KODLA TALK

Good afternoon or good evening depending on what continent you are on. Thank you very
much to everyone who is joining online for showing interest in the topic that we will be
discussing today, thank you Vinicius and thank you especially to all three speakers for agreeing
to partake in this conference.

Attached on a police officer’s chest, body-worn cameras are rapidly becoming a familiar device
in the contemporary police toolkit as this technology is perceived as a panacea to increase
compliance with protocols, reinforce professionalisation and as the “ultimate witness”. Their
swift dissemination in Anglo-Saxon countries since 2005 accelerated the technology’s adoption
within Latin American police forces. Such has been the case in Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico with many more bodies actively considering
implementation.

So far, research on body-worn cameras has delivered uneven but occasionally extremely
positive results with respect to use of force, citizens’ complaints, de-policing etc. These
disparities can be attributed to numerous factors including camera quality, financial resources
and the clout of the body reviewing footage.

Today’s talk will aim to delve deeper into conditions of implementation and results obtained in
three key Mexican cities, in Bogotá and in Sao Paulo to understand whether body-worn
cameras can deliver a quantum shift in improving Latin American police forces’ track record of
democratic practices.

So let me now introduce our three speakers:

From Brazil, our first speaker is Colonel Robson Cabanas. Colonel Cabanas joined the São Paulo
State Military Police in 1988 at the Academia de Polícia Militar do Barro Branco. He holds a
Bachelor's degree in law as well as a Masters and PhD in Police Sciences of Security and Public
Order. His PhD, published in 2017, studied body-worn cameras as a strategy to increase the
transparency and legitimacy of police officers´ actions. Since 2021 he has been the Project
Manager for the Implementation of Body-Worn Cameras in the São Paulo State Military Police.
Since July this year he is also at the head of the Community Police and Human Rights
Department.

From Colombia, our second speaker is Ada Luz Sandoval. She holds an Undergraduate degree
in International Relations and a Masters in Intelligence and Strategic Studies. She worked for
more than 10 years in Colombia’s National Defence Ministry and is now Secretary of Security
and Director of the Command, Control, Communications and Computing Center (C4) of Bogotá.
Mrs. Sandoval is at the head of the implementation of mobile and fixed video surveillance
technologies in the city.

Finally, from Mexico, our third speaker is Santiago Rosas. He is an executive director at LAB-
CO, a public policy innovation lab. Mr Rosas is an economist with a Master’s in Public Policy
from Oxford University and has worked over the past years in the citizen security and justice
sector in Venezuela, Mexico and El Salvador. In 2021, he conducted an exploratory
investigation on the use of body-worn cameras by three Mexican police forces.

 As a reminder, to everyone attending the talk, please feel free to submit any questions
you have on our live Youtube chat, we will try our best to answer them all in our Q&A
at the end.
QUESTIONS: order Colonel Cabanas, Mrs Sandoval, Mr Rosas

COMMON TO EVERYONE  QUESTION 1: What issues are BWCs aiming to address in your
environment? Have they achieved their intended impact? And have they had any unintended
and unforeseen repercussions (be they good or bad)?

MRS SANDOVAL  QUESTION 2: Were body-worn cameras singly intended to solve insecurity
in public transport or do they form part of an integrated reform policy?

COLONEL CABANAS  QUESTION 3: What instances are reviewing BWC footage? How is that
tiered review contributing to improving the accountability of public policing?

MR ROSAS  QUESTION 4: How have BWCs been received by the police forces and the
general public? Were you expecting such reactions and how can you explain them?

COMMON TO EVERYONE  QUESTION 5: Moving forward, what expanded role can you
predict for BWCs in public policing and in conjunction with what other civil reforms?

CONCLUSION:

• Thank all three speakers

• I was particularly interested in noting …’s observation on …

• I noted …´s comment on …

• I was particularly arrested by …’s thought that…

• Overall impression created by these comments is that BWCs have the potential to take
to a new level of … however they have also noted major challenges. Only future will tell so we
will be watching as this all unfolds.

• Thank you for this truly interesting evening of debate.

• Pass it over to Vinicius.