The city police department says it has finished equipping all uniformed patrol officers with body cameras, completing a rollout pushed back two months after one exploded last fall.

The NYPD said Wednesday that it has handed out about 20,000 cameras and will give about 4,000 to specialized units like emergency services by August.

The department says it is largest such program in the world and is proving a success. Officials say the footage has been useful in investigations, training purposes, and is fostering transparency and accountability.

"The sense is that this is working well," NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker said at a news conference. "The impact here in the department and certainly on our relationship with communities is, I think, profound."

Officers are required to turn on their cameras during any investigative or enforcement action, such as during a traffic stop or while making an arrest, and can face consequences if they don't.

"There has been everything from instruction and re-training to discipline imposed for a violation of the policy, which includes failure to record," Assistant Chief Matthew Pontillo said.

A court ruled last month that body camera footage is subject to public disclosure under New York law. The department says it has recorded about 3.5 million videos since December 2017.

Until that ruling, however, the police officers' union had successfully blocked the release of any footage for much of the past year. Before that, the NYPD did release video of some high-profile incidents, but the decision to make the footage public is entirely up to the police commissioner to make on a case-by-case basis.

NY1 filed a lawsuit — still ongoing — that allowed us to obtain some footage through a Freedom of Information request. But any such video can be heavily redacted.

• NYPD Body Cam Footage Given to NY1 Raises Transparency Questions

"You can have a body-worn camera video that shows the inside of someone's home. It might show a domestic violence victim. It might show a sex crimes victim," Assistant Deputy Commissioner Ann Prunty said. "So there's going to be personal privacy implications."

The NYPD pulled thousands of cameras from service as a precaution after the October explosion. An investigation found it was likely caused by battery damage from a paper clip used to reset the device.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.