Photographic evidence?

Plushchris

Hi all, been reading the threads on here with interest, I was just wondering, I've seen parking officers (or whatever you want to call them) taking photos with digital cameras, no special equipment just a compact digital camera..

Has anyone ever challenged these?

I know its very easy to change the date and time on a digital camera, so the fact they have a photo with a date and time on it could be meaningless as you could just change the time and date on your own camera and take a photo of your car somewhere else...

Not the most honest thing I know but lets face it, we're not dealing with angels here..

Thoughts please?

give_them_FA

If they are employed by the Council then I believe they have to calibrate their equipment every day. That's the theory, anyway.

If they are private then it doesn't make any difference because whatever they photograph is totally meaningless and can be ignored.

Unless its the Loch Ness Monster, perhaps.

Plushchris

Would there be some kind of "proof of calibration" you could ask to see?

pogofish

Photo evidence has very little meaning in parking enforcement.

In legit, council enforcement, Photos are at the very bottom of the evidential chain - everything else eg tickets, sinage and lines, TRO, patrollers notes and proper procedural matters, has to be in order and be considered first - After all that, photos can be admitted and normally only to clarify any minor technical matters.

In Private enforcement however, photos mean nothing at all.

At very least, images should be properly time and date stamped - either on the image or in the EXIF data and there should be some procedure in place to confirm the provenance of each iteration of the image from original to copy presented at court so that any change/enhancement should be easy to confirm. However there is no overall standard for evidential photography in the UK - Very often this is left up to the procedures in place for the individual photographers concerned.

This BJP article gives some idea of the ongoing debate:

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/opinion/2028936/crime-scene-investigation-metadata-catch-criminals

AlexisV

Councils are under no obligation to provide photographic evidence. Any evidence submitted by either side is presumed to be accurate, unless proven otherwise. The penalty for submitting falsified evidence can be up to £5000.