Can You Film The Police In Canada?

So you’re walking down the street and you see a police officer arrest someone on the sidewalk. So, you decide to pull out your phone or your iPhone, and you start recording, and the police officer says, “hey, put that phone away. Stop recording or I’m arrest you.” Can they do that? Is it their right to do that? Or do you have a legal right to film the police in Canada? Well, the short question is, absolutely you can film the police in Canada. There’s no question, but there’s rules on it. 

You’ve got to be respectful. Of course. You can’t interfere with their duty. So, you can’t go up and get right in their face and start filming and interfere with the arrest. So, you could stand back in that situation, and it has to be in a public place. So, for example, obviously a street is a public place. Most buildings are a public place unless there’s a notice there that filming is not allowed, for example. So parks, anywhere, really, in a public place outside. 

So this is very important. I mean, the police will sometimes tell a person to stop filming in that situation, you can say, “I’m not interfering. This is my right. I’m back. You don’t have a right to say this” and you’ll back off. Be polite, be respectful. 

So, let’s take some scenarios then. the first one, of course, that arrest scenario, where the person is down, being arrested by the police officer, you’re standing back, just politely filming. The officer is not allowed to say that. Most police will know this, of course, and most will not say but some of them, if they’re doing something wrong, will say that. So you’ve got to be very careful in this situation, because you don’t want to get into a violent confrontation, please. 

But absolutely you have a right as long as you’re not interfering. Let’s take another scenario, same arrest, but you get right up in the officer’s face filming, and you’re kind of interfering with your arrest. Well, you could be charged with obstruct justice, maybe even making a public disturbance, if you’re yelling and things are going on and you’re disturbing the public, so you have to be careful. You have to follow the rules. So what if you’re confronted by a police officer in this situation? “Hey, stop filming or I’m going to arrest you” Or they want to seize your camera? 

I would back away. Be very polite. “Look, this is my right. It’s a public place. I’m allowed to film here. I’m not interfering with your duties.” They know that. There’s no question, but neither do you want to get into a violent situation with some unethical officer. It’s a fine line, isn’t it? So, there you have it. In Canada, we do have this right, but you have to be careful with it. We have freedom of expression. We have charter protected rights, and our charter protects you and allows you to film the police, as long as you do it respectfully in a public place and you’re not interfering with any of their duties, so you avoid getting charged. So that’s it in a nutshell, I’d ask you to stay polite, stay calm and know your rights in Canada.