Petition · past parliament · Home Office

Allow police forces to release body cam footage to Mass Media and Social Media.

Closed 4,618 signatures

What the petition asks

Change UK law to allow police forces to release video recorded on officers' body cams to media outlets, and via their Social Media, at a senior officer’s discretion.

The general public may make video recordings of police and publish them immediately, our police forces should have the same right.
Heavily edited recordings of their interactions with police are increasingly being published by members of the general public.

A process needs to be introduced whereby UK police forces may take the decision to release unedited body cam footage of an incident to both Mass Media outlets, and their own Social Media.

This process would allow forces to counteract, sometimes highly misleading video footage, being widely distributed with the primary intent of damaging the reputation of their officers.

Timeline

18 Aug 2020 Petition opened for signatures
18 Feb 2021 Closed to new signatures

Key facts

Signatures 4,618
Status Closed
Department Home Office
Opened 18 Aug 2020
Closed 18 Feb 2021

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.