Camera Power is the first book to tackle the policy questions raised by two ongoing revolutions in recording the police: copwatching and police-worn body cameras. Drawing on original research from over 200 jurisdictions and more than 100 interviews - with police leaders and officers, copwatchers, community members, civil rights and civil liberties experts, industry leaders, and technologists - Mary D. Fan offers a vision of the great potential and perils of the growing deluge of audiovisual big data. In contrast to the customary portrayal of big data mining as a threat to civil liberties, Camera Power describes how audiovisual big data analytics can better protect civil rights and liberties and prevent violence in police encounters. With compelling stories and coverage of the most important debates over privacy, public disclosure, proof, and police regulation, this book should be read by anyone interested in how technology is reshaping the relationship with our police.

‘Are police-worn body cameras a panacea for the problem of police violence and abuse? Or are they simply another intrusion into privacy that only rarely definitively tells us the full truth about police-citizen interactions? Relying on numerous interviews, close scrutiny of current policy and practice, and insightful analysis of the empirical evidence and scholarship, Fan provides by far the most careful and comprehensive description to date of the controversies surrounding police use of body cameras and the optimal means of using the data they produce.'

Chris Slobogin - Milton Underwood Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University and author of Privacy at Risk

'Body cameras on cops seemed like the obvious solution to social turmoil around policing. But as Mary D. Fan makes clear in this tour de force, police body cameras create huge problems of their own - the cost of storage, everyone’s privacy at risk from constant surveillance. Comprehensively researched and engagingly written, this will become the go to book for anyone who cares about police, public surveillance, and privacy.'

Barry Friedman - Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law, New York University, Director of the Policing Project, and author of Unwarranted: Policing without Permission