However fast the technology can be developed, the cameras are getting passed out like candy bars. Police officers in Ferguson are now wearing body cameras after two companies donated about 50 cameras to the department, and the town's residents have started donning them. And just a few weeks ago, the White House petition calling for the creation of the "Mike Brown Law," which would see all police departments in the U.S. outfit officers with cameras, surpassed 100,000 signatures, requiring the Obama administration to respond. Cities around the U.S.—Miami, Houston, Atlantic City—are echoing the call for police body cameras, announcing they'll be pursuing their use.

But in order for the body cameras to be the most effective, the software must be constantly updated, Haryutunan recommends. For added protection, police departments can consult with third party security firms, which can provide stronger barriers and monitor for bugs.

"It's a small computer," he said. "It comes with all the same problems that come with normal computers."

There's also a question of tracking: If we're adding mini-computers to police officers, even if they're unobtrusive, won't we be putting police officers at risk if they can be tracked?

It depends, Haryutunan says, on the software the camera companies use, and the risk is certainly a possibility — at least the same possibility that comes with any other digital device. For example, sites like SHODAN can use metadata to pinpoint locations of devices like cameras and phones, as long as the device is connected to the Internet. Body cameras mostly store the bulk of their recordings in the cloud, and would therefore be susceptible.

"In terms of the technology being able to allow people to pinpoint, that cat's already out of the bag," Romulus Pereira, CEO of Vidcie, a company building body cameras, said to The Wire. "You have radio scanners and police frequency scanners, and there's already enough radio signals, the ability to find anyone at any given time has already been out since cell phone came about."

The bigger issue is privacy, Pereira said. It's an issue camera companies have been tackling since the beginning, because manufacturers must figure out where the recorded footage goes as well as who can access it. For now, the answer is sophisticated storage software that can track who watches the footage.

Body cameras, after all, don't capture everything—there would be hours of footage with nowhere to go—and camera companies like Taser have had to find ways to work around this simple technical problem. So far, this has meant having officers themselves turn cameras on and off — depending on department policy.

Which could mean a number of things. In most departments, the logical rule would be to require police to turn on the cameras when interacting with the public. In others, it could be for the entire duration of select officers' shifts.