H.R. 1188 — Police CAMERA Act of 2025

This section establishes the short title of the Act as the “Police Creating Accountability by Making Effective Recording Available Act of 2025” or the “Police CAMERA Act of 2025.”

This section establishes a 2-year matching grant program, administered by the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, to provide grants to States, units of local government, and Indian Tribes to purchase or lease body-worn cameras and cover related implementation costs. The program is intended to deter excessive force, improve accountability and transparency in use of force, assist in responding to complaints against law enforcement officers, and improve evidence collection. This section requires grants to be distributed directly to the grantee, with 50 percent of the grant amount paid upon award and the remaining 50 percent paid after the grantee demonstrates completion of the required policies and procedures. Grants may be used for the purchase or lease of body-worn cameras for patrol officers, training, storage, maintenance, and security of recorded data, and implementation of policies needed to meet program requirements. This section conditions grant eligibility on a commitment to adopt, before officers use body-worn cameras, public policies and protocols developed with community input covering: (1) safe and effective camera use; (2) secure storage, handling, and destruction of recorded data; (3) privacy protections for recorded individuals; (4) constitutional protections when facial recognition technology is used; (5) limits on facial recognition use, including use only with judicial authorization, only for imminent threats or serious crimes, and only with double verification of identified faces; (6) release of recorded data under applicable State open records laws; and (7) access to recorded data by prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other officers of the court. It also requires periodic evaluations of data storage and handling security. This section requires a recorded data collection and retention protocol that: (1) requires an officer to explain when a required recording is not made; (2) requires consent from a crime victim or witness before interviewing that person while recording; (3) minimizes collection of data unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement purpose to the greatest extent practicable; (4) logs all viewing, modification, and deletion of stored data and prevents unauthorized access or disclosure to the greatest extent practicable; (5) prohibits officers from accessing stored data without an authorized purpose; and (6) requires agencies to collect and report statistical data on use of force incidents, complaints against officers, complaint dispositions, use of footage in criminal investigations, and any additional data the Director determines should be collected. It also allows individuals to file complaints with a law enforcement agency about improper use of body-worn cameras. This section directs the Director to establish a standardized reporting system and a national database for the statistical data collected under the program.