Taxi Driver Online

The City of Edinburgh Council recently approved the fitting of internal Safety Cameras (CCTV) in taxis and private hire vehicles.

The have allowed full video coverage but only part time audio. The audio can only be activated in a "panic" type situation for a period of time.
The licence holder has to be the Data Controller.
Having a forward facing camera enables the possibility of a 5%-10% premium discount on the vehicle insuranse which would go towards financing the cost.

I am looking to have fitted.
1 forward facing camera
1 camera for the drivers area.
1 or 2 cameras to cover the passenger area which would catch the back seat and the tip up seat passengers.

There would also be a Panic Button facility that the driver could press should he feel a situation developing.

I have looked at the Novus cameras but they do not allow a panic button facility. The audio is either on or it is off.
I had a unit fitted through John Paton in Edinburgh. It was the Smart Witness KP1 unit but this only has one camera and whilst it has a 120 degree lenses the reflection from the partition window means you can only make out the silhouette of the passengers. This system doesn't seem to be able to record audio through a panic button situation either.

Could any taxi drivers in other Local Authority regions, that have had Safety Cameras for some time and perhaps have already gone through these trials point me in the right direction. Basically I am looking for an encrypted system that records the video on a continuous loop with a panic button facility for the audio. I want a forward facing camera, the drivers area to be covered by one camera and the full passenger area to be covered by either one or two cameras.

Look these people up online. They have been supplying kit to the taxi industry word-wide for many years. The UK contact is: -

VerifEye Technologies Ltd.
41 Moorlands, Wing, Leighton Buzzard,
Bedfordshire LU7 0TL
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 781 054 1207
sales@verifeye.com

Our council has mandatory CCTV, and we have a number of different systems, from £300-£800 depending on what you want.

But whatever you buy it will be the best investment you will ever make.

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IDFIMH

Unless you do something wrong.. and the police used it to prosecute you.....

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Do you have a system that enables a "panic" button facility for audio.
This would allow the driver to record an incident both through video and audio for a set period of time.
Edinburgh, through the guidelines set by the ICO, do not allow full time audio recording however they do allow it for a period of time when there is a potential dispute.
The systems on offer seem to only offer the audio either continually recording or turned off full time.

I think it's basically a switch that anyone can add.

I will ask my CCTV guru.

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IDFIMH