CCTV viewing and disclosure log. A printable log of who looked at CCTV footage, why, and what was given to whom — the record that makes a surveillance system defensible rather than a liability.
This is the log, not the policy. Whether your system is lawful, what it may be used for and how long footage may be kept come from your own data protection impact assessment and the current ICO guidance — neither this sheet nor SecureOptix decides them. What the platform does is make the log something that gets kept, rather than a book by a monitor that nobody fills in.
What is on the sheet
- System, site and the operator or controller responsible for it
- A row per viewing: who viewed, when, what period and camera, and the purpose
- Whether the purpose was within the stated purpose of the system
- Export and disclosure: what was given, to whom, under what basis and in what format
- Police or other authority requests, and the reference and authority relied on
- Subject access requests received, and how they were handled, with a secure-handling note
Why this record matters
A CCTV system is a continuous collection of personal data, and what makes it defensible is not the signage — it is being able to show who looked at the footage, why, and what left the system. Most operators cannot show any of that, which is the finding behind the majority of complaints about workplace surveillance.
Recording the purpose of each viewing is what distinguishes legitimate use from browsing. A system installed to detect intrusion, being used to check what time a member of staff arrived, is being used for a purpose nobody was told about — and the log is where that becomes visible instead of invisible.
Disclosure is the half with the sharpest consequences. Footage handed to a client, an insurer or a member of the public is a disclosure of other people's personal data, and the basis for it needs to be recorded at the time. Requests from the police are routine and still need the request, the authority and the officer recorded.
No retention period appears on this log, and that is deliberate. How long footage may be kept depends on the purpose it was collected for, and a period printed on a free form is the period an operator will adopt without ever asking what theirs should be.
Use it with
- Security incident reportA printable incident report — what happened, in sequence, in the officer's own words, with the detail that is still useful when somebody reads it two years later.
- Daily occurrence bookA printable daily occurrence book sheet — a contemporaneous, timed record of everything that happened on a shift, written to survive being read out in a courtroom.
- Assignment instructions templateA printable assignment instructions pro-forma — the site, the post, what the officer is there to do, what they are not, and what happens when something goes wrong.
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© 2026 SecureOptix. Free to print, copy and use in your business. Not for resale. Please keep this notice.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. General guidance, not legal advice. Checked October 2026.