Photo shooting during surveillance of the Russian Investigator

Криони А.Е.
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Krioni A.E.
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Photo shooting during surveillance of the Russian Investigator

07 August 2019 | 1280 views

Photo (video) surveillance is exclusively of an open search nature and shall be performed during investigations under a private investigatory services agreement, and focused on search, detection and capture of secret significant information being related to Subject of a Private Investigation.

Subject of the Investigator’s surveillance includes legal entities and natural persons being related to financial and operating activities of the investigated legal entity. Thus, natural persons are the Secondary Subject in relation to the Primary Subject - commercial firms, enterprises and sole entrepreneurs.

To achieve goal of surveillance, the Investigator applies home photo and video equipment concealing its appliance in accordance with current situation.

Modern digital photo cameras, video cameras imbedded into mobile phones with high resolutions and technical parameters allow to collect high-quality evidence, if sure-handed.

All applied equipment can be defined as a group of technical means permitted for civil commerce, publicly used by special methods of their appliance upon written consent of Subject of the Investigation. It should be noted that this definition does not cover types of devices, fixtures and techniques used in obtaining non-public operative video recordings by law enforcement divisions authorized on such.

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There are three main requirements for equipment and technique appliance by the Investigator:

  1. Compliance with law,
  2. Practicality and proportionality of risk,
  3. Conspiracy maintenance

Legitimacy requirement means use of equipment in accordance with article 5 and paragraph 4 article 7 of the Law of the Russian Federation dated 11 March 1992 No. 2487-1 “On Private Investigation and Security Activity in the Russian Federation”.

During surveillance the Investigator should avoid conditions when risk of error increases numerously. Unreasonable, unrectified risk puts quality of all obtained evidence and conclusions of investigation in question. Therefore, such adverse effects should be considered in advance i.e. at the stage of planning in order to prevent them from happening.

Conspiracy requirement means private investigatory activity with the use of cover story, i.e. situations artificially created by the Investigator.

Depending on the concrete situation, surveillance can be out- and indoor, prepared or unprepared.

Investigator performs outdoor surveillance outside premises and facilities without consent of their owners or tenants. Investigator performs indoor surveillance inside empty, office and storage premises engaging persons being related to the business upon their written consent, that is possible only upon a Test Purchase (TP).

Technical means of photo and video fixation may be used for office premises without preliminary written consent of the owner, but either way such recording should be performed openly and the Investigator should notify the Subject by letter regarding collection of evidence on the day of the investigation. By such letter the Investigator informs about the fact of empty premises survey without special permit (license) referring to the fact that private investigation was performed in an urgent manner i.e. when disclosure of intentions of the Private Investigator could prevent him/her from accessing the place of evidence and documents collection.

The surveillance is called prepared if the Subject of future surveillance to be contacted, its address, schedule, work conditions and etc. are thoroughly analyzed. Circumstances when the Investigator is forced to perform surveillance within limited period or without preliminary preparation are called unprepared. 

Results of photo and video fixation are to be reflected in the written report where the Investigator indicates technical means used for open shooting.For instance - “During the test purchase I performed shooting with mobile phone camera: Name - iPhone 7, Model MN962ZD/A, Serial number DX3WF1M3HG7P, IMEI 352986099569174, ICCID 8970199151216310803 and photo camera Nikon COOLPIX AW130, firmware version COOLPIX AW130 V1.0”. The Investigator performed shooting with the purpose of self-defense based on article 12 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Each photo shall have reference number against main parameters of performed recording - venue and briefly surrounding circumstances.

Thus, the law of the Russian Federation “On Private Investigation and Security Activity in the Russian Federation” sufficiently determines main procedural requirements for the use of equipment, techniques of photo/video recording and rules of the Investigator’s written report.

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