MIA wants private entities to store camera footage for at least month
Deputy Interior Minister Leonid Tymchenko believes that in the future, private entities will need to store information from video surveillance cameras for at least a month.
He said this in an interview with Ukrinform, answering the question whether there is currently an understanding of what the minimum time for private entities to store this information should be.
“This issue has not yet been resolved, but I think that such information should be stored for at least one month. It is desirable, of course, that it be much longer. If we are talking about solving crimes, such data should be stored for up to a year,” the Deputy Minister said.
According to him, as of today, the law does not provide for any time limits for video storage. However, the Interior Ministry plans to develop recommendations for various agencies that will specify how long they should store such information after the relevant draft law on a unified video monitoring system is passed.
Tymchenko said that there are cases when law enforcement officers turn to the administrators of a particular system to get information about traffic or the actions of certain individuals - possible victims or possible criminals - and the administrator says that they do not store information at all, that they simply have a video camera installed.
“And it can be either a fake or a stream that is constantly being recorded, but the information is not recorded or is recorded and stored, for example, for only one day. This day has passed, law enforcement officers come to the administrator, say they need the information, and the administrator replies that he does not store this data because the information is overwritten every 24 hours. Therefore, in this case, recommendations will be developed on the minimum periods of data storage, taking into account the understanding that it requires significant investment (in particular, the cost of equipment) to store such information,” the deputy minister said.
As reported by Ukrinform, on April 2, Leonid Tymchenko informed that the draft law on a unified video monitoring system stipulates that it will be mandatory to store information from cameras for at least a minimum period of time, and that it is necessary to establish minimum storage periods for this data by private entities.