Evidence work · footage that holds up when challenged
A claims handler or an investigating officer has to be satisfied the recording is what you say it is. That is settled at the recorder, not afterwards. So a written hold goes in first, before the thirty minutes you need drop off the end of the disk. The rights data-protection law gives you get used properly. Everything that leaves here carries hash values, a written method and a dated record of who held it. The recovery itself is the smallest part of this job. If the recorder belongs to someone else, we need their authority before we touch it.
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| What is in play | What the fault is | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| The retention myth | No statute fixes a period. Disk size, camera count and frame rate decide it | Get a hold in writing today |
| One month to give an answer | The clock starts when your request lands with the operator | Put your request in writing |
| Other people masked | Faces that could be recognised are blurred before a copy goes out | A duty they owe, not a stall |
| A doorbell camera on a driveway | A home camera that sees past the boundary puts its owner under the same duties | Private households are covered too |
| A record of custody | Logged at every step, from the disk inside the recorder through to the copy posted back | Every file goes out with a SHA-256 value and a signed statement of method |
Each item that arrives gets a case number the day it lands. An engineer looks at it and finds the real fault, and that costs you nothing. You are told in plain terms which files can come off the drive and which cannot. A price follows — one figure, written down. No work starts until you have seen it and agreed to it.
First job is a written hold to whoever runs the system — plus their authority, if the recorder is not yours. Then we work out what it really holds: disk size, camera count and frame rate, not the manual.
We export twice from the image. One MP4 that any machine will open, and the recorder's native file — .dav or whatever the maker uses — sent with the player that reads it.
Each file gets a SHA-256 value, a written account of how it was produced, and a dated list of everyone who handled it. Without those, you have a clip that somebody emailed on. With them, you have something a loss adjuster or a court will accept.
You are not billed while you are still thinking. The list of what came off the drive goes to you first, and the invoice waits on your word. Files go home on media bought in for the job, with the postage back on us. We keep the job open until you have opened them on your own machine.
Why insurers care: in November 2025 the ABI put the value of claims fraud detected during 2024 at £1.16 billion, with 51,700 motor cases making up £576 million of that. Clear video settles an honest claim faster and stops a dishonest one — but only where it turns up documented, not simply forwarded on.
Two vans clipped each other in a Sutton Fields yard, and the insurer wanted it proved. The recorder had looped several times over by then, so that day had gone for good. One export had survived: a manager saved it at the time and later deleted it from the office PC. We recovered it from that machine, produced a hash, wrote the method up, and the matter closed without going before a judge.
Yes. If you can be identified in the picture, the recording counts as your personal data, so a subject access request covers it. The shop gets one calendar month to answer. It has to blur other people first, and it usually asks for nothing.
Ask first, in writing and politely. Many hand a copy over without any fuss. If you are refused, there are two formal steps left: a request under data-protection law, and after that an application to the court.
Faster than the owner will tell you. Parliament has set no period at all. The rule is just that data should not be held past the point it serves a purpose, so the answer sits in the hardware: disk size, how many cameras, what frame rate, how it was configured.
It has to play on any computer and hold up if someone disputes it. So four things go out together: an MP4, the recorder's own file, a SHA-256 value for each, and a signed account of how the copies were made.
The clip you want is being written over while you read this, and the deadline has not shifted. Log a job. The first look costs nothing, and what you tell us stays private.