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You’re walking down the street and see the police doing something you think should be filmed. Or, cops detained your friend and you want to see what happened. How do you get access to police body-cam footage, and what are your rights to film the police?
If you find yourself witnessing police activity or misconduct you want to record, or if you want to ask the police to hand over the footage from their body-worn cameras, you might have some questions about how — or even if — you can.
THE CITY wrote this guide to help. New York has strict laws promoting transparency concerning police activity and the public’s right to record a police officer on duty in public. Here’s how to access recordings made by the police, and what you can, and can’t, get your hands on.
Can I film the police with a phone or camera? Are there any limits to how or where I can film the police?
Yes, you can record the police. The First Amendment protects that right, as do New York State and New York City law. As long as you don’t physically interfere with the police on duty, you’re allowed to stay, witness and record.
Keep in mind that whenever you record, however, you’ll have to keep at a safe distance — which can differ depending on the situation — and comply with any instructions from the police. If they ask you to back up, for example, you must do it. But state law prohibits police officers taking away your recording device or otherwise interfering with your right to record them.
Michael Sisitzky, assistant director of policy at the New York Civil Liberties Union, noted that collecting civilian footage of police misconduct is much easier than getting body-cam video.
While policy changes and a growing emphasis on accountability and transparency have bolstered the public’s right to access police records, actually getting those records may still require getting past administrative hurdles, like long Freedom-of-Information request wait times.
“It’s really apparent in the footage that we saw from the killing of Eric Garner and the killing of George Floyd — these are all cases where the public became first aware of those encounters because of bystander footage,” he said. “And that really speaks to the critical importance of folks who document police activity on their own. And that is absolutely a right that New Yorkers have.”
Can I get access to the NYPD body-camera footage?
In recent years, NYPD officers, sergeants, lieutenants and specialized units have all been required to wear body cameras when they are on the job. They are allowed to turn it off sometimes — but more on that later.
The use began in April 2017, as part of a yearlong pilot program to examine the effects of body-worn cameras on the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy, when the department equipped 1,300 police officers with body cameras. Since then, the number has grown to over 24,000.
In February 2019, a New York appellate court ruled that footage from these cameras is not a personnel record, which are typically exempt from the state and federal freedom-of-information requests. That ruling opened up these recordings to requests from the public.
So, yes, you can get access to footage from body-worn cameras. But it’s a process and can take a long time.
To get access to that kind of record in New York City, you will have to submit a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request through the city Open Records portal, or contact the police department’s Public Records Access officer — more on that below. (FYI: FOIA covers access to federal records and FOIL covers access to state and city records.)
The NYPD has said it will publish body worn camera footage online relating to “critical incidents,” which are those that result in death or serious physical injury, or the discharge of a firearm that hit or could have hit another person. They must do so within 30 days of the incident occurring, per the department’s own policy.
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