Re: How long to keep surveillance tapes?

[Matt Ion <soundy106@xxxxxxxxx>]

DavidB wrote:
> Do most commercial companies recycle their surveillance tapes or do
> they archive the tape or digital pictures indefinitely? What is a
> prudent amount of time to retain surveillance footage when there has
> been no known incident for which they would obviously be needed?

Well, I can tell you Petro Canada officially specifies one month's worth
of tapes be kept, so on the annual preventative maintenance rounds, we'd
deliver 31 new tapes to them.  Ideally, this means a tape is used a
maximum of 12 times before it gets discarded, although I've gone back to
some sites where they have two years' worth of unopened tapes and have
been using the same old tapes for three years (and then they wonder why
the playback is shyte... well, more shyte than usual).

Most sites are now going to DVRs as the old VCRs die and replacements
and parts get harder and harder to find.  When I do install a DVR, I'll
usually recommend they keep their existing tapes for at least a month
(just in case, because they're supposed to have a month's worth of
archived surveillance) and then just toss them out.  Not the most
environmentally friendly, I know - how they dispose of them is their own
business.