HB 2299 | Permitting county probation officers to wear body cameras

Session: 2025-2026

ACLU-PA Position: Opposes

HB 2299 (PN 3019) would amend the PA Wiretap Act to add county probation officers to the definition of “law enforcement officer.” This would exempt county probation officers from restrictions on recording oral communications, allowing probation officers to wear body cameras, including when meeting with children as young as 10 years old.

The use of body-worn cameras by community supervision agents (probation or parole) is almost non-existent in the rest of the country. The supervisory relationship between probation officers and their adult or juvenile clients are, by definition, interpersonal, and more often than not, occur in private settings—treatment centers, home visits, and work visits. As such, the use of body cameras in those settings not only raises significant privacy concerns when recording confidential or personal health conversations, but it has very serious implications for third parties who may be recorded, but who retain an expectation of privacy and protection against unlawful searches because they are not under supervision.

The ACLU-PA had similar objections to HB 1278 last session, which was enacted to permit state parole agents to use body cameras. Not only does HB 2299 invite the same critiques, it compounds them in three important ways:

1. Unlike state parole agents, county probation officers are permitted to supervise children as young as 10 years old and would require compliance with the Juvenile Act, not just the Crimes Code;
2. Unlike adults under state parole supervision, adults and children under county probation supervision do retain an expectation of privacy, further compounding the privacy and Fourth Amendment concerns raised by HB 1278; and
3. Unlike state parole agents, county probation officers are not supervised by a state agency, therefore making it difficult, if not impossible, to standardize body camera practices and procedures.