Mobile phone camera

[KITT]

These are now fairly common and I was wondering if the photos they produce would be acceptable in an insurance claim? I know we should all carry proper, disposable, film cameras but seeing as a lot of these new speed cameras are digital, would our own digital photos be acceptable as evidence?

[parrot of doom]

The older varieties are quite poor, but the new megapixel ones would be fine - provided the light was good.

[MilnerR]

Not in a court of law they wouldn't. Buy a disposable camera and chuck it in the glove box!

[parrot of doom]

Why? Its a digital camera, are digital stills cameras (not phone cameras) not allowed as evidence?

[oldred]

Nope! digital pictures not admissable in court, as has been said already get a disposable for the glovebox.

You learn so much on here don't you!

[edc]

Is the actual camera, negative and receipt for printing submitted as evidence too?

If it's the photo that's submitted a evidence what is the proedure to verify it's origin?

[kevinday]

oldred said:

Nope! digital pictures not admissable in court, as has been said already get a disposable for the glovebox. You learn so much on here don't you!

I think you may be wrong on this, after all, the new speeding cameras are digital.........

[gone]

Most Scenes of Crime photos are taken by ordinary roll film type cameras. They are acceptable in court as they are not so easy to alter as digital stills.

Digital stills are better than nothing but may be thrown out of the case if the person defending objects to the use of them! It is far better to have them taken on a film system which produces a negative as well as a print.

>> Edited by gone on Wednesday 10th November 09:30

[KITT]

So it's ok for the SCP to use digital photos but not for us?

I would have a disposable camera one in the car, but whoever brought the car before me decided a passenger airbag was more important than a glovebox!

[gshughes]

I think digital pics are admissable, but have to go through quite stringent auditing proceedures first.

[bga]

My Dad uses digital pictures and video on expert witness cases involving boats.
IIRC he has never had any trouble with it.

[g_attrill]

I don't think they are "inadmissable" as such, I'm sure many people have successfully used digital photos in court cases. But as mentioned it would be easier for the other side to object that they may have been altered.

Remember that Mini-DV video is entirely digital and could be altered just as easily, and the police use bog-standard consumer Mini-DV devices all the time for in-car and surveilance recording.

Gareth

[Mr Whippy]

Jeez, you could film photo a printout of the digital picture.
You can probably even re-expose a film with an edited digital image infront of a projector!

You can edit anything given time, so you could claim any evidence is faked.

However, phone camera's are low-res and crap even in good daylight. These images could be edited in MS paint and still look real. A proper digital camera image however, is superior in many ways to a 35mm disposable camera's image, so I don't know how you could say it is any more unreliable than anything else!

Dave

[Pigeon]

It is possible for a digital camera to embed a cryptographic "watermark" in the picture such that any tampering can be detected. I would hope that any digital pics used as evidence have to be protected in this way, though I don't know if this is the case.