cahn is the Executive Director of STOP.

Turning the Camera Around explores the public’s right to record police officers in public spaces. The proliferation of smartphones and other recording devices have given this longstanding question new prominence.

Turning the Camera Around:

  • examines the statutory and constitutional protections for recording police officers,
  • documents instances of police interference with public recorders in New York,
  • examines measures that other jurisdictions have adopted to protect civilians’ right to record,
  • highlights certain technological solutions that assist in documenting police conduct, and
  • proposes recommendations to strengthen public oversight of police activity and the ability of individuals to record police conduct.

You can read the entire paper here.