RDR / Evidence and expert work / CCTV for claims and inquiries

Evidence work · video that holds up when it is questioned

CCTV evidence for claims and courts. Recovering the clip is the quick part; making it stand up is the job.

Write a formal request for preservation today, before the loop takes the half hour of interest. Whether the evidence is reviewed by an insurance claims examiner or an officer, whoever receives it needs to have confidence that the clip originated from that specific recorder. The validity of the evidence is established "at the box" instead of at a desk three weeks later. Data protection law gives you rights over footage in which you appear, and proper use of these rights provides a legitimate way to obtain a copy. Each file produced on this bench includes a hash, documentation regarding its creation, and logs detailing everyone who has had possession of it and on what date. £400 + VAT represents the cost of the recovery, which is the small part; what creates value in a recovered file is the supporting documentation surrounding it. If another party owns the system, their consent is required first.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs Logged as an exhibit from the start The loop is recording over it now

Talk it through in confidence
0800 6890668

How you get a copy released.

Your right to a copyOnce the video shows you as identifiable, under UK GDPR rules the operator must provide you with a copy. The operator has one calendar month after receiving your request to respond (although if your request is particularly complicated, or one of several made by you, this period may extend by up to another two months, but they must inform you of this within the first month). Anyone else who appears will be blurred before release, and unless there are unusual circumstances, no charge will be levied.

Put the hold in writingAn email on the day is worth more than a solicitor's letter a fortnight later. Send it immediately, stating which camera and which thirty minutes, and request in writing that the operator hold onto the footage.

When the police askWhen an officer asks and the operator says yes, that informal route is how most footage reaches a Thames Valley Police enquiry. If, however, the operator refuses, it becomes formal: first a data protection request and then an application to court.

Where we fit inAn accidental formatting of a disk. A recording device stopping on the night in question. An export removed from an office computer. All these generally come back for £400 + VAT, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. However, footage the loop has covered does not come back for anyone.

The clock, and the law around it.

Not here? Tell us what it is doing →

What the answer rests on	What is likely wrong	What happens next
The retention-period myth	There are no specific provisions in general law to determine this; it follows from basic arithmetic (capacity, number of cameras, frame rate)	Get a written hold in today
One calendar month to answer	The month begins once the operator receives your request, even if it takes them longer to begin processing it. If your request is complex, or one of multiple requests from you, it may take up to an additional two months for the operator to respond. They are required to notify you of the delay within the first month	Put the request in writing
Other people get masked	Identifiable people on the footage are obscured before any copy is sent	A duty they owe, not an excuse
A doorbell camera pointed at a drive	Recording equipment pointed past your own property is subject to the same obligations	Households are not exempt either
A chain-of-custody record	Each step is documented, from the disk still within the recorder, through to the posting of the copy	All files leave with a SHA-256 associated with them and a signed description of the method used

Sending it to the lab: get a quote first, by phone or using the form. Send it by tracked, insured post to the Oxford intake lab, or drop it off at the Oxford intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed). The return leg is at our expense. Need help packing? Call us before sealing your box and an engineer will tell you what to pack and what to leave out. All remaining details are on our packing and posting page.

What we do, in order.

How other jobs ended →

Logged the day it lands, and the look costs nothing Free

A case number is assigned to your device when we receive it. An engineer then finds the real fault (free) before anything else occurs; you will be advised clearly of what will be returned and what will not, along with a single written price. Charges cannot begin until you have read this and accepted.

The look costs you nothingA fixed price, in writingStill nothing to pay

Freeze it before anything else

The operator of the system receives the written hold (with their consent attached if the system does not belong to you). Someone then honestly determines how far back the recorder actually goes, worked out from capacity, number of cameras and frame rate together, and not from what a manual or installer remembers.

A written hold goes firstThe real window worked out

Two formats, every time

Two exports are produced from one image. One is an MP4 which works on any platform. The other is whatever format the manufacturer writes (.dav etc.), and it comes with the software required to read it.

A playable copy and the native fileThe player supplied with it

What travels with the files

Every file carries three items: its SHA-256 hash, documentation as to how the file was created, and a dated log listing each individual who has handled it. Remove these items and you have a video clip someone has passed along. Keep them, and a loss adjuster or a court will have something it can work with.

SHA-256 values and the methodHolds up in a claim or at a hearing

The list first, then the bill, then the files

You look at the file list first and make a decision about what to do. We will never invoice anything until you have said yes, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. All of the information that we recover will be put on new media purchased by us specifically for this job, and our company pays the cost of postage back to you. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.

Nothing billed until you say yesNew media, bought for the jobPostage home is on us

What we keep finding on recorders

Only one email, and no charge, ends the argument: date, camera and thirty minutes on either side of the moment, along with a written request that the footage be held. No one can later state that you were too late making this request.
A blurred image of a person's face does not constitute obstruction: where a shop obscures its other customers prior to responding to your request, that is a duty owed to those customers under the very law upon which you rely. Nothing you require will go missing through this process.
Cameras used in residential settings are not outside the rules: in 2021, a county court determined that a homeowner whose cameras captured areas extending beyond his own boundary was subject to the same data protection requirements as any business. His doorbell's video of the pavement was found proportionate. What the court held unlawful was the doorbell's audio, which picked up sound across nearly the whole of a neighbour's property, and the separate cameras covering the shared driveway and the communal parking area.
Who has to follow what regulations: the surveillance camera code applies to relevant authorities, in practice forces and councils. A shopkeeper, landlord or yard operator answers instead to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under data protection law, and everything we export is designed to meet those requirements. Civil reports are prepared according to the duty placed upon experts under CPR Part 35; criminal cases are governed by the Criminal Procedure Rules 2025 as well as a statutory Code which expects ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation for such work. This lab does not have that accreditation. The first page of each report says so, rather than waiting for the other side to figure it out.

Why does an insurance company care? The Association of British Insurers (ABI) stated in its November 2025 figures that detected fraud across 2024 claims was £1.16 billion. Fraud within motor insurance accounts for £576 million of this figure, across some 51,700 cases. Sound video pays an honest claim faster and halts a dishonest one, but only where it arrives documented rather than forwarded.

How one of these actually went.

RG · RDG-2026-1708ON FILE ✓

Two vans, one deleted clip, and an insurer wanting proof

The insurance company wanted to review the moment when a van received damage while manoeuvring within a distribution yard at Theale. By the time anybody asked, the recorder had already completed multiple loops, and that day's recordings had gone. However, an export existed, as someone had saved a copy of the video before clearing it from an office computer several months later. This computer ultimately came to the bench, where the copy of the video was restored, hashed and documented with respect to the method used, and the claim was resolved by settlement (without going near a judge).

Their claim concludedCourt-gradeclip

What helps, and what makes it worse.

First things to do

Email the hold request today
Note the date, the time, the camera and who owns it.
Are you in the picture? Make a subject access request
Hand files on as they come, with no renaming or trimming

What makes it worse

Waiting until the insurer requests it
Holding your phone up to the monitor and calling it proof
Trimming the video before you send it
Believing whatever retention figure the box displays

What people ask before they send it.

A shop filmed me. Can I get hold of the recording?

Yes. Once you can be identified in the video, it becomes your own personal data and you are entitled to receive it via a subject access request. The person who runs the system has one calendar month (after receiving the request) to reply. They may extend their response period by another 2 months if the request was complicated, or one of multiple requests made by you; however, they must advise you of this during the first month. Other individuals appearing in the video will have been blurred before it is released, and there will rarely be a fee to pay.

What if the operator says no?

Send a polite second request in writing; many operators hand over the footage once asked twice. If the operator still refuses, there are two formal processes available to you: complain to the ICO, and thereafter make an application to court.

How soon will the recorder write over it?

Sooner than most owners will acknowledge. There are no general statutory time limits. The only rule is that footage should not be kept once the purpose for which it was gathered ceases to exist; therefore, the actual answer depends on the kit: the size of the hard drive, the number of cameras that write to it, their frame rates, and its configuration.

What do I actually get at the end?

Something that can be opened almost anywhere and withstands a challenge. Four items always go out together: an MP4 file, a copy of the file in the recorder's own format, a SHA-256 hash of each of those two files, and a signed statement detailing how both copies were produced.

If this sounds like yours, start here.

Video the recorder kept → Clips off a dashcam or bodycam → What goes in the report → Casework for court and claims →

Stop the loop before it reaches your clip.

It’s still recording, and every time it loops around it takes another piece of the information you require. Pull its power now, get a quote first, either by phone or with our form, and send us the disk. Your initial assessment is free, followed by a written price, and none of this information will go anywhere else.

0800 6890668

Get it quoted Posting it to Oxford

Drives, cards and whole machines

Start from the fault

Evidence, footage and reports

What it costs, and what happens