BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2533
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
2533 (Santiago) - As Amended April 14, 2016
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|Policy |Public Safety |Vote:|7 - 0 |
|Committee: | | | |
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| |Privacy and Consumer | |10 - 0 |
| |Protection | | |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
No
SUMMARY:
This bill requires that a public safety officer be given a
minimum of three business days' notice before any audio or video
data of the officer that was recorded by the officer may be
publicly released by the department or other public agency on
the Internet.
AB 2533
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FISCAL EFFECT:
Minor costs, if any, to a local agency to provide the three day
notice required.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose/Background. According to the author, "When a public
agency, such as a law enforcement department, decides or is
ordered by a court to release audio or video from an
officer-involved incident, the release of that information may
result in threats against the officer or his/her family."
"In most cases, it is the officer's responsibility to pursue
legal action to prevent immediate disclosure of the audio
and/or video. If the officer is receiving threats, this
process can create a state of panic as the officer scrambles
to find an attorney, complete all the necessary paperwork, and
obtain a restraining order before it is released."
Video and audio data produced by peace officers with body-worn
cameras is considered a public record under the (California
Public Records Act) and is therefore subject to disclosure to
the public unless otherwise exempt.
This bill is intended to give a peace officer three days'
advance notice that his or her employer intends to publicly
release that officer's body-worn camera footage to the
Internet so that the officer can take legal action under
existing law to stop the release if he or she believes it
would lead to threats or harassment.
AB 2533
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2)Support. According to the sponsor, PORAC, "It is very
important to understand that AB 2533 does not expand any law;
rather it builds in a procedure to provide predictability and
civility to an existing law. ? Officers currently have the
right to go to court and file an injunction so that the
department cannot release an audio or video recording if there
is a true threat to their safety."
3)Related Legislation:
a) AB 1940 (Cooper) requires law enforcement agencies that
deploy body-worn cameras to develop a policy for their use.
AB 1940 will be heard in this Committee later this month.
b) AB 1957 (Quirk) requires a law enforcement agency to
confidentially review body worn camera footage from serious
use of force incidents and requires a judicial
determination to set the terms of any public release of
such footage, while generally requiring the disclosure of
footage 60 days after the commencement of a misconduct
investigation and restricting the public disclosure of
footage depicting domestic violence victims, minors, or
witness statements. AB 1957 will be heard in this
Committee later this month.
c) AB 2611 (Low) would exempt from disclosure under the
CPRA records of complaints to, or investigations conducted
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by, or records of intelligence information or security
procedures of, the office of the Attorney General and the
Department of Justice, the Office of Emergency Services and
any state or local police agency, or any investigatory or
security files, including audio or video recordings,
compiled by any other state or local police agency, or any
investigatory or security files compiled by any other state
or local agency for correctional, law enforcement, or
licensing purposes. AB 2611 will be heard in this
Committee later this month.
1)Previous legislation:
a) AB 66 (Weber) of 2015 would have imposed specified
requirements on a law enforcement agency that requires its
officers to use body worn cameras, including a requirement
that the policies and procedures being posted online, that
peace officers be banned from making personal copies of
video footage, that officers be allowed to review their own
footage before making an initial statement and report, and
exempt footage depicting sexual or domestic violence
victims from public disclosure. AB 66 was held in this
Committee.
b) AB 69 (Rodriguez), Chapter 461, Statutes of 2015,
requires law enforcement agencies to consider specified
best practices when establishing policies and procedures
for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras.
c) AB 1246 (Quirk) would have prohibited the disclosure of
a recording made by a body-worn camera, except to the
person whose image is recorded by the body worn camera. AB
1246 died in Assembly Public Safety Committee.
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d) SB 175 (Huff) would require each department or agency
that employs peace officers and that elects to require
those peace officers to wear body-worn cameras to develop a
policy relating to the use of body-worn cameras. SB 175 is
currently on the inactive file on the Assembly Floor.
e) SB 195 (Anderson) would have stated the intent of the
Legislature to enact legislation that protects the privacy
of individuals recorded by body-worn cameras utilized by
law enforcement officers and the privacy of the officers
wearing these cameras. SB 195 died in the Senate Rules
Committee.
Analysis Prepared by:Pedro Reyes / APPR. / (916)
319-2081