How to Safeguard Mobile Video Evidence for Dashboard & Body Cameras

The Second Blog Post in Our 5-Part Nexsan Assureon for Law Enforcement Series

Entitled Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program: Recommendations and Lessons Learned, a report by the US Department of Justice and the Police Executive Research Forum emphasizes the importance of data storage and retention. When selecting a method for storing mobile evidence video from dashboard and body cameras, police departments need to consider security, reliability, cost and technical capacity, the document notes.

Video Archival Best Practices

The body-worn camera report provides the following guidelines, among others, regarding the archiving of video footage:

• Consult with legal advisers and prosecutors to ascertain that your data storage policies and procedures comply with all relevant laws and preserve the evidentiary chain of custody.
• Explicitly prohibit data tampering and editing. Some body cameras come with technological safeguards that prevent officers from accessing video data prior to uploading it into the storage system.
• Create an auditing system so that you have a record of who accesses video data, when they do it, and for what purpose. Available at Image One, Imation’s Nexsan Assureon includes a built-in audit trail.
• Spell out who will be authorized to access data (supervisors, Internal Affairs staff and prosecutors, for example) and for what purpose (such as administrative review, training and investigations).
• Make sure that there is a fail-safe backup system. Nexsan Assureon archival storage hardware is the only solution to have a built-in backup system that guarantees data integrity.
• Specify when videos must be uploaded from body cameras to the storage system and who will do this.
• Consider vendors carefully. With Image One, which has 20 years of experience serving agencies and commercial customers in Florida, you know that you have a knowledgeable partner to help guide your decision-making.

The Image One Solution

Offering seamless scalability, Nexsan Assureon meets all of these recommendations and is the ideal archival storage solution for archiving the ever-expanding volume of video surveillance footage.

Contact us to learn more about Nexsan Assureon dashboard and body camera archival storage