Croatian police officers to wear body cameras

(Photo: Roberta F./CC BY-SA 3.0)

All uniformed members of the Croatian police will wear body cameras, which will be mandatory during every intervention, tportal exclusively reported on Friday.

The project to acquire this system and equip officers will begin next year, with funding allocated in the Ministry of the Interior’s budget for this purpose.

“The recording of interventions will primarily serve to protect police officers from unjustified accusations, and also to protect citizens from potential abuse of power and excessive use of force,” one source explained to tportal.

This project, as announced, will be presented to the public in the coming weeks.

A Project First Announced in 2015

In September 2015, the e-police project was announced, with the aim of equipping police officers with body cameras to record their interactions with citizens.

According to the initial plan, the footage was to be archived for three months, and citizens were to be informed that their conversations were being recorded.

At that time, the system was implemented in 10 locations—six police stations under the Zagreb Police Department, and in the Osijek-Baranja, Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Istria, and Split-Dalmatia County police departments. Each location was equipped with an e-kiosk containing 20 cameras, an app for tracking camera assignment, and a system for storing recordings.

In October of that year, police patrols with body cameras began, and a special press conference was held to introduce the camera management system.

“The main purpose of using cameras to record police interactions is to protect officers from unfounded complaints, which create a negative public image, even when the officers acted in accordance with regulations and professional standards. On the other hand, it also serves to protect citizens from potential wrongful or unlawful actions by the police,” was explained during the press conference.

In addition to body cameras, a special app for citizens was also launched. The idea was that citizens could record criminal acts and immediately send the footage to the police, where officers in the nearest operational communication centre could see the images or videos in real-time and respond promptly to apprehend the offender.

However, citizens also wanted to record the police, which caused discontent among officers, as they felt uncomfortable being filmed by the public.

The Ministry of the Interior’s general union and the Karlovac Police Department issued a joint statement expressing concerns about the alleged damage to the police’s reputation due to citizens filming them, with recordings being released to the public as well as being submitted through the official reporting system.

Despite the protests from police and unions, the cameras continued to record. However, both projects came to a sudden end just a few months later, in December 2015.