Disagree--bodycams will sometimes record things that legitimately shouldn't be released. (Extreme example--cop rolls up on a 10 year old being raped. You think that should be out there???) Thus police video needs to be reviewed before release. The defense should *always* have access to the whole thing, although sometimes with restricted access (like a lesser version of a SCIF--they can go to a secure location and examine it but not make copies.)

What we need is bodycams with secure digital signatures. The camera signs the video when it makes it, the key set during manufacture and not accessible by *any* means. The public key for the camera can be accessed from the camera as well as from the manufacturer--the defense can verify the image actually came from the camera. I'd actually like to see this for all cameras but it's less important for others. (Note that this would *not* indelibly fingerprint an image--it would be like the EXIF data, the user could remove it if desired. You can make an image anonymous, you can't pretend an image is from some other camera.)

How often do cops roll up on a 10-year-old being raped, such that graphic things are recorded on the body camera?

And, if that did happen, and I was the 10-year-old, I would prefer proof that justice was done over privacy. Source: I was sexually abused as a child, and the perpetrators only paid fines ("victim restitution") to avoid prosecution. One of my goals in life is to end that.

If I were the accused, I would also prefer evidence over privacy.

Needless to say, you don't speak for all 10 year-olds. I've been sexually assaulted and if videos of that were put online, I would feel much more vulnerable than I do today despite not getting an ounce of justice. There must be a middle ground between no recording and your proposal that police should post CSAM to youtube.

Yup--release important stuff, but blur victims and incidental derogatory things. (Roll up on a scene, there's a druggie shooting up in the background. Blur.)

Anyone can do a FOIA to get anything released, but they must pay for the review and blurring of things that shouldn't be shown. Defense gets the raw video without paying.

You say we should blur out a druggie in the background.

I think the public needs to have the unedited video to know the truth.

For example, unedited police body cam videos can show if a neighborhood is getting better or worse over time.

Video of druggies shooting up over time can be used to retroactively track the distribution of a new illegal street drug.

I do understand the desire to blur the naked sexual assault victim, but there will be problems with that. If the video is unblurred, Internet sleuths can match multiple attacks to one attacker, or even discover several attacks in the same style and trace it back to a particular jail they were an in before where they learned techniques.

Blur identity, not the whole person.

even better, constantly hash sign footage as it is generated, publishing the signatures immediately, preferably signed by sensor itself so authorities don't have access to the private key.

Welcome to Planet Earth, you must be new here.

Cops just want power. They get power, and lie to us non-cops to keep power.

There is no such thing as a computer that cops use that they can not hack.

Is it truly futile to hope for the occasional technologist to bring rigor to the matter?

If one thinks of Almond Strowger, he nearly single handedly initiated the weeding out a specific form of corruption (corruption of human telephone operators, to redirect economic traffic) for about a 100 years by inventing the automatic telephone exchange and phone numbers.