Indiana Police Body Camera Laws: Retention & Access (2026)

Indiana has no statute requiring police departments to deploy body cameras; that decision is made locally. Once an agency records footage, Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.3 sets minimum retention (190 or 280 days), 5-14-3-5.1 gives a defined group of people an in-person inspection right, and 5-14-3-5.2 governs general public access to copies.

Information last verified on 2026-07-08. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Scope note: This article covers Indiana police body cameras: mandate status, retention, the preservation-request mechanism, and public access to footage. It does not address whether a civilian may record an on-duty Indiana police officer; that question is covered separately in Is It Illegal to Record Someone?

For how other states handle mandate status, retention, and access, see the police body camera laws by state hub.

Does Indiana require police to wear body cameras?

No. Indiana has not passed a statute requiring city, county, or state police agencies to equip officers with body cameras, and adoption remains a local decision. Where an agency does deploy cameras, activation rules are typically set by that agency's own policy rather than a single statewide rule. Indiana State Police, for instance, directs troopers under its own body-worn camera procedure to activate the camera upon exiting the patrol vehicle for a call for service and to keep recording through the law enforcement encounter. Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.1, 5-14-3-5.2, and 5-14-3-5.3 do not create a mandate to record; instead, they govern what happens to a law enforcement recording once one exists, setting the retention floor and the access rules covered below. A resident who wants to know whether a specific Indiana department uses body cameras, and under what circumstances, generally has to check that department's own policy.

How long must Indiana agencies keep bodycam footage?

Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.3 sets the baseline. A public agency that is not the state or a state agency, meaning a city, town, or county law enforcement agency, must retain an unaltered, unobscured law enforcement recording for at least 190 days after the recording date. A public agency that is the state or a state agency, such as Indiana State Police, must retain the recording for at least 280 days. If the recording is used in a criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding, the agency must keep it until final disposition of all appeals and any court order addressing the record. These are floors, not ceilings; an agency's own retention schedule can hold footage longer.

Indiana's preservation-request mechanism: how to stop bodycam footage from being deleted

Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.3(c) builds two separate tools into the retention statute for someone who wants a particular recording held beyond the standard floor. They run on the same clock but they are not open to the same people, and the difference decides which one a reader can actually use.

The first is a written retention notice. Under 5-14-3-5.3(c)(1), a person who meets the definition of a "requestor" in 5-14-3-5.1(a) may notify the agency in writing, not more than 180 days after the date of the recording for a local or county agency or 270 days for a state agency, that the recording is to be retained. The agency must then keep it for at least 2 years from the recording date, and the statute expressly provides that the agency may not request or require the person to provide a reason for the retention. That no-reason protection is attached to this route only.

The definition of a requestor is narrow. Under 5-14-3-5.1(a) it covers an individual depicted in the recording; if that individual has died, a surviving spouse, parent, sibling, or child, or the personal representative of or an attorney representing the estate; if that individual is an incapacitated person, their legal guardian, attorney, or attorney in fact; an owner, tenant, lessee, or occupant of real property if the interior of that property is depicted; and a person who is the victim of a crime or who suffered a loss from personal injury or property damage, where the recorded events are relevant to that crime or loss. A bystander who merely witnessed an encounter, a journalist, or an unrelated attorney does not qualify as a requestor and cannot use the written-notice route.

The second tool is open more broadly. Under 5-14-3-5.3(c)(2), if a formal or informal complaint about the law enforcement activity depicted in the recording is filed with the agency within the same 180-day or 270-day window, the agency must automatically retain the recording for at least 2 years. The statute does not limit who may file that complaint, so this is the route generally available to a person who is not a statutory requestor. It does, however, require an actual complaint about the law enforcement activity rather than a bare preservation request, and the no-reason language in subdivision (c)(1) does not apply to it.

Separately, under 5-14-3-5.3(c)(3), if a recording is used in a criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding, the agency must retain it until final disposition of all appeals and order from the court.

Who can inspect Indiana bodycam footage in person?

Indiana runs two different access tracks, and treating them as one is a common reason a request stalls. Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.1 gives a defined "requestor," the same category described above, a right to inspect a law enforcement recording that is separate from the general right of any person to seek a copy under 5-14-3-5.2.

If a requestor submits a written request under Indiana Code 5-14-3-3, the agency must allow the requestor to inspect the recording at least twice, and must allow that inspection in the company of the requestor's attorney. The tradeoff is that neither the requestor nor the attorney may copy or record the footage during the inspection. Before the inspection, the agency must obscure the information that section 4(a) of the chapter requires to be obscured, and may obscure information identifying a law enforcement officer operating undercover or a confidential informant. Under 5-14-3-5.1(d), nothing else may be obscured. A person denied access to inspect under this section may appeal the denial under Indiana Code 5-14-3-9.

That last limit matters in practice. An inspection under 5.1 is less redacted than a copy released under 5.2, because the much broader obscuring list in 5-14-3-5.2(e), which reaches depictions of death, severe violence, serious bodily injury, nudity, apparent minors, personal medical information, and certain victims and witnesses, governs a disclosure under 5.2 rather than a 5.1 inspection. A person depicted in an incident may therefore be able to see more by inspecting than by receiving a copy, while someone who needs a copy to publish or to file in court has to go through 5.2.

Can the public get a copy of Indiana bodycam footage?

Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.2(a) requires a public agency to permit any person to inspect or copy a law enforcement recording, so access starts from a presumption of disclosure rather than a presumption of secrecy. The agency may refuse only if it finds, after due consideration of the facts of the particular case, that access to or dissemination of the recording creates a significant risk of substantial harm to any person or to the general public, is likely to interfere with a person's ability to receive a fair trial, may affect an ongoing investigation, or would not serve the public interest. A separate ground applies to recordings covered by the airport provision in section 4(b)(19) of the chapter.

If an agency denies a request, the requester can petition the circuit or superior court in the county where the recording was made for an order permitting inspection or copying. The court reviews the agency's decision de novo, meaning without deference to the agency, and must grant the order unless the agency establishes by a preponderance of the evidence, in light of the facts of the particular case, that one of those same four grounds applies. The fourth of them, that disclosure would not serve the public interest, is open-ended, so a petition is a real remedy but not the near-automatic win that a de novo standard on its own might suggest. Courts must expedite these cases and rule within 30 days of filing absent extraordinary circumstances. Where a court does order disclosure, the agency must still comply with the obscuring requirements of 5-14-3-5.2(e), such as blurring an apparent minor or a depiction of serious bodily injury, before releasing the recording.

One cost rule is easy to miss and worth weighing before filing. Under Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.2(c), and notwithstanding the fee-shifting provision in section 9(i) that applies to ordinary public-records suits, a person who obtains an order to inspect or copy a law enforcement recording may not be awarded attorney's fees, court costs, and other reasonable expenses of litigation. The civil penalty provisions of section 9.5 of the chapter also do not apply to a petition filed under this section. A petitioner who wins still bears the cost of the litigation.

What happens if an Indiana officer disables the camera?

Indiana addresses this directly with a criminal statute rather than leaving it purely to agency discipline. Under Indiana Code 35-44.1-2-2.5, added in 2021, a law enforcement officer who turns off or disables a law enforcement recording device, in violation of the employing agency's regulations or policy, with the intent to commit or conceal a crime, commits the offense of disabling a law enforcement recording device, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $5,000. That penalty applies specifically to intentional tampering tied to hiding wrongdoing; it does not turn every accidental or policy-noncompliant failure to record into a crime. Absent that intent element, a non-activation is handled the way most agency policy violations are, through internal discipline, though it can still affect how a later use-of-force or misconduct investigation is evaluated.

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about Indiana's law enforcement recording statutes, Indiana Code 5-14-3-5.1, 5-14-3-5.2, 5-14-3-5.3, and 35-44.1-2-2.5, as verified on 2026-07-08. It does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Readers seeking a specific recording, or evaluating a denied public-records request, should consult a lawyer licensed in Indiana.

Related articles

• Police body camera laws by state: the complete hub
• Illinois police body camera laws: mandate, retention, and the Sonya Massey case
• Idaho police body camera laws: retention and public records access
• Is it illegal to record someone?

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

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