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, but the duty in the statute runs to departments rather than to individual officers. S.C. Code Ann. § 23-1-240(B) directs state and local law enforcement agencies, under the direction of the LETC, to implement the use of body-worn cameras pursuant to guidelines the council establishes. Section 23-1-240(C) gave the council 180 days from the law's effective date to study implementation, costs, and procedures, and it is those guidelines, not the statute itself, that specify which law enforcement officers must wear a camera and when it must be activated. Because the mandate depended on those guidelines and on funding, rollout was uneven in the years immediately after passage. That is not just a practical funding gap: § 23-1-240(E)(2) states that "a state or local law enforcement agency is not required to implement the use of body-worn cameras pursuant to this section until the agency has received full funding," a statutory exemption from the mandate for an unfunded agency, not merely an appropriations shortfall the legislature failed to cure. 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 in the years immediately after the law's 2015 effective date.

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?

The statute splits requesters into two groups, and only the first gets footage on demand. Under § 23-1-240(G)(2), SLED, the attorney general, and a circuit solicitor "may request and must receive" footage for any legitimate criminal justice purpose, and under (G)(4) a law enforcement agency may request and must receive a recording relevant to an internal investigation into officer misconduct or discipline.

Private parties are on a different footing. Section 23-1-240(G)(5) says the following people "are also entitled to request and receive such data pursuant to the South Carolina Rules of Criminal Procedure, the South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure, or a court order," which means their access runs through discovery or a judge rather than through a direct demand to the department:

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

Beyond those categories, § 23-1-240(G)(3) 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 itself sets no retention period; it only directs the Law Enforcement Training Council to develop guidelines covering the retention and release of data. The LETC's Body-Worn Camera Guidelines, issued December 7, 2015, set that floor: 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 of an arrest or an offense listed in the state's Preservation of Evidence Act, or covered by an applicable expungement law, instead follow the retention requirements in those laws, 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?

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