California police use of body cameras cuts violence and complaints (2013)
I'm very much in favor of these cameras, but there's one extrapolation that few have proposed: Why not encourage private citizens to record their public lives? Most of the arguments for recording police apply to everyone: Allegations are quickly discovered to be true or false. Everyone involved is less likely to be violent. People are more cordial. Determining guilt or innocence is much easier. Was a shooting self-defense or manslaughter? Did the eyewitness really recognize the defendant on the night of the crime? Etc.There are other perks to life-logging. Conversations could be transcribed and searched, eliminating many disputes as to who said what. We already do this with IRC and some types of video chat. You could even save footage that becomes important only much later. For example, you could prove you sold pencils to Vincent van Gogh before he was famous. Or you could record the first time you met your now-spouse. Finally, there's the entertainment value of life-logging. Think Russian dash cams on steroids.This technology has the potential to drastically reduce crime and improve quality of life. Yet I think most people would have an aversion to constantly recording their own lives, let alone being constantly recorded by others. I'm curious how people resolve this inconsistency.