Earlier this month, President Obama announced his multimillion-dollar plan to outfit local police with body cameras. It's now been revealed that the footage will be forwarded to researchers, who will figure out how to best prevent confrontations.
According to Technology Review, the footage captured by the body cameras will be analyzed by researchers at UCLA:
The UCLA researchers will collect footage from between 50 and 100 officers next year. The police agency involved has not been disclosed, but police have started using such cameras in many cities, including Los Angeles.
One goal, says Jeff Brantingham, an anthropologist at UCLA who is leading the work, is to see whether software might help detect when encounters with members of the public escalate but are then calmed by a police officer.
Technology Review notes that even with the technological advancement, there will be challenges:
While a stationary camera can detect changes in its field of view, the field of view of a camera worn on the body is constantly changing, making it harder to automatically identify objects or scenes. Nighttime lighting can make matters more difficult, and such video does not show the actual police officer, though his or her hands are visible in some cases.
What's more, police can shut the cameras off whenever they choose to.
[via Technology Review and Daily Intelligencer]
