The Trump administration rejected a recommendation on October 14 that US immigration officials use technology to automatically activate body cameras. The government watchdog suggested this to improve accountability. However, the Department of Homeland Security said automatic activation risked privacy and operational issues, noting that training for officers remains ongoing.

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has rejected a government watchdog's recommendation, opens new tab that US immigration officials should use technology that would automatically activate body-worn cameras when an officer pulls their weapon or sets off a car siren.

Automatic activation of body-worn cameras was one of a number of recommendations outlined in a report released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent nonpartisan watchdog agency for Congress.

The recommendation comes as US agencies face mounting scrutiny over enforcement tactics used in an immigration crackdown that has included fatal shootings of two US ⁠citizens in Minneapolis, raising questions about officers' accountability.

The GAO report said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection "should improve body-worn camera program management," adding that CBP and ICE have not updated their program plans since 2022 and 2024, respectively.

Covering the period from February 2025 until September this year, the report recommended that ICE implement additional controls to make sure that cameras are activated.

"We maintain that additional controls, such as automated camera activation, would provide greater assurance that body-worn cameras meet ICE's desired results for transparency, accountability, and public trust," the GAO said in the report.

The Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part, said in ⁠comments cited in the report that it did not agree with the recommendation, citing what it said were privacy and operational risks.

For ICE, automatic activation risked the possibility of inadvertent or false activations during routine movement, the DHS said in the report.

DHS also said in the report that inadvertent or false activations could result in the unauthorized recording of sensitive interactions ⁠with informants or victims, or the recording of bystanders engaged in free speech activities in areas where camera use is restricted.

ICE has been the face of President Donald Trump's deportation drive, which he says aims to improve domestic security. Rights advocates say ⁠the crackdown has violated due process and free speech rights and created an unsafe environment, particularly for ethnic minorities, who have raised concerns about racial profiling.

Responding to the GAO report's publication, a DHS spokesperson said on Wednesday ⁠ICE had acquired devices to equip all officers and agents with body cameras.

"Training required to equip individual officers remains ongoing and we expect to complete this training soon," the spokesperson said.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington, Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Sonali Paul

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Kanishka Singh

Thomson Reuters

Kanishka Singh is a breaking news reporter for Reuters in Washington DC, who primarily covers US politics and national affairs in his current role. His past breaking news coverage has spanned across a range of topics like the Black Lives Matter movement; the US elections; the 2021 Capitol riots and their follow up probes; the Brexit deal; US-China trade tensions; the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan; the COVID-19 pandemic; and a 2019 Supreme Court verdict on a religious dispute site in his native India.

Kristina Cooke

Thomson Reuters

Kristina Cooke is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at Reuters focused on immigration and criminal justice. She was part of a team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2026 for a series on President Donald Trump's campaign of political retribution. In 2025, she shared the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series on the fentanyl crisis. Her investigation with colleagues into migrant child labor in the United States was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2023, and a recipient of the Polk and other awards. She speaks English, German and Spanish and is based in San Francisco.