Body Cameras and the Mosaic Theory of the Fourth Amendment

Many law enforcement officers, including those in five of North Carolina’s six largest cities, are or soon will be wearing body cameras. The prevailing view is that the use of such cameras doesn’t constitute a Fourth Amendment search because the cameras record only what an officer is already able to see. This post considers whether the increasing adoption of body cameras and other data-collection technologies could eventually result in body camera recordings being considered searches under the so-called mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment. The prevailing view. There aren’t many cases about body cameras specifically, but law enforcement officers have been using cameras to record still images and videos for decades. Courts generally have ruled that when an officer uses a camera to record something that is already visible to the officer, the recording does not interfere with a privacy or a possessory interest, and so does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. Long list of cases adopting the prevailing view. The following cases illustrate that the prevailing view has been adopted by state and federal courts across the country and over a long period of time. United States v. Mancari, 463 F.3d 590 (7th Cir. 2006) (“‘[T]he recording of visual images of a scene by means of photography does not amount to a seizure because it does not ‘meaningfully interfere’ with any possessory interest.’ . . . The government was therefore entitled to make a photographic record of the discovery of the [evidence] in a place that the police were lawfully [...]