Investigations & evidence · video an insurer will accept
An officer from Thames Valley Police, or a claims handler at an insurer, has to trust what is on the screen, and that trust is assembled before the file leaves the recorder: a written hold placed while the loop still holds the window, the statutory rights used properly, and a release carrying hash values and a dated continuity record. Retrieval is the lesser half.
Go through it with an engineer
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| What's needed | The likely cause | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| The 31-day habit | No statute sets it, and a well-used recorder wraps round inside a month | Request preservation the same day |
| The SAR clock is a month | The month runs from the day the request arrives with them | Send yours in writing now |
| Bystanders masked first | Others in shot must be obscured before the copy is released | That is compliance, not obstruction |
| A doorbell camera covering the street | Once a domestic camera records beyond the owner's own land, the duties attach to them | A household must answer a SAR too |
| The chain of handling | Every step recorded, from the disk in the unit to the copy you hand over | Each export leaves with its SHA-256 values and a signed method note |
Nothing becomes chargeable until you have said yes to it. Each item takes a case number of its own the moment it arrives, an engineer establishes what has actually failed, and you are given a candid view of which files stand a realistic chance of returning. The single quote that follows is fixed, written down, and costs nothing.
First comes a written preservation request to whoever operates the system, then a calculation of how long that recorder truly holds — a figure set by camera count and frame rate, not by the manual.
The image yields both: an MP4 that opens anywhere, and the native export, often a .dav or another maker's wrapper, sent with the player that reads it.
Alongside the video sit a SHA-256 value for each file, an account of how every copy was produced and a dated handling log. Those three turn a clip that arrived by email into an exhibit an insurer or a court can rely on.
Nothing is billed until you have seen the recovered file list in full and told us to go ahead. What comes back arrives on new media, with the return journey at our cost, and the case stays open at this end until you have opened every file yourself.
What is at stake for an insurer: in figures published in November 2025 the ABI put detected claims fraud in 2024 at £1.16 billion, of which 51,700 motor cases accounted for £576 million. Legible video shortens an honest claim and defeats a staged one, though only where it arrives documented rather than forwarded.
By the time the insurer asked for proof of two vans colliding in a yard, the recorder had wrapped over that day weeks earlier. The single export a manager had made was itself deleted from an office machine. We recovered it from there, produced hashes and a method note, and the claim settled without a hearing.
You can. Footage of you is your own personal data, so a subject access request reaches it. The shop then has a calendar month to respond, must mask anyone else who can be identified, and only rarely may charge.
Begin by asking whoever runs the system, since most release a copy without fuss. If you meet a refusal, two formal routes remain: a request under data-protection law, or a court order.
Sooner than owners expect. No statute fixes a period; data-protection law asks only that footage is not held longer than needed, so 31 days became the habit, and a busy multi-camera recorder loops well inside it.
It must play anywhere and it must withstand challenge, so the bundle holds a plain MP4, the recorder's native file, hash values and a note on how each copy was made.
Loop recording is already writing over what you need, and the deadline will not move. Open a case today: the diagnosis costs nothing and stays confidential.