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The story
The National Police Agency has finalized plans to equip police officers nationwide with hands-free “wearable cameras” starting in fiscal year 2027. In trial runs, officers actually wore the cameras while on duty, and the agency says their effectiveness was confirmed. Related costs — about ¥170 million for roughly 2,000 units — have been included in the budget request for fiscal 2027.
On 5ch, some voiced concern over whether footage of wrongful arrests or police questioning would truly all be made public, or whether only inconvenient scenes would be deleted, while others called for tasers to be introduced first, or for similar camera systems to be extended to private businesses like convenience store staff.
Published 8/28 (Fri) 12:54
Kyodo News
The National Police Agency finalized plans on the 28th to introduce hands-free “wearable cameras” nationwide starting in fiscal year 2027. It judged their effectiveness confirmed after officers actually wore them on duty during trial runs. About ¥170 million in related costs for roughly 2,000 units was included in the budget request for fiscal 2027.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
I've seen footage where the taser didn't work and the officer got attacked back.
Just warn them first, then shoot them in the leg — that's fine.
And release everything, including the wrongful arrests police make.
Seriously, this.
I wonder if Japanese cops can stay composed when provoked, the way American cops get baited — should be fun to watch lol?
Provoke an American cop and they'll arrest you on the spot.
Over there, arrests are handed out pretty casually.
American police are the ones who get sulky and arrest you for some nonsense reason lol
There are too many senile old folks and foreigners now — without evidence on record, there's no way to protect the clerks.
Convenience store clerks don't move around and their workplace is fixed, so wouldn't a security camera be enough?
It's not that heavy, come on.
The article only says it's meant to protect the police.
Bet they'll hide whatever's inconvenient for them.
If they livestreamed it 24/7 by region, I bet it'd go viral.
It'd show the public what police work looks like, which would help deter crime too — two birds, one stone.
Like a real-life "Cops 24 Hours" (riffing on the Japanese TV show 'Keisatsu 24-ji')
A lot of people seem to think tasers are safe, but those things can kill.
Lol, talking big without knowing the downsides.
Thick clothing can straight-up block them — they're not some miracle weapon 😄
you can win just by asking "why wasn't a verbal warning enough here?"
Don't go filming people without permission — this isn't some harassment hotline.
At least make a glasses-style version and sell it to the public too.
I'd use it in place of a dashcam.
they might as well make complying with police questioning (shokushitsu) mandatory too.
Even if the person plays dumb or acts unclear on purpose, showing the video would settle it instantly.
If you're not satisfied with a traffic violation stop, you can request that the officer show you the dashcam footage.
The National Police Agency issued a directive on this back in February.
National Police Agency instructs officers to comply with dashcam-footage requests from traffic "violators"
https://www.asahi.com/sp/articles/ASV2M4KB9V2MUTIL034M.html
Obviously, when someone requests it, they'll actually disclose it, right?
Even footage that's inconvenient for the police.
Hey now, just film it on your own phone.
Don't go wasting tax money over some random gripe, idiot.
That way, just like in the interrogation room, it'll be the police who end up in trouble.
Kind of leisurely to be "confirming effectiveness" only now.
Well, at least they're introducing it at all, right?
Just like with dashcams, having an unbroken recording is what gives it evidentiary value — if footage goes missing because it was inconvenient, that would kill its value as evidence.
Though it's totally plausible the police could just claim "this doesn't count as evidence" whenever it's inconvenient for them.
Background and Key Points
Just like dashcams, police wearable cameras rely on “continuity of recording” as a precondition for their evidentiary value. The point that a gap in the footage could actually end up counting as evidence against the police isn’t obvious from the original article alone. Overseas, many countries including the UK, US, and Australia have already made such cameras mandatory and put them into practical use, so Japan’s adoption comes relatively late by international standards. The budget allocated this time covers roughly 2,000 units at about ¥170 million — a scale closer to an extension of the trial program than a true nationwide rollout, given the total number of police officers in Japan, so it’s easy to misread “nationwide adoption” as meaning every officer will be equipped immediately. On 5ch, distrust over whether footage of wrongful arrests and police questioning will really be fully disclosed — or whether only the inconvenient scenes will conveniently go missing — is being voiced alongside hopes that having evidence on record will cut down on disputes; the transparency of the rules for storing and releasing footage looks set to become the key point of contention going forward.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Wearable Cameras] Police Body Cameras to Go Nationwide — Effectiveness Confirmed, Starting FY2027“.
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