Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Cardozo Law Review
Publication Date
7-2025
ISSN
0270-5192
Page Number
2247
Keywords
law enforcement, sheriffs, criminal justice, civil liberties
Disciplines
Civil Rights and Discrimination | Law
Abstract
This Article summarizes findings from a civilliberties evaluation of Truleo, an Al-powered analytics platform designed to automate thereviewofpolice body-worn camera (BWC) footage. It includes a summary of how Truleo's platform works, policy choices made by the company, and our assessment ofsafeguards and risks of the platform from a civil liberties perspective. This Article also offers a series of recommendations for policymakers considering the adoption of Truleo or similar technologies. These indude the necessity for independent testing of claimed benefits, democratic authorization for deployment, and ongoing transparency and public input around the platform's design and operation. Importantly, this Article argues that BWC footage should be treated as "civic data" owned by the public, not the police, to enable wider access and use for purposes such as research, oversight, and the exploration ofalternative public safety approaches. Generalizing beyond Truleo, we note that despite their cost, explosive growth, and the incredible amount of personal data they capture, BWCs are significantly underregulated by law, with many critical policychoices left to the law enforcement agencies that use the technology: As a result, the use of the technology has shifted away from its original impetus-to improve outcomes for members of the public interacting with the police and to provide transparency and accountability when things go wrong-and increasingly toward an investigative tool. But we view BWC as the largest collection of data on policing in existence, and one that has been woefully underutilized as a tool for evaluating and improving policing, thus leaving much of the value of our nation's investment in BWCs untapped. AI technologies like Truleo can rebalance the scales by automating the review of this BWC footage, but we worry that Truleo's full potential will never be achieved so long as police retain sole control of the data. Accordingly, we emphasize the need for proactive policymaking by legislators to ensure that emerging AI analytics technologies serve the public interest and help realize the benefits of the significant public investment in BWCs.
Recommended Citation
Farhang Heydari, Max Isaacs, Katie Kinsey, Barry Friedman, Christopher Slobogin, and Alissa M. Heydari,
Putting Police Body-Worn Camera Footage to Work: A Civil Liberties Evaluation of Truleo's AI Analytics Platform, 46 Cardozo Law Review. 2247
(2025)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1703