How Transparent Is Law Enforcement Data Today—and How Does It Compare to 2022?

Law enforcement transparency has improved since 2022, especially in data availability, body camera usage, and public dashboards. However, gaps remain in consistency, accessibility, and public awareness.

Here are some of the highlights

Transparency has increased since 2022, driven by tech adoption and policy pressure.
Public trust remains mixed, with ongoing concerns about bias and accountability.
Data access has expanded, but fragmentation across agencies persists.
AI and automation are now key drivers of scalable transparency.
The biggest gap today: public understanding of available data.

Why law enforcement transparency still matters in 2026

In recent years, national conversations about policing have continued to evolve. While media narratives remain highly visible, understanding real public sentiment—and the data behind it—requires deeper analysis.

Veritone’s Transparency and Trust Report (2021–2022) established a baseline:

Communities want more visibility into policing.
Misunderstandings often stemmed from a lack of access to information.
Public sector, AI-based technology is essential to closing that gap.

Today, transparency is no longer optional; it’s an operational expectation.

Recent research underscores this urgency. Independent analysis reveals the growing importance of law enforcement transparency, oversight, and accountability, as evidenced by an increase in public data projects aimed at tracking policing outcomes.

What did the 2022 data show?

1. Public understanding of policing was limited

~25% of respondents had no opinion or didn’t feel informed enough to answer. Transparency must include education, not just data release

2. Concerns about bias remained high

64% believed racial bias was still present
55% were unaware of local efforts to address it
25% said better transparency increased their trust

3. Public sentiment was more supportive than expected

70% said policing has become more difficult
61% believed it’s possible to support police while opposing bias

4. Communities want to focus on high-impact work

84% prioritized violent crime response

5. Technology was seen as a trust enabler

Strong interest in tools improving efficiency and objectivity

How has this changed since 2022?

Since 2022, access to law enforcement data has expanded significantly through platforms like the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer, which was designed specifically to “provide transparency” and improve public access to policing data.

At the same time:

National datasets (e.g., use-of-force reporting) are still incomplete.
Participation gaps remain—recent FBI data reflects roughly 78% agency coverage, limiting full national visibility.

While transparency has improved, standardization has not yet reached full maturity. This will need to change in the coming few years as public expectations for transparency have become clearer and stronger. Echoing the early findings of the Veritone report, 93% of Americans support law enforcement sharing more data with the public.

Body camera adoption has accelerated

One of the most measurable gains in transparency since 2022 has been the widespread adoption of body-worn cameras. As of 2024, 77% of local governments report their agencies use body cameras, up dramatically from prior years. Earlier benchmarks show adoption was far lower (under 50% for many agencies), illustrating rapid growth.

While more interactions are recorded, managing and accessing that evidence is now the bigger challenge.

FOIA demand and digital evidence are surging

With the explosion of body-cam footage, dash-cam recordings, and digital evidence in general, processing public records or FOIA requests has only become that much more difficult. And the rate of these requests has only grown.

As such:

Manual review and redaction still create massive bottlenecks, leading to growing backlogs.
Agencies struggle to meet response timelines at scale.

This reinforces a central finding from your 2022 report. Transparency without operational support creates operational strain that can lead to other negative consequences, such as burnout or compliance breaches.

AI is now central to transparency efforts

Since 2022, AI adoption has accelerated across policing. Agencies are increasingly exploring AI for data processing and analysis. In fact, roughly one-third of agencies report adopting or planning to adopt AI tools.

Modern use cases include:

Automated redaction of sensitive footage.
Intelligent search across massive evidence repositories.
Person-of-interest detection and vehicle tracking across multiple video files.
Automated transcription and translation of audio and video files.

As the volume of digital evidence and requests increases, AI has enabled agencies to scale their processing capabilities in ways that were previously impossible.

How technology improves law enforcement transparency

There are five key ways in which AI technology can now improve processing by law enforcement agencies, making information more readily available to the public.

1. Faster access to records

AI reduces the time required to review footage through automated tagging and intelligent search, helping staff surface evidence faster. Once found, they can then use AI-driven redaction to further reduce time and help protect sensitive information and PII when releasing files for FOIA or public records requests.

2. Reduced administrative burden

Automation enables officers to spend less time on administrative tasks and “paperwork,” thereby helping them focus more on case closures, engage with the community, and execute their core duties more effectively.

3. More consistent data handling

Technology helps standardize reporting, which has at times varied based on local and state laws, as well as federal requirements. Through standardization, law enforcement agencies can improve the accuracy of their reporting and, as a result, increase trust that the information is as accurate as possible.

4. Improved public communication

Digital platforms and dashboards secured in the cloud make not just the evidence but also the data contained in these files more usable and accessible to AI. This improves visibility into what agencies have on file, thereby improving their evidence-processing practices to meet the scale and demands of today.

What are the biggest transparency gaps agencies are facing today?

Despite progress, key issues remain, including:

Incomplete national datasets (e.g., participation gaps in reporting)
Fragmented systems across agencies
Increasing FOIA backlogs due to a lack of scale and standardization
Limited public awareness of available information
Skepticism around AI and surveillance technologies

To meet these challenges head-on, here’s what law enforcement agencies should do next:

1. Standardize and centralize data

Enable easier public access and comparison to data to make policing highly transparent and understandable to communities at large.

2. Invest in AI-driven workflows

The burden before has always fallen on the staff of these law enforcement agencies, which vary in size and capability. The use of AI technology helps level the playing field for every agency, providing tools to their skilled people to reduce backlogs and improve response times.

3. Improve public education

Communities still do not understand what data is available to them, how, and where. Law enforcement agencies will need to provide guidance to the public on how to request or access this data to ensure maximum transparency, especially in high-visibility situations and events.

4. Increase transparency around policies

Close the awareness gap identified in both 2022 and 2025 by making the agency’s policies clear to the public. Again, this goes hand in hand with educating the communities they serve more effectively and regularly.

Final takeaway

Transparency in law enforcement has improved since 2022, but progress remains slow. The tools now exist to make transparency scalable. The next challenge is ensuring that data is not only available but accessible, understandable, and trusted.

Want to see how AI can help your agency improve transparency, reduce FOIA workload, and build community trust?

Contact Veritone to learn more about AI-powered solutions for law enforcement.