New York Police Body Camera Laws: State Police & NYPD

New York has no statewide law requiring local police departments to use body cameras; only the State Police must, under Executive Law Section 234. The NYPD, the nation's largest department, sets its own rules through Patrol Guide 212-123 and now must release critical-incident footage within 30 days.

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

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses New York law on police body-worn cameras at two levels: the narrow statewide mandate for the New York State Police under Executive Law Section 234, and the New York City Police Department's own body-worn camera program under Patrol Guide 212-123, together with public access through New York's Freedom of Information Law. It does not address a civilian's right to record law enforcement, a separate and already-settled question covered in our recording-law guide below.

Does New York require police to wear body cameras statewide?

Only in a narrow sense. New York has no general statute requiring every municipal or county police department to equip officers with body cameras. The one statewide mandate applies to the Division of State Police: Executive Law Section 234, signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in June 2020 alongside the law creating the state's Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office, requires the Division to distribute cameras for continuous wear by state troopers on patrol. Outside the State Police, whether a New York police department uses body cameras, and on what terms, is a matter of local policy, not state law. Hundreds of local departments across New York have adopted cameras voluntarily or under federal grant conditions, but the state legislature has repeatedly introduced, and not yet passed, bills that would extend a body camera mandate to every local agency.

NYPD's body camera program: the largest in the country

Because New York has no statewide local mandate, the practical starting point for most New Yorkers is New York City Police Department policy, not state law. The NYPD operates the largest body-worn camera program in the United States, with cameras issued to more than 29,500 officers as of 2026. Its rules are set out in NYPD Patrol Guide Procedure 212-123, "Use of Body-Worn Cameras", rather than in a state statute, which means the department can revise its own activation, retention, and release rules through internal policy and mayoral or Police Commissioner directives without a legislative vote. That structure let New York City update its release policy quickly in 2026, described below, but it also means the rules that apply to an NYPD encounter can differ from what a smaller upstate department does under its own separate policy.

When must an NYPD officer's camera be recording?

Patrol Guide 212-123 requires an officer to activate the body-worn camera before engaging in a Level 1, 2, or 3 encounter with a civilian, before making an arrest, before responding to a call for service, and before beginning any self-initiated investigative or enforcement action. The camera must also be activated before an officer engages in, or assists with, a potential crime-in-progress assignment, including a shots-fired call or any incident involving a weapon, and before entering a privately owned building. Once activated, the procedure prohibits deactivating the camera until the investigative, enforcement, or other police action is concluded. Because these are internal department rules rather than a codified statute, the New York Attorney General and outside oversight bodies, including the Civilian Complaint Review Board, rely on Patrol Guide 212-123's text, not a state law, when evaluating whether an officer's non-activation violated policy.

Can the public get a copy of New York bodycam footage?

New York has no bodycam-specific access statute at the state or city level; requests run through the state's general Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), codified in Public Officers Law Article 6. Access improved substantially in 2020 for two related reasons. First, the Legislature repealed Civil Rights Law Section 50-a, which had long shielded police personnel records, including disciplinary files, from FOIL disclosure. Second, and specific to bodycam footage, the Appellate Division, First Department had already held in Matter of Patrolmen's Benevolent Association v. de Blasio (2019) that body-worn camera video was not a "personnel record" covered by Section 50-a's confidentiality rule, reasoning that the footage serves transparency and accountability, not personnel management. Together, these two developments mean a FOIL request for NYPD or State Police bodycam footage is evaluated under FOIL's general exemptions, such as those for unwarranted invasions of privacy or interference with an active investigation, rather than a police-specific secrecy statute.

NYPD's 30-day release policy, and how it holds up in practice

In March 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch formally codified a requirement that the NYPD release body-worn camera footage within 30 calendar days of a critical incident, defined as an officer-involved shooting that strikes a member of the public, or a use of force resulting in serious injury or death. The Commissioner retains discretion to release footage earlier when doing so serves public safety. The policy builds on a practice New York City first announced in 2020, when Mayor Bill de Blasio directed the NYPD to post footage of significant force incidents online. In practice, compliance with the broader FOIL process has lagged well behind that 30-day standard. A 2025 audit by the New York City Comptroller found the NYPD averaged 133 business days to grant or deny FOIL requests for bodycam footage, missed the city's standard 25-business-day response window on 85 percent of the 5,427 requests reviewed, and reversed its own initial denial in 344 of 355 appeals, a 97 percent reversal rate the Comptroller's office cited as evidence that first-line denials were often unjustified.

The Daniel Prude case: why disclosure timing became a statewide issue

New York's push toward faster, more reliable bodycam disclosure traces in part to Rochester's handling of Daniel Prude's death. Prude, a Black man in mental health crisis, died in March 2020 after Rochester police restrained him on the ground; body camera footage of the encounter existed from the start, but city officials did not release it publicly until roughly five months later, after his family obtained it independently. An internal review found that city officials had knowingly withheld information about the encounter during that gap. The delayed disclosure became a statewide flashpoint that fed into 2020's broader package of New York police-accountability legislation, including the Executive Law Section 234 State Police camera mandate and the repeal of Civil Rights Law Section 50-a, both signed within weeks of the footage's release.

Is a civilian allowed to record the police in New York?

That is a separate legal question from the one this page addresses. New York generally allows a person to record an on-duty officer performing public duties in a public place. For the full explanation of that right and how it differs from the rules on police-generated bodycam footage described above, see Is It Illegal to Record Someone?

More New York Laws

• New York Data Privacy Laws
• New York Drone Laws
• New York Recording Laws