Camera cops: digital spying in Rio’s most dangerous slums

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and armed policemen are strolling the streets of your neighborhood. Their bulking bulletproof vests and blue berets cut figures that are impossible to ignore. Less conspicuous are the tiny cameras nestled in their pockets, recording every sight and sound around them. It may sound like the very definition of a “police state,” but for people living in the crime-ridden favelas of Rio de Janeiro, this kind of scenario could soon be a reality — and perhaps even a welcomed one. 

Actually this does not sound like the definition of a police state, it sounds like a state where the police can be held accountable because they are required to film everything they do.

What does sound like a police state is:

  • when cameras just record everything without police presence to make surveillance omnipresent
  • when police listen in to random phone conversations and read e-mail of its citizenry
  • when police don’t get court supervision and take their prisoners out of the country to evade supervision

What makes a police state is not reasonable law enforcement, it’s when law enforcement is not held accountable for its actions. Police having to record their actions, and thereby proving that they acted responsibly is the opposite of a police state.