CCTV / Insurance / Police / Local Councils

I was told by both a policeman and community support officer that unless you have a clear face picture it's impossible to prosecute. I asked them for more info and was told that basically the person needs to get in front of the camera much like a selfie. They then told me dummy cameras are as effective deterrent wise because you'll never get your selfie picture.

CCTV is notoriously poor picture quality wise also.

static said:

Ok, is there anyone on here who can give the official view of what level of CCTV, along with signage and that sort of thing is required so that the info collected on it can be used by Plod to sort hare coursers and for the council to sort fly-tippers?

Cant see the point in going down the "well, any info would be helpful to us, Sir" route unless it really is going to be admissable as evidence. Also, if we ever catch anyone, I presume we can charge for the hassle of going through hours of footage to find them etc?

Feel free to message me, but I'm sure many would want to know the same thing before shelling out the £££.

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Save your £££'s. In the light recent events around here you are wasting your time and money if plod aren't interested.
Network Rail use my yard to gain access to the track. A few weeks ago they had some vans parked by the roadside when a car pulled up alongside them. The site manager went over to see what was going on and found a bloke behind the van. When he asked him what he was doing the bloke said he needed a pee. The site manager took his photo and one of the car, the bloke took offence to this but leapt into his car and drove off. The site manager went around the van ( no wet spot on ground) but found the back door had been forced with a jemmy. He dialed 999 and the police asked him to email them the pics. They rang him back and said that the bloke was known to them for this sort of stuff and that the photo was of the car owner however because the site manager hadn't actually seen him trying to break into the van ( there was no one else who could possibly have done it ) they couldn't take the matter any further.

At AgriCamera we have had CCTV footage collected by the Police and used in a successful prosecution

As said a prosocution is very difficult .

They are a deterrent, but to be legal in an area where the public can be filmed i believe they have to be registerd with with the data protection register , signs have to be displayed saying you aee bbeibg filmed in the interest of crime prevention etc.
I've had the police around few times asking for a look at our cctv to identify a vehicle and a time ,in realtion to some other crime they are looking into , and they have never asked about our registration, ( we dont have any ) but if it got to court i suspect it would be un admissible.as evidence.

Recognising any one , unless you know them is difficult , there are some great camera systems now , but criminal dont tend to move in for a full face picture and picture of a yard with someone loading something in a van is unlikley to be of good enough quality to prosecute.
That said if the police new the vehicle and driver from the photo , its circumstantial to get a search warrent for there property so maybe turn up some stolen goods .

static said:

What is the distance a camera can record a numberplate from then? Without costing more than just paying an apprentice to sit at the end of the road all night!

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A cctv camera doesn't sleep on the job either [emoji15]

It's incredibly difficult to get a prosecution based on CCTV evidence alone. Even with a perfect picture, you still have to prove the person you have is the same as the one in the picture and not just a lookalike.

How much said:

As said a prosocution is very difficult .

They are a deterrent, but to be legal in an area where the public can be filmed i believe they have to be registerd with with the data protection register , signs have to be displayed saying you aee bbeibg filmed in the interest of crime prevention etc.

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This is a bit of a myth. The police can use whatever the hell they like as evidence to support a prosecution as long as it was obtained legally.
On private property you can basically do whatever you like.

static said:

I am not overly bothered about securing a criminal conviction. But given the cost of say removing dumped waste from your own land, surely it is of a high enough standard of evidence to get a private / civil prosecution to get the costs back? I am happy to have it registered for data protection.

What is the distance a camera can record a numberplate from then? Without costing more than just paying an apprentice to sit at the end of the road all night!

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A private prosecution would never be worth it given the costs involved unfortunately.

Numberplates can be captured from a long distance. But what good is a number plate if the vehicle is stolen too?

We've just had some cameras upgraded to latest HD IP cctv and picture quality is very good. Problem still I'd say is getting a clear shot of moving number plates is difficult, but these cameras are much better than our previous ones. Proper ANPR cameras are not so expensive anymore but all the software and recorders that go with them bump up the cost.

As far as legality of filming "the public" I will try and explain our approach.

We are not registered with any data protection nonsense.
We have one entrance into our yard, with gates across drive. We have a camera positioned on the end of the nearest shed looking straight at the gates, zoomed in close to try and get number plates or clear vehicle identification, etc as they come through. This camera catches vehicles and people as they pass by on the road. Guy who installed the system said this is absolutely fine as it is a small percentage of the overall image and it cannot see identifiable features until they come close to our gates. However, we also have lights on our gate posts which, if we fed off their power, could allow us to fit a camera to film other side of the gates to get clearer shots of the hare coursers, fly tippers, scrap dealers, general no-gooders, etc. This would then be highly controversial as although helpful in potentially identifying someone at a later date for an offence of xyz committed up the road, we would then be filming legitimate people going about their private business.

My opinion... Get as many high quality cameras as you can. Mount them low down to see features of faces, cars, etc but high enough so just out of reach. Link them to some sort of outdoor sensor so that a movement activation sends you an alert. Better to know someone is on your property as soon as they set foot on it, rather than have to trawl through hours of footage to find out what happened. The technology is there and it is relatively cheap nowadays.