Ohio’s governor will allow cops to charge the public $750 for bodycam footage

Buried on page 72 of the New Ohio H.B. 315 It is a condition that would make it difficult to obtain body camera footage from cops. As reported News 5 ClevelandThe new bill would allow cops to charge people who file public records requests to obtain body camera footage. The charge? Up to $75 per hour and no more than $750 total.

That’s a lot of money for a public records request.

The actual text of the relevant part of the bill is as follows:

“A State or local law enforcement agency may charge an applicant for the actual cost associated with preparing a video recording for examination or production, not to exceed seventy-five dollars per hour of video produced, nor seven hundred and fifty dollars total. As used in this section, the “Actual Cost,” with respect to video recordings only, means all costs incurred by the State or local law enforcement agency in reviewing, blurring, redacting, redacting, uploading, or producing the video recordings, including but not limited to the storage medium for which The record is produced on it, staff time, and any other related overheads necessary to comply with the order.”

The bill would also allow cops to charge applicants a fee before cops begin processing the video. “A state or local law enforcement agency may include in its public records policy a requirement that the applicant pay the estimated actual cost before beginning the process of preparing a video record for production screening,” she said.

The bill has seen a lot of backlash from local media and voters. The governor and police have argued that compiling videos for public consumption takes them and valuable resources away from police.

“No law enforcement agency should ever have to choose between diverting resources to officers on the street and transferring them to administrative tasks such as lengthy video redaction reviews for which agencies receive no compensation — and this is especially the case when the requestor of the video is a student,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said. In a statement to the press: “A private company seeks to make money from these videos.”

Marion, Ohio Police Chief Jay McDonald He told the Ohio Capital Journal That this was, in part, an attempt to prevent cops from clipping YouTube users. “They want domestic violence, they want drunk driving, they want bar fights,” McDonald said. “It takes hours and hours and hours of work to process that camera on those requests, and that makes the job of the media and the lawyers and the citizens requesting the requests that much more difficult.”

It’s true that there’s a cottage industry of YouTubers and streamers piecing together bodycam footage for views. It is also true that fees of up to $750 may prevent them from doing business in Ohio. It could also hurt independent journalists and smaller newsrooms who rely on body camera footage to hold police accountable.

It could also prevent vulnerable citizens who have interacted with police from seeing footage of that interaction.

Last September, Wisconsin signed on Law No. 253 It’s similar to Ohio’s law, but more narrowly targeted at people who might make a profit from body camera footage. While this affects YouTubers, it also affects journalists. Texas, Floridaand many other states charge fees for processing body camera footage.

Ohio’s law is not a blanket requirement for police departments in the state, just a cap on what they can charge. Each department will have to decide for itself what, if any, fee it will charge for distributing the tape to the public. Cleveland, for its part, said it will be postponed for now.

“We are currently reviewing at this time…we need to do our own research before enacting any type of policy,” city spokesman Tyler Sinclair said. He told News 5 Cleveland.

Members of the press, at the very least, will get free body camera footage, Sinclair added. “Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of democracy, and we strongly believe in the critical role that traditional media plays in holding the government to account,” he said. “As such, we have no plans to charge members of the traditional press because we deeply value our television, radio, print and digital media partners.”