Accident Report Form (use of digital camera)

[Martin76]

I'm completing an accident report form in line with the existing H&S management system our company has in place (which i don't think is very good!) the system makes reference to the use of digital cameras being used to photograph accident scenes but it makes the following statement;

NOTE: If the photographs may end up being used as evidence in court at a later date only use the traditional type of camera to take photographs of the accident/ incident. Digital cameras are unlikely to be given credence in a court of law since images can easily be modified. Digital cameras may be used in addition to, but not instead of the more traditional types.

Is this statement correct? I really can't see how this could be the case.

Thanks

Martin

[ssmith65]

It probably was the case a couple of year back when everyone was saying that digital evidence was easy to tamper with than actually physical film but I think we have come some way since then after all even film is changeable to a certain extent and given an accident scene it would be about the trail of evidence and the integrity of the person gathering the evidence that would go some way to validating the images. For example, given a crime scene it would be easy to move aspects of it around and then take the pictures. I know that recently the government has been trying to get legal bodies from address the issue, for example there is now no national paper storage system for fingerprints, so surely they are still countable as evidence

[bernicarey]

This certainly was the case when digital cameras first arrived, but given the high definition of digital equipment and the amount of technical metadata attached to an image, they are now admissible.
Just this afternoon, I was at a Health & Safety Laboratories presentation at the East Midland IOSH meeting and what they get up to with digital imagery and computer software is quite fascinating.
Those guys are doing what you see on TV in the Cop shows and think is just TV tricks. They are 3D imaging incident scenes and creating virtual tours, the end result looking like using a 1st person video game.

The police now wear body cameras, they're digital...

Hers a link to an ACPO document from 2007 http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/cri ... 01x071.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Martin76]

thanks guys

I'm going to remove this reference from the management system. The management system we have in place is pretty dated and in my opinion not very good! I think my predecessor used a management system from another business/industry and has tried to adapt/change it to fit our business but its not really worked.

Martin