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ADR / Evidence, claims and footage / Dashcam and bodycam video

Evidence work · dashcams and body-worn cameras

Deleted dashcam and bodycam footage. Pull the card out first. The argument can wait.

Remove the card and shut down your camera. That’s it: those two actions define your role, and the rest follows from them. Most of these disputes end with half a minute of the appropriate footage on a screen, provided that footage remains available, able to open, and seen by someone who can use it while it still counts. Footage that has been erased or damaged is recovered from SD cards and made usable by insurance companies or officers of the Metropolitan Police; memory soldered into the camera housing is not taken on, and therefore if you are unsure which kind you have, contact us first. £400 + VAT. Looking costs nothing, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Commercial vehicles account for a fair share of our business: vans from the freight yards at Park Royal, near the A40, and hauliers from the A13 at Rainham.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs Handled as an exhibit from the moment it arrives Each hour the loop covers more of what is left

Talk it over with an engineer, in confidence
0203 0868633

Where the clip has to end up.

Which force it lands withThere is one national portal that collects bad driving footage from dash cams, helmet-mounted cameras and household cameras, and forwards it to the police force responsible for enforcing traffic laws on the road in question. For Greater London, this is the Metropolitan Police Service, except for the City of London and its own City of London force. Beyond Greater London: Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent and Surrey.
Fourteen days, and that is allSome offences oblige a police service to issue a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) to the vehicle's registered keeper. They have only fourteen days in which to do this. After the fourteen-day period has elapsed, video quality becomes irrelevant. Police services generally stop accepting submissions themselves after even shorter periods. Check the website of your police service to confirm what requirements apply prior to submitting any video.
What falls to youHave the other vehicle’s registration number handy. The account of what you observed gets placed into a signed witness statement, and in some cases you’ll be called upon to testify to what you saw yourself in court. Your testimony supports the video itself, because standing behind whatever it says is your half of the job.
Body-worn cameras on staffWhen recording anyone recognisable using a Body-Worn Camera (BWC), you are processing personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). With this come certain duties: establishing a lawful basis for collecting/processing their information; posting visible signage wherever it can go; maintaining their personally identifiable information securely under your direct control; and providing justification for storing that information for any length of time beyond collection. In an evidentiary sense, BWC recordings function similarly to CCTV: both keep originals, produce hashes on duplicates and log each transfer.

What the symptom usually means.

Not listed? Tell us what it does →
What is going onThe usual reason for itWhere that leaves you
Clips gone from the cardIt stays stored in the flash until something else overwrites itTake that card out now
The camera remained on all the way homeEvery additional pass of the loop costs you a little moreShut the camera off
Playback comes up blackAn incomplete write or excessive wear on the media cardSet that card aside
Event files that do not openFiles sealed in proprietary formats designed exclusively for one specific model of cameraUnsealed here, then converted
Bodycams broken into parts or submerged in waterCamera housings typically fail well before memory chips doWe do not accept memory that has been soldered inside the camera; if you're unsure which type you have, please call us first
Either a loss adjuster or a solicitor requires it done correctlyHash values, an MP4 file, bench notes and the original filesA component part of every job submitted here
How it reaches us: get a straight quote first (via phone or form), then send it via tracked, insured post or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed); our Guildford lab takes it in, and the cost of sending it back to you is on us. Unsure what to put with it when sending it to us? Give us a ring before sealing your box and we'll put you through to an engineer who can tell you what you need to include and what needs to stay behind. All of this information is also outlined on our guide to packing and posting.

The sequence we follow.

Other jobs on the log →
01

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

As soon as your parcel arrives here, an engineer assigns a case number that same day, prior to determining what has really failed, which is the first thing done and costs you nothing. In addition to a note of what can and cannot be recovered from your drive, you will receive at the same time the fixed, written price for restoring what can be recovered. You can accept this quote, or decline it, which will result in no further obligation on your part and nothing owed to us.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNothing owed at this stage
02

Nothing happens before the card is imaged

Nothing belonging to you will ever be opened, extracted or modified in the course of recovering your data. A sector-by-sector clone copy of your card will be created at the start. Each subsequent action will be performed on this clone copy, protected event files included. What arrives back at your location is what we received originally.

A full image made firstMaker's wrappers unsealed
03

Carved out, then put back together

Carving extracts erased clips from the image again. If one clip is damaged then a rebuild of its header and its index will be necessary first for any standard player to view it. One cardinal rule governing flash is: the more you drive with that card in, the less will remain.

Clips carved back outBroken files put right
04

Which copy goes where

There are two ways that videos of driving offences are transmitted to the Metropolitan Police: directly through their own upload portal, or the National Dash Cam Safety Portal. Using one of these portals within days rather than weeks, especially if a Notice of Intended Prosecution is required, means that you won’t run the risk of missing the deadline of fourteen days. For each recording job that comes in here, an insurer receives original recordings, a playable MP4 file, hash values and a written description of how they were obtained.

The exhibit bundle put togetherThose fourteen days kept in sight
05

You see the file list before you pay

You will see what has been recovered as a list first, after which a bill exists. Accepting the list means that a bill will be issued. Rejecting the list means that a bill will not be issued, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The recovered data travels from here back to you via new media purchased specifically for your project, with the cost of postage paid by us. Your case is not resolved (i.e., "closed") until you personally view the files on a computer of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the jobThe post home is ours

What the bench has learned

  • A smaller card will come round again faster than its owner expects: how fast will depend upon resolution, card capacity and miles driven, with no model number being determinative. Place the recorded video on a laptop that same evening.
  • Pressing the lock button merely holds the loop off: a card that is failing will take a locked clip down as easily as any other, and so too will a format operation.
  • Whatever you submit is not the original: as police guidelines clearly state, some surrounding data will not travel intact through a portal, hence retain possession of that card until completion of your case.
  • Do not tamper with it: as evidence, a direct copy from the card that maintains metadata and has undergone no alteration is superior to any version that has been through an editor, regardless of how appealing it appears.

The deadline nothing will move: on a whole range of road traffic offences, fourteen days is the total entitlement. During this time frame the registered keeper has to receive an NIP (Notice of Intended Prosecution), otherwise the whole point is lost. Behind that sits a six-month limit to initiate most prosecutions for road traffic offences. Some individual police forces close submissions earlier still. Research what submission timeframe applies to the force policing that road prior to submitting any videos. Day twelve is worth submitting. Day twenty seldom is.

One job, followed all the way through.

LDN · ADR-2026-3113JOB LOGGED ✓

A driver deleted the clip at a Camden distribution yard

The card itself was left untouched: an image of the card was obtained first. Every action subsequently taken to examine and report upon this evidence was conducted relative to that image. The clip that had been asked for had disappeared overnight; however, the picture data associated with that clip had not been erased and therefore could be recreated from the image. The recreated clip was then hashed, exported and forwarded to the insurer within the week. There is a distinct difference between deleting data and overwriting data, and the card clearly showed which of the two had happened.

The footage came back entireHash-verified copy handed over

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Card removed from camera, camera turned off; neither item should be touched again
  • Locked files remain exactly where they were placed
  • Write down the location, time and vehicle registration numbers
  • Footage of the offence should go in straight away: the clock is ticking on those fourteen days

What sets us back

  • Driving on with that card installed
  • Deleting old clips for room
  • Editing your video and then submitting it
  • Leaving it a fortnight

The questions that come up first.

Do courts accept dashcam footage?

As a rule, yes, as long as it relates to a genuine issue that is in dispute and can be proven to be authentic. The authenticity of your submission is based on three elements: the file was left unaltered from its capture by the camera and was never altered, all metadata associated with the file remains unaltered, and a written chain of custody names every person that has had possession of the file. It is up to the judge to determine how much weight to give to your submission.

How do I report bad driving I have on camera?

There are two options available to submit your video. First, you may submit your video through the National Dash Cam Safety Portal and it will automatically go to the police force responsible for policing where the offence occurred. Second, you may contact that police force directly. Both options require additional information including the registration number of the other vehicle involved and a signed witness statement from you. The difficult element is timing. Depending upon the offence, some offences require a Notice of Intended Prosecution to be in the hands of the registered keeper of the vehicle within fourteen days of occurrence. There is no way to extend that time frame.

A clip was deleted. Is it beyond reach?

Generally, deleting a video does not delete the actual video image data. That data remains stored on your memory card until either the cycle returns to that point again, or new video data is written over the top of it. If you remove the memory card from the camera and turn the camera off, there is generally still video data that can be retrieved.

Do bodycams my staff wear fall under UK GDPR?

Yes. Anyone identifiable on a body-worn recording is considered personal data. Once that is the case, four requirements become applicable: a legal basis for collection; signs indicating collection wherever they can be displayed; storage of personal data under your own control; and reasonable periods to retain the collected data. Handle your recordings in evidence like you would handle CCTV images: keep originals; hash copies; document who made each copy, and when they were made.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

Copies the police and insurers take → A card that reads empty → Pen drives and USB sticks → Work that reaches court →

Off the mains first, because that is what protects the evidence.

Regardless of what contains the evidence, turn off electrical power to it before doing anything else: a recorder still operating overwrites its oldest evidence every hour. Once power is removed, secure a price quotation (either by phone or through submitting a form), then post us just the disk or drive (do not include the recorder or computer), or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). Evaluation costs nothing; work on recorders costs £400 + VAT and forensic analysis starts at £800 + VAT, both prices agreed to in writing beforehand. What sits on that disk stays here.

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Price my job Sending it to Guildford