Insights · Evidence

When a wrong timestamp gets surveillance footage excluded

March 2025 · 4 minute read

The most damaging thing about a wrong timestamp is not that it is wrong. It is that it makes the entire recording look unreliable.

Courts admit video once its authenticity and accuracy are established, the standard reflected in New York's Guide to Evidence on video recordings and in the authentication requirement of Federal Rule of Evidence 901. When the date and time on footage cannot be reconciled with other evidence, opposing counsel has a ready argument: if the clock is wrong, what else is?

From asset to liability

That doubt is corrosive. Footage that should have resolved a dispute instead becomes a sideshow about the camera's configuration. Sometimes the discrepancy goes only to weight; sometimes it is enough for a judge to set the video aside. Either way, the side that relied on it loses leverage.

It is an avoidable outcome. When the burned-in time is read from the original file's own metadata rather than a drifting on-screen clock, the timestamp stops being a vulnerability and becomes part of what makes the footage credible.