John Oliver on police bodycam footage: ‘Hoping for leaks cannot be the system here’

John Oliver: ‘The more you look into bodycams, the more you realize they are only effective if used properly, and in many cases they are just not.’ Photograph: YouTube

On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver delved into the proliferation of police bodycams, “the devices that give us a nipple’s-eye view of law enforcement’s interactions with the public” and which represent what some experts have called the largest new investment in policing in a generation.

Bodycams have been viewed as a “popular solution regarding transparency in law enforcement”, Oliver explained, with many Democratic lawmakers currently calling for “masks off, body cameras on” in negotiations over the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in US cities.