All the world’s a video clip! Is this good or bad?

Would that policeman offering an illegal way to 'settle' a speeding fine have behaved differently if he had realised he was on camera? This is a screen capture from the video of the British couple being ticketed in Malaysia. — Tread the Globe

Tell me if you’ve heard this one: A police officer stops a car on a Malaysian highway. It looks like it’s a part of an operation to curb speeding. The officer walks up to the driver and says something that most Malaysians might find surprising: “Hah, what are you doing? Wei, nak bagi duit ke? (Were you going give me money?)”

In the last week of January 2024 we have not one but two videos about police officers and bribes in Malaysia. While the one I describe above shows a police officer cautioning a driver for trying to bribe him, there is another one that went viral earlier in the week about a globetrotting British couple who are stopped for speeding. In that one, the officer suggests, “Pay at the police station, three hundred. Pay here, hundred.”

Cameras are now everywhere. In 2020, Kuala Lumpur announced the installation of 2,000 surveillance cameras, and plans to increase to 5,000. While the exact count of cameras in KL is hard to determine, Singapore is estimated to have around 18 cameras per thousand people, or around 100,000 cameras on the whole island.

All this means that it’s hard to do anything without having it recorded somehow, somewhere – which should be a boon for law enforcement. But it is also a cause for concern when it comes to privacy and civil liberties.

Critics argue that constant monitoring imposes a “chilling effect” on personal freedoms, stopping people from doing what they want simply because they are being watched. But I would argue that this is a bigger benefit for those who want to ensure the authorities behave responsibly. Would that policeman have asked for a bribe if he had been aware of being filmed?

Some commenters on the British couple’s video on YouTube said that if police had body cameras (bodycams) on, they would be more likely to behave themselves, while also being able to give proof if falsely accused. I myself believe that video footage of investigations and arrests would be helpful to courts to understand the context of submitted testimonies.

But sometimes, giving police officers cameras doesn’t really help. An article by nonprofit investigative journalism site ProPublica claims that bodycams used by the police in the United States have failed to bring accountability to law enforcement agencies. Its allegations about misused bodycam footage range from selectively edited videos, to outright suppression of them, especially in cases of misconduct.

Writer and commentator Cory Doctorow, responding to ProPublica’s article said, “Rather than turning over bodycam footage to oversight boards following violent incidents, the NYPD [New York Police Department] suppresses it. When overseers are allowed to see the footage, they get fragmentary access. When those fragments reveal misconduct, they are forbidden to speak of it. When footage is made available to the public, it is selectively edited to omit evidence of misconduct.”

The case in the city of Minneapolis of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on citizen George Floyd’s neck, leading to his death, illustrates the limitations of relying solely on police-controlled footage for accountability. Chauvin had previously been caught on bodycam kneeling on other peoples’ necks. Despite there being video evidence of this, footage was suppressed, and Chauvin faced no discipline.

This is not surprising if those who manage the footage are also those who commit the transgressions. Because one side controls what is seen and – more crucially – not seen, the system fails to provide transparency.

Another issue that will definitely become more common is the rise of deepfake videos, especially with artificial intelligence (AI) in use now.

The recent debacle involving X-rated AI-generated images of a famous pop star has given rise to debate on how this technology can be managed and regulated. I can see a time when even photographic and video evidence will be challenged in court because it is faked. Suddenly, “Looks like me, sounds like me, but isn’t me” will be a valid defence.

Moving forward, here is my suggestion: Everyone should be recording videos. For some people, this may sound like pouring fuel on the fire. However, the way I look at it is, if you increase the points of data you have, you increase the quality of the evidence you have.

Consider Floyd’s case. Within a week of his death, The New York Times had managed to combine videos from bystanders and building security cameras, and together with official documents and expert consultation, the newspaper was able to reconstruct in detail the minutes leading to Floyd’s death – even without access to police bodycams. Chauvin is currently in jail for Floyd’s murder.

However, as with all technology, any advancement brings both benefits and problems. I can foresee there will be new laws and rules concerning privacy, and the right to record will be made more explicit. It will be an argument between those looking to benefit from recording and those who want to suppress it.

And admittedly, while pervasive surveillance may make it less likely that people do something wrong if you’re looking at them, what we really want is for people to behave even when nobody’s looking. But I argue we should still record, just in case.

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In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.