Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is moving to equip its officers with body cameras in the next two months. However, the agency’s policy gives it broad control over what footage will be made public, specifying that releases must be in its “best interests.”

Body Camera Policy

The policy requires officers to activate cameras during routine enforcement activities, including while making arrests, executing search warrants, and responding to emergencies. After shootings or other serious confrontations, a committee that includes top ICE officials and lawyers will review footage and recommend whether to release it promptly.

ICE spent $30.9 million in July to purchase body camera equipment from Axon, the Arizona-based company that also manufactures Tasers. The rollout comes after recent fatal shootings by officers enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown have intensified pressure for accountability that the cameras could provide.

Concerns Over Transparency

Experts on body camera policies have raised concerns that ICE’s policy could mean taxpayers may be kept in the dark about some high-profile confrontations. The policy gives the agency’s director discretion to release recordings that reflect well on the agency’s image while working to keep others secret.

Professor Christopher Schneider of Brandon University in Canada, a co-author of the new book “Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform,” said, “Body-worn cameras are being used as contemporary image-work tools to present the police to the public in the most favorable way possible.”

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.