Social Effects of the Badge Camera
0.3 alpha Draft Randall J. Burns & H. Keith Henson

"The ability to remove ambiguity and firmly establish who did what, when, why and how is a powerful means of constraining individuals from engaging in fraud and corruption."
--Dr Sahr Kpundeh, a Governance and Anti-Corruption Specialist with the World Bank's Governance and Finance Division, summarizing the key role records play in the drive to control corruption.

How many times have crime investigators wished they had the ability to go back in time? How much would a time machine deter crime? This capability would have little or no effect on reducing crimes of passion, but even in that case, a time machine would make short work of investigations. The badge camera is not a time machine, but if it became ubiquitous it would have many of the social effects of time machines--at least on criminal investigations.

The Badge Camera, a legally verifiable digital camera associated securely with a specific individual may be expected to have a profound effect on American and global society. This effect should be positive to the extent that reducing corruption is seen as a positive goal.

The key here is that the plan of the Badge Camera's makers is to have a product that enters the mass market and rapidly becomes more accessible to a broader population. As a mass market product the price of one can be expected to fall to under $100. They require computers and mass storage, but these are becoming more common in households.

Application Areas

Initial application areas of the Badge Camera include:

Police Forces may require that all on duty police officers wear a badge camera. Already, judges have been ordering US police departments to have automobile based cameras. The Badge Camera has the advantages of working in field locations and making any tampering easily detectable.

Aircraft mechanics, inspectors and others involved in public safety--the Badge Camera makes it possible to assess how well current regulations are being followed and will provide a valuable record that can assess what really has happened when it appears that current procedures were not sufficient to prevent an accident.

Personal protection from false accusation of crimes could be greatly enhanced by use of the Badge Camera. The Badge Camera can provide the best alibi ever devised. The badge camera owner could retain control of data a Badge Camera records-yet this data could still be independently authenticated.

Other applications include:

Detecting finance and business fraud would be greatly facilitated by use of badge cameras.  Businesses where employees handle large amounts of cash already have significant supervision in place. Badge Cameras would bring this down to much smaller applications.

Intelligence agencies are one of the application areas in which it is plausible that key personnel may have their behavior monitored by a badge camera or compatible device 24 hours/day, 365.25 days/year. The compromise of key personnel, including CIA officer Aldrich H. Ames, FBI counterintelligence agent Robert P. Hanssen, and recently Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana Belen Montes, and (historically) British Intelligence's Kim Philby have all been extremely embarrassing and costly to the nations involved. The Badge Camera would have made the treasonous behavior of these individuals less likely or much, much more likely to be discovered before they did so much damage.

Diplomatic organizations may be required by host countries with security concerns to require that personnel with diplomatic passports have their behavior monitored when outside their country's embassy. The host country could retain control over all data and keys.

Prison system use of the Badge Camera by guards and employees could greatly reduce influx of contraband and custodial brutality and sexual abuse of inmates, as well as failure to follow official procedures. Furthermore, the Badge Camera could be used to greatly enhance information available to parole officers. Prison system use of badge cameras by the prisoners might not prevent all rape and related abuses, but those who did it could be rapidly detected.

Childcare/elder care could be revolutionized by the use of the badge camera. Cases of care provider abuse or neglect could be easily verified, and false accusations of misbehavior could be eliminated.

Social Effects

Law Enforcement

Introduction of the Badge Camera would have profound effects on law enforcement. Police corruption and abuse of power should be dramatically reduced. There may be some issues in the ability of police to use confidential sources of information. Existing regulations written by lawmakers with little field knowledge of law enforcement may have to be revised to fit the information that would become available.

Crime
The Badge camera has the potential to dramatically reduce prison rape and child abuse. Many sociologists claim that victims of these crimes are likely to commit crimes against others. Thus, long-term use of the Badge Camera may contribute to broad reductions in crime throughout society.

Safety
It is possible that the use of the Badge Camera might make people wearing them more careful. Data on actual accidents would become available so procedures could be improved. Casualty and malpractice insurance rates would likely be reduced over time to the significant benefit of the public.

Because people learn from other's mistakes, at least in cases where the camera can be recovered even fatal errors of judgment can help others avoid the same errors. The existing experience with cockpit voice recorders is applicable to estimating the effects of introduction of the Badge Camera.

Economics
In some places the introduction of the Badge Camera could have roughly the equivalent of an enormous tax reduction. If theft and corruption function to equalize wealth in society, there is potential that introduction of Badge Cameras may cause some countries to become less stable. However, a good case can be made that the Badge Camera will dramatically accelerate economic growth in parts of the world held back by corruption.

Military
The Badge Camera allows authorities better ability to analyze field actions than they have had historically. Right now, both the US and Russians allow each other limited inspection of each other's military facilities. Badge cameras and related secure cameras give a different perspective on this. It would be possible for each major military power to have very detailed, authenticated knowledge of the other side’s operations at some point in the past should that side agree to give it to them---while at the same time total assurance the other side couldn't see what was happening the last few days (or whatever time period they picked).

Organizations with direct control of "weapons of mass destruction" may be another category in which a close watch of the people involved should be kept. The US authorities might like for the Russians to have the functionality of the Badge Camera to improve their control over keeping nuclear weapons from being sold. The major nuclear powers might want to use Badge Camera so that if an attack ever occurred, they might be able to prove if it came down via direct orders or there was some kind of compromise of security. Of course, this requires agreements and infrastructure well beyond the cameras themselves.

Government
It is likely there would be a bifurcation in the effects on government. Simply the act of deploying the badge camera in a major constituency may cause some governments to fall. Other governments may rapidly improve their efficiency and stability. We may see restructuring of laws to make de jure authority come closer to de facto authority:  police might get more authority to use force in situations where the current rules don't reflect the reality on the street. The use of these as personal protection devices will make an unjustified arrest very costly.  These badges will make it harder to use the usual tactics against non-violent dissidents wearing them.

Long-Term Change

The Badge Camera and related technologies will have pervasive effects in the societies that deploy them. The largest changes are likely to be more indirect and harder to predict. People will find it much more difficult to lie, and many may simply quit trying and apply their energies honestly.