After almost a year of waiting, the Portuguese government last week published the law that defines the rules for using body cameras in agents of the country’s police forces. Regulation was the missing step for the effective use of this equipment in operations, which had already been approved by Parliament — the law has been in force since January 2022.
As the acquisition of the recording devices is still ongoing, however, the implementation will not be immediate. The measure will be adopted, in part, in response to notes made by various entities in recent years, including the Council of Europe, of violent and discriminatory conduct towards ethnic-racial minorities in the Portuguese police.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, responsible for the sector in Portugal, the use of cameras will “guarantee conditions of transparency and safeguard the legitimate, proportional and adequate exercise of democratic authority by the elements of the security forces”, contributing to “increase levels of trust” in the police.
The rules will apply to the GNR (Guarda Nacional Republicana), which operates in rural areas, and the PSP (Public Security Police), which operates in the urban perimeter. The capture of sounds and images will be restricted to cases of police intervention and must occur “whenever the nature of the service and the circumstances allow”, with a “clearly perceptible” notice.
The law also determines that the recordings will be mandatory when there is “the use of public force on any citizen”, which includes procedures of physical restriction, such as placing handcuffs, and the use by agents of any coercive means, “especially a firearm”.
Video recordings will also be required in case of “issuance of orders to suspects regarding the cessation of illegal or aggressive behavior and the adoption of security positions”. The text provides that the recordings can take place, without specifying the obligation, in other situations, including the practice of a criminal offense, aggression against the police officer himself or against third parties, disobedience and resistance to orders and attempts to prevent the escape of suspects.
The use of cameras to record police actions is already in place to varying degrees in other European countries such as the UK, France and Italy. In the USA, the recordings are already distributed among the police forces of several states.
In Brazil, the equipment has already been adopted in places like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, not without being the subject of a long discussion — the new São Paulo State Security Secretary, Captain Derrite, for example, spoke of reviewing the program, despite the numbers show a decrease in police lethality and that of officers on duty.
Last year, a Datafolha survey showed that more than 90% of the population in three states (SP, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro) approve of the use of cameras.
In Portugal, as in Brazil, reports of misconduct in police approaches —one of the motivations for developing the program— have been growing in recent years. In December 2021, a delegation of experts from the United Nations Working Group on People of African Descent addressed the issue on a visit to the country. The president of the group, the American Dominique Day, even stated that she was “surprised by the number and dimension of credible reports of police brutality” in the country.
Last November, the issue was once again in the spotlight after the publication of a long journalistic investigation that revealed that nearly 600 members of the security forces had published posts in groups on social networks containing discriminatory messages and threats.
Politicians, especially women linked to leftist parties, and minorities were constant targets of offenses. Posts with racist and xenophobic content even targeted the Prime Minister, António Costa (Socialist Party), who is the son of an Indian from the region of Goa.
Called to Parliament to explain the actions of the agents, the Minister of Internal Administration, José Luís Carneiro, said that the “overwhelming majority” of the approximately 40,000 police officers in Portugal “watch over the defense of constitutional values and the State every day right”. At the same hearing, he revealed that, between 2019 and November 2022, 107 PSP and GNR agents were “fired, compulsorily retired and separated from service” for violations.
The movement coincided with a certain alignment of forces with the discourse of the emerging ultra-right, which has become a more relevant political force even in Parliament, where it is led by André Ventura, from the Chega party —the party voted in favor of the camera project.
The two police forces determined investigations into the complaints, and the General Inspectorate of Internal Administration is also investigating the case. The entity is responsible for implementing the plan to prevent manifestations of discrimination in the security forces and services. In force since March 2021, the project aims to encourage the recruitment of more women and people from different ethnic-racial backgrounds, in addition to creating agents specialized in human rights in all police forces in the country.
In the same 2021, period with the most recent data available, 1,174 complaints were registered against the performance of the security forces in Portugal, which represents the highest number of the last five years.
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