South Carolina Police Body Camera Laws: Mandate & FOIA Exemption

South Carolina was the first state to require statewide police body camera use, a law passed weeks after a North Charleston officer shot Walter Scott in the back and a bystander's cell phone video, not any police camera, caught it. That same law, S.C. Code Ann. § 23-1-240, also makes the footage exempt from the state's public records law.

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

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses South Carolina law governing police body cameras: the statewide mandate under S.C. Code Ann. § 23-1-240, its FOIA exemption, and the narrow list of people who can obtain footage. It does not address a civilian's right to record law enforcement, which is covered separately in our guide to recording laws.

The Walter Scott case: why South Carolina mandated bodycams

On April 4, 2015, North Charleston police officer Michael Slager stopped 50-year-old Walter Scott for a non-functioning brake light. After Scott ran from the stop, Slager fired eight shots, hitting him five times in the back. Slager's patrol car dashcam recorded the initial traffic stop but not the shooting itself; he was not wearing a body camera. A bystander, Feidin Santana, filmed the shooting on his cell phone, and that footage, not any camera under police control, showed Scott running away when Slager opened fire, directly contradicting Slager's report that Scott had grabbed his Taser and that he feared for his life.

Slager was fired and charged with murder. His 2016 state trial ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked. He then pleaded guilty in federal court to violating Scott's civil rights and, in December 2018, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Within weeks of the shooting, South Carolina lawmakers introduced a body camera bill, later tied to Scott's name, and the General Assembly passed it that spring. Governor Nikki Haley signed it into law on June 10, 2015, less than ten weeks after Scott's death.

Does South Carolina require police to wear body cameras?

Yes. S.C. Code Ann. § 23-1-240 directs both state and local law enforcement officers to use body-worn cameras according to guidelines developed by the LETC, which had 180 days from the law's effective date to study implementation, costs, and procedures. Because the mandate depended on those guidelines and on funding, rollout was uneven in the years immediately after passage. Reporting by South Carolina newspapers found that several departments struggled to fully equip officers because the legislature did not appropriate enough money to match the mandate, even though the legal requirement itself took effect in 2015.

Is South Carolina bodycam footage a public record?

No. Section 23-1-240(G)(1) states in direct terms that "data recorded by a body-worn camera is not a public record subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act." That single sentence is what makes South Carolina's framework unusual: the same law that made the state a national leader on bodycam adoption also closed the resulting footage to the general public by default, years before most other states even had a dedicated bodycam statute.

A 2024 opinion from the Office of the South Carolina Attorney General confirmed that this exemption holds even when footage is submitted to the LETC for review of possible officer misconduct; submission for that internal review does not convert the recording into a disclosable public record.

Who can get South Carolina bodycam footage, and how?

Section 23-1-240(G) lists specific categories of people who "may request and must receive" footage:

• The person who is the subject of the recording, or a parent or guardian if the subject is a minor
• A criminal defendant, if the recording is relevant to a pending criminal action
• A civil litigant, if the recording is relevant to pending civil litigation
• A person whose property was seized, damaged, or is otherwise involved in a crime the recording relates to
• An attorney representing any of the people above

Separately, SLED, the attorney general, or a circuit solicitor may request and must receive footage for any legitimate criminal justice purpose. Beyond those guaranteed-access categories, the statute also gives the law enforcement agency itself, SLED, the attorney general, or a circuit solicitor discretion to release footage voluntarily, but nothing in § 23-1-240 obligates them to do so for a member of the public or press who falls outside the listed categories.

How long does South Carolina keep bodycam footage?

Section 23-1-240 sets a floor rather than a single uniform period: recordings that are non-investigative, not tied to an arrest, and not part of an internal investigation must be kept for a minimum of 14 days. Recordings that do involve an investigation, an arrest, or internal review instead follow the state's general Preservation of Evidence Act and any applicable expungement law, which can require much longer retention depending on the case.

Is it illegal to record police in South Carolina?

That is a separate question from the one this page addresses. South Carolina generally recognizes a person's right to record an on-duty officer performing public duties in a public place. For a full explanation of that right and how it differs from the rules on police-generated bodycam footage discussed here, see Is It Illegal to Record Someone?