CCTV

Stephen Gawking

Hi all, just wondering does anyone know how i might go about applying for CCTV of an incident that involved myself recently. I was recently involved in an unpleasant incident & would like to see what footage of said incident exists however i haven't the foggiest of how to obtain footage. Am i entitled to it? TYIA.

lawrencesummers

Who owns it?

Stephen Gawking

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Who owns it?

Owns what?

Homer

The camera that recorded said incident.

Stephen Gawking

Homer wrote: »

The camera that recorded said incident.

Apologies, i misunderstood initially. The incident took place in a medical facility. I was there for an arranged treatment. I'd rather not go into detail but what happened would have been recorded on several CCTV cameras.

lawrencesummers

Is it a privately owned building?

Stephen Gawking

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Is it a privately owned building?

To the best of my knowledge yes. A private medical facility for treatment by appointment.

Del2005

It doesn't matter who owns the cameras the only people who the recording can be given to are the Gardaí acting on a complaint/investigation, but you'll need to contact the camera owner ASAP to make sure that they keep the recording as they usually overwrite after a few days.

Homer

Also worth noting that it’s very rare for these cameras to record audio so will be picture only if that makes any difference to you.

usernamegoes

Del2005 wrote: »

It doesn't matter who owns the cameras the only people who the recording can be given to are the Gardaí acting on a complaint/investigation, but you'll need to contact the camera owner ASAP to make sure that they keep the recording as they usually overwrite after a few days.

The data subject is entitled to a copy of the CCTV footage by contracting them and asking for it under GDPR. They may pixilate or otherwise deidentify the other people in the images. If you are satisfied that the event is caught on camera then you can take further action via Garda.

Lenar3556

Del2005 wrote: »

It doesn't matter who owns the cameras the only people who the recording can be given to are the Gardaí acting on a complaint/investigation, but you'll need to contact the camera owner ASAP to make sure that they keep the recording as they usually overwrite after a few days.

This is not quite true.

CCTV images are personal data and can be sought by an individual whose image is recorded, by way of a data subject access request. The operator of the CCTV system is likely to be under a statutory obligation to provide the footage - albeit with everything other than the individual self obscured.

The Garda would have no automatic rights in relation to receiving CCTV. They may have a role in viewing / seizing it as evidence where they have reason to suspect an arrestable criminal offence has been committed. They may require a court order if it is not freely handed over.

Would it be worth speaking to the medical centre involved, regarding the experience in the first instance?

Del2005

usernamegoes wrote: »

The data subject is entitled to a copy of the CCTV footage by contracting them and asking for it under GDPR. They may pixilate or otherwise deidentify the other people in the images. If you are satisfied that the event is caught on camera then you can take further action via Garda.

Lenar3556 wrote: »

This is not quite true.

CCTV images are personal data and can be sought by an individual whose image is recorded, by way of a data subject access request. The operator of the CCTV system is likely to be under a statutory obligation to provide the footage - albeit with everything other than the individual self obscured.

The Garda would have no automatic rights in relation to receiving CCTV. They may have a role in viewing / seizing it as evidence where they have reason to suspect an arrestable criminal offence has been committed. They may require a court order if it is not freely handed over.

Would it be worth speaking to the medical centre involved, regarding the experience in the first instance?

The OP can request the video under GDPR but it'll be of no use to them as all the others in the video need to be removed under GDPR. If they report it to the Gardaí they can get the full video.

usernamegoes

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP can request the video under GDPR but it'll be of no use to them as all the others in the video need to be removed under GDPR. If they report it to the Gardaí they can get the full video.

OP said he wanted to see what footage exists. This will allow him/her to determine if the footage exists.

Lenar3556

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP can request the video under GDPR but it'll be of no use to them as all the others in the video need to be removed under GDPR. If they report it to the Gardaí they can get the full video.

Well firstly he will establish the availability of CCTV footage, and an indication of what is likely to be on tape.
While the CCTV operator should remove others personal data, the extent to which they will do this, (if at all) will vary.

I’m not sure where you see the Garda’s role in this? There is no suggestion that a criminal offence has occurred or is suspected?

Clareman

Looking at this from a GDPR point of view, the owner of the camera is the data controller, the person on the video is the data subject. The data subject has a right to request a copy of the data that the data controller has on them via a Subject Access Request, this won't be an issue for the majority of the data but when the data impacts on other data subjects the data controller will have a responsibility to protect other data subjects, this will mean either blurring or cropping any video to remove "other data".

In the real world, I have seen 2 course of action been taken for SAR requests on CCTV, 1 was to delay the response to the maximum at which point the video had overwritten itself, this is an extremely grey area/tactic that I wouldn't agree with but a counter argument here is that GDPR wasn't designed to help people with legal cases and people were exploiting it to bring cases. The other course of action I've seen is people cropping the video to such an extent that only the data subject was in view, I'm talking zooming into the subject only and blurring anything outside the person's frame, it also removed all audio except for the persons voice. This tactic also allowed for an extension on the request due to the complexity of the video editing, this delay allowed for the CCTV to overwrite itself and the controller deleted all backups which were used for the editing under the guises of "Purpose Limitation" and "Data Minimisation".

TL;DR, GDPR will get you access to YOUR data but using it as a basis to obtain CCTV footage for a potential legal case is fraught with difficulties which will probably result in delays or problems in getting what you actually want.

Phoebas

Who would bear the cost of preparing the data in a case like this?

Seems like it might be a time consuming activity to identify an individual in a video and then a specialist technical task to prepare a copy where images of that individual are isolated.

Lenar3556

Phoebas wrote: »

Who would bear the cost of preparing the data in a case like this?

Seems like it might be a time consuming activity to identify an individual in a video and then a specialist technical task to prepare a copy where images of that individual are isolated.

The data controller, likely the business involved. Such are the perils of storing personal information.

Homer

And just to play devils advocate.. suppose I’m the owner of the business and I don’t fancy incurring costs to locate the footage and pixelate any number of other innocent customers.. I just say “sorry wasn’t recording that day” or “we only keep x days worth of footage due to gdpr blah blah”
Not much you can do unless Gardai want to get a warrant and seize the dvr

Clareman

Homer wrote: »

And just to play devils advocate.. suppose I’m the owner of the business and I don’t fancy incurring costs to locate the footage and pixelate any number of other innocent customers.. I just say “sorry wasn’t recording that day” or “we only keep x days worth of footage due to gdpr blah blah”
Not much you can do unless Gardai want to get a warrant and seize the dvr

You're getting into the realms of destruction of evidence but for a GDPR request it's not an issue as GDPR does stipulate data minimization so "technically" under GDPR by having your CCTV overwrite itself on a regular basis is doing the right thing.

usernamegoes

Clareman wrote: »

You're getting into the realms of destruction of evidence but for a GDPR request it's not an issue as GDPR does stipulate data minimization so "technically" under GDPR by having your CCTV overwrite itself on a regular basis is doing the right thing.

I think he meant if the data controller just lied and said it wasn't recording or has been deleted. Likelihood is they would get away with it. If they have a data protection officer maybe he or she would advise not to break the law.