Amended in Senate July 2, 2015

Amended in Assembly May 22, 2015

Amended in Assembly May 4, 2015

Amended in Assembly April 21, 2015

Amended in Assembly March 16, 2015

California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Bill No. 69

Introduced by Assembly Member Rodriguez

(Coauthor: Assembly Member Weber)

December 18, 2014

An act to add Section 832.18 to the Penal Code, relating to peace officers.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 69, as amended, Rodriguez. Peace officers: body-worn cameras.

Existing law makes it a crime to intentionally record a confidential communication without the consent of all parties to the communication. Existing law exempts specified peace officers from that provision if they are acting within the scope of their authority.

This bill would require law enforcement agencies to consider specified best practices when establishing policies and procedures for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras, including, among other things, prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of the data, and establishing storage periods for evidentiary and nonevidentiary data, as defined.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

Section 832.18 is added to the Penal Code, to
read:

832.18.  

(a) It is the intent of the Legislature to establish
policies and procedures to address issues related to the
downloading and storage data recorded by a body-worn camera
worn by a peace officer. These policies and procedures shall be
based on best practices.

(b) When establishing policies and procedures for the
implementation and operation of a body-worn camera system, law
enforcement agencies, departments, or entities shall consider the
following best practices regarding the downloading and storage
of body-worn camera data:

(1) Designate the person responsible for downloading the
recorded data from the body-worn camera. If the storage system
does not have automatic downloading capability, the officer’s
supervisor should take immediate physical custody of the camera
and should be responsible for downloading the data in the case of
an incident involving the use of force by an officer, an
officer-involved shooting, or other serious incident.

(2) Establish when data should be downloaded to ensure the
data is entered into the system in a timely manner, the cameras are
properly maintained and ready for the next use, and for purposes
of tagging and categorizing the data.

(3) Establish specific measures to prevent data tampering,
deleting, and copying, including prohibiting the unauthorized use,
duplication, or distribution of body-worn camera data.

(4) Categorize and tag body-worn camera video at the time the
data is downloaded and classified according to the type of event
or incident captured in the data.

(5) Specifically state the length of time that recorded data shall
be stored.

(A) Unless subparagraph (B) or (C) applies, a law enforcement
agency shall retain nonevidentiary data including video and audio
recorded by a body-worn camera for a minimum of 60 days, after
which it begin delete will end delete begin insert may end insert be erased, destroyed, or recycled. begin insert An agency
may keep data for more than 60 days to have it available in case
of a citizen complaint and to preserve transparency. end insert

(B) A law enforcement agency shall retain evidentiary data
including video and audio recorded by a body-worn camera under
this section for a minimum of begin delete three end delete begin insert two end insert years under any of the
following circumstances:

(i) The recording is of an incident involving the use of force by
a peace officer or an officer-involved shooting.

(ii) The recording is of an incident that leads to the detention
or arrest of an individual.

(iii) The recording is relevant to a formal or informal complaint
against a law enforcement officer or a law enforcement agency.

(C) If evidence that may be relevant to a criminal prosecution
is obtained from a recording made by a body-worn camera under
this section, the law enforcement agency shall retain the recording
for any time in addition to that specified in paragraphs (A) and
(B), and in the same manner as is required by law for other
evidence that may be relevant to a criminal prosecution.

begin insert

(D) An agency establishing procedures for a body-worn camera
system shall work with its legal counsel to determine a retention
schedule to ensure that storage policies and practices are in
compliance with all relevant laws and adequately preserve
evidentiary chains of custody.

end insert begin insert

(E) Records or logs of access and deletion of data from
body-worn cameras shall be retained permanently.

end insert

(6) State where the body-worn camera data will be stored,
including, for example, an in-house server which is managed
internally, or an online cloud database which is managed by a
third-party vendor.

(7) If using a third-party vendor to manage the data storage
system, the following factors shall be considered to protect the
security and integrity of the data:

(A) Using an experienced and reputable third-party vendor.

(B) Entering into contracts that govern the vendor relationship
and protect the agency’s data.

(C) Using a system that has a built-in audit trail to prevent data
tampering and unauthorized access.

(D) Using a system that has a reliable method for automatically
backing up data for storage.

(E) Consulting with internal legal counsel to ensure the method
of data storage meets legal requirements for chain-of-custody
concerns.

(F) Using a system that includes technical assistance capabilities.

(8) Require that all recorded data from body-worn cameras are
property of their respective law enforcement agency and shall not
be accessed or released for any unauthorized purpose, explicitly
prohibit agency personnel from accessing recorded data for
personal use and from uploading recorded data onto public and
social media Internet Web sites, and include sanctions for violations
of this prohibition.

(c) (1) For purposes of this section, “evidentiary data” refers
to data of an incident or encounter that could prove useful for
investigative purposes, including, but not limited to, a crime, an
arrest or citation, a search, a use of force incident, or a
confrontational encounter with a member of the public. The
retention period for evidentiary data are subject to state evidentiary
laws.

(2) For purposes of this section, “nonevidentiary data” refers
to data that does not necessarily have value to aid in an
investigation or prosecution, such as data of an incident or
encounter that does not lead to an arrest or citation, or data of
general activities the officer might perform while on duty.

(d) Nothing in this section shall be interpreted to limit the
public’s right to access recorded data under the California Public
Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of
Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code).