What are the rules for keeping CCTV images?

Almost two weeks after the incidents at the Stade de France during the Champions League final, we learned this Thursday, June 9, 2022 that the video images captured by the Stade de France cameras had been automatically erased, for lack of request by the justice, as required by internal procedure. But what does the law say?

The general framework says that images that have filmed public roads or a place open to the public cannot be kept for more than a month. This is what the CNIL, the National Commission for Computing and Freedom, says. If justice so requires, these images can then be kept longer, the time of the investigation.

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Only town halls are authorized to film public roads. Companies, public establishments, cannot film the street, except if it concerns the surroundings of their buildings in places which may be threatened by possible terrorist attacks. But it is the companies that decide how long they keep the images, within the limit of one month, in conjunction with the prefecture.

In the regulations of the Stade de France, it is indeed formally written that its surveillance images can only be consulted for seven days. But according to the latest prefectural video protection authorization for the stadium, which we were able to consult, it It is noted that it is possible to keep these images for up to thirty days.
Moreover, as part of the Vigipirate plan, the authorities even advise keeping the images for at least 10 to 15 days for places where there is a risk of crime or an attack.

Why, then, did the French Football Federation not take the initiative to keep its images with a view to delivering them to the judicial authority? Stade de France officials remain unreachable for the moment.

Another question remains: why did justice wait twelve days to claim these images, and this, after the announcement of their removal by the stadium? Already, because justice thought it had a month to do so, as the texts say.

But also because, as curious as it may seem, the Bobigny prosecutor’s office has not yet registered any complaint concerning the violence committed on May 28. The French police arrived in Liverpool last Sunday, but the online pre-complaints system has only been open since Monday. For its part, the Liverpool club says it has collected thousands of testimonies from supporters attacked or robbed.

Be that as it may, if justice wants to succeed in exploiting these images, it will have to succeed in restoring some of the files destroyed on the hard disks. Perhaps the Judicial Police has the means, but nothing is less certain, in view of the quantity of data deleted.