Anyone can fix a camera to a wall. The hard part is footage that stands up — sharp enough to identify, retained to policy, captured lawfully. Gemini AMPM has designed and maintained CCTV since 1997, engineering every system to the BS EN 62676 series and deploying it GDPR-compliant from day one.
Good CCTV starts on paper. The BS EN 62676 series — the European standard for video surveillance systems — makes you define an operational requirement before anything else: what each camera must actually do, whether that is monitor a yard, recognise a face at a gate or identify one at a till. From that we specify resolution, frame rate, lens and storage, then install Hikvision IP cameras that meet the number, not the brochure.
Then there is the law. CCTV captures personal data, so every Gemini deployment ships with the paperwork that keeps it lawful: signage, a retention schedule, restricted access to footage and support with your data protection impact assessment. When an insurer or a court asks for recordings, you hand them over with confidence instead of caveats. That discipline is why we hold NSI Gold approval — and why we keep it.
A recorded burglary is still a burglary. BS 8418 turns cameras into a response tool: detectors on site trigger the cameras, footage streams to a monitoring centre, and a trained operator looks at it within seconds. If it is a fox, nothing happens. If it is an intruder, the operator can issue an audio challenge, call keyholders and pass a visually verified incident to the police — a call they treat very differently from an unconfirmed bell.
We design detector-activated systems to BS 8418 end to end: detection layout, transmission paths, monitoring contracts and response plans. It is the same discipline we brought to Peterborough Court & Daniel House, where monitored Hikvision cameras work as one system with access control and intruder detection rather than a screen nobody watches.
Yes. CCTV footage of identifiable people is personal data, so UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply. In practice that means visible signage, a documented purpose, a retention schedule, controlled access to recordings and, for higher-risk deployments, a data protection impact assessment. We build all of this into the handover pack. It matters commercially too: footage captured unlawfully can be challenged at exactly the moment you need it most.
BS 8418 is the British Standard for detector-activated CCTV that is remotely monitored. Instead of recording quietly to a hard drive, the system sends triggered footage to a monitoring centre, where an operator verifies what is happening and escalates — audio warnings, keyholders, police. If your site is unmanned overnight, holds stock or plant, or has suffered repeat break-ins, it is usually the single biggest upgrade you can make to an existing camera system.
Usually, and often without a full rewire. Existing coax runs can frequently be reused with IP converters, and cameras replaced selectively where the operational requirement demands better images. We survey what you have, keep what performs and produce a migration plan with honest costs. Because takeover and remedial work is a core Gemini service, inheriting another installer’s system — documented badly or not at all — is routine rather than a problem.
A named engineer, not a call centre, comes back within 24 hours. Tell us the building and what you’re dealing with, and we’ll scope it properly.