Nevada Police Body Camera Laws: Access & Retention

Nevada requires designated law enforcement agencies to equip officers who routinely interact with the public with body cameras, and the Nevada Supreme Court has held the resulting footage is presumptively a public record under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830, though an officer's face may be redacted.

This guide is part of our Police Bodycam Laws by State series.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses Nevada state law governing police body-worn cameras: the equipment and activation mandate, retention floor, and public-records access rules under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830, as verified in July 2026. It does not address a civilian's right to record law enforcement, a separate and well-established question addressed elsewhere on this site.

Does Nevada require police to wear body cameras?

Yes, for the agencies and officers the statute names. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830 requires a county sheriff's office, a metropolitan police department, an incorporated city's police department, a city or town marshal's department, the Nevada Highway Patrol, and school district police departments to require uniformed peace officers who routinely interact with the public to wear a portable event recording device while on duty, according to the official Nevada Revised Statutes. The statute was added to the NRS in 2015 and amended in 2017 and 2019; earlier versions of the law only permitted agencies to require cameras, and later amendments made the requirement mandatory for the covered agencies. Officers working in plain clothes and agencies not listed in the statute fall outside the mandate, so coverage is broad but not universal across every Nevada law enforcement function.

When must a Nevada officer's camera be recording?

Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830 does not put the timing rule on the individual officer directly. It requires each covered agency to adopt policies and procedures governing the use of portable event recording devices, and it dictates what those policies must contain: requiring activation whenever a peace officer responds to a call for service or at the initiation of any other law enforcement or investigative encounter between a uniformed peace officer and a member of the public, and prohibiting deactivation until the conclusion of that encounter, according to the official Nevada Revised Statutes.

The same subsection requires those policies to prohibit the recording of general activity, to protect the privacy of persons in a private residence, persons seeking to report a crime or provide information about a crime or ongoing investigation anonymously, and persons claiming to be the victim of a crime, and to establish disciplinary rules for officers who fail to operate the device in accordance with departmental policy, intentionally manipulate a recording, or prematurely erase one.

The practical effect is that the timing rules are uniform in substance across the covered agencies, because the Legislature specified what every one of their policies must say. The enforceable duty on any individual officer, though, runs through that department's policy and its disciplinary rules rather than straight from the statute. If you are trying to show that an officer should have been recording during a particular encounter, the agency's own body-worn camera policy is the document to obtain alongside the statute.

How long does Nevada require agencies to keep bodycam footage?

Agencies covered by § 289.830 must retain recorded video for not less than 15 days. That is a floor, not a ceiling: an agency's own retention schedule or policy can require longer storage, and footage tied to a pending prosecution, civil case, or internal-affairs investigation is typically kept well beyond the statutory minimum as a matter of ordinary evidence-preservation practice, even though the statute itself does not spell out an extended-retention trigger the way some other states' bodycam laws do.

Is Nevada bodycam footage a public record?

Yes, presumptively. The Nevada Supreme Court confirmed this directly in Conrad v. Reno Police Dep't, No. 84389 (Nev. June 15, 2023), holding that body-worn camera footage "is subject to both the [Nevada Public Records Act] and any confidentiality provisions limiting public disclosure," according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's Nevada guide. That second half of the holding matters just as much as the first: the same decision upheld a police department's redaction of officers' faces from released footage, reasoning that an officer's face as it appears on camera functions like a personnel photograph, which Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.025(1) makes confidential along with an officer's home address. Requests are also structured narrowly by statute: § 289.830 requires that requests for a recorded record be made on a per-incident basis rather than as a broad, ongoing request, and if a specific recording contains confidential material that cannot otherwise be redacted, the agency may limit the requester to viewing it in person at the location where the record is held instead of providing a copy.

A real example: the Henderson road-rage shooting

On November 21, 2025, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department released roughly an hour of body camera footage, split across five separate videos, through its Public Records Unit YouTube channel, covering the fatal shooting of 11-year-old Brandon Dominguez-Chavarria during a road-rage confrontation on the 215 Beltway near Gibson Road in Henderson, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The footage showed the suspect surrendering to the first responding officer and captured the reaction of the driver whose stepson had been killed. The release illustrates how Nevada's presumptively-public framework operates in practice: rather than requiring a lawsuit to force disclosure, LVMPD's own records unit routinely posts footage from high-profile incidents once the per-incident request and redaction process under § 289.830 has run its course.

Is it legal to record the police in Nevada?

That is a separate question from what this page addresses. Nevada follows one-party consent for in-person conversations, so a bystander has a well-established right to record an on-duty officer performing public duties in a public place; phone calls, by contrast, require all-party consent. For a full explanation of that right, and how it differs from the bodycam rules discussed here, see Is It Illegal to Record Someone? and our Nevada recording laws guide.

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about Nevada law governing police body cameras and public access to footage, as verified in July 2026. It does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Readers should consult a lawyer licensed in Nevada for advice about a specific records request or incident.

Related articles

• Police Bodycam Laws by State: the complete hub
• Is It Illegal to Record Someone in Public?
• Nevada Recording Laws: Consent Rules

Last updated: 2026-07-08. Statutes cited reflect their in-force version as of 2026-07-08.

More Nevada Laws

• Nevada Data Privacy Laws
• Nevada Drone Laws
• Nevada Recording Laws

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Nevada require police officers to wear body cameras?

Yes, for uniformed officers who routinely interact with the public at county sheriff's offices, metropolitan police departments, incorporated city police departments, city and town marshal's offices, the Nevada Highway Patrol, and school district police, under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830.

Is Nevada police bodycam footage a public record?

Yes. The Nevada Supreme Court held in Conrad v. Reno Police Dep't (2023) that bodycam footage is subject to the Nevada Public Records Act, making it presumptively public, though agencies may redact confidential content such as an officer's face.

Can Nevada police redact an officer's face from bodycam footage?

Yes. The Nevada Supreme Court has held that an officer's face in bodycam footage is confidential under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.025(1), the same provision that protects an officer's photograph and home address, so agencies may redact it before release.

How long must Nevada agencies keep bodycam footage?

At least 15 days under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830. Agencies may retain footage longer under their own policy, and footage relevant to a pending case is typically kept beyond the statutory minimum.

How do I request Nevada bodycam footage?

Requests must be made on a per-incident basis under Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830. If the footage contains confidential information that cannot be redacted, the agency may require the requester to view it in person at the location where the record is held rather than provide a copy.

When must a Nevada officer turn on their body camera?

Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830 requires each covered agency to adopt a policy that mandates activation when an officer responds to a call for service or at the initiation of any other law enforcement or investigative encounter with a member of the public, and that prohibits deactivation until the encounter concludes, subject to privacy protections for private residences, anonymous crime reporting, and crime victims. The duty on the individual officer therefore comes from the department's policy, whose required contents the statute sets.

Does every Nevada law enforcement officer have to wear a body camera?

No. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 289.830 applies to uniformed officers of the specific agencies it names who routinely interact with the public; plainclothes officers and agencies outside the statute's list are not covered.