How Long Is CCTV Footage Stored? Retention Guide

There is no single UAE CCTV retention period. ADMCC sets it by premises category, so confirm yours with ADMCC or your installer; for example, ADEK requires nurseries to keep recordings for at least 180 days. Many systems are set to 7 to 90 days, and storage must be sized for the period you need.

ADMCC sets the retention period according to the site category, so there is no single figure for every premises; for example, ADEK requires nurseries to keep recordings for at least 180 days. This is assessed per camera — partial coverage or recording gaps caused by storage failures can leave a system short of the period that applies to your premises, and ADMCC decides the consequence of any gap. Critical infrastructure, government buildings, and financial institutions may face longer requirements depending on their site classification. Because ADMCC periodically revises these stipulations, operators should confirm their specific classification requirement directly with the regulator. Our detailed breakdown is available in the CCTV retention periods and ADMCC requirements guide at CCTV Retention Periods: ADMCC & UAE Requirements — Guide.

Storage requirements depend on resolution, codec, and scene complexity. At 1080p with H.265 Main Profile encoding and moderate scene motion (2–3 Mbps sustained bitrate), one camera generates approximately 21–32 GB per day, or 630–960 GB over 30 days — roughly 1 TB with overhead. At 4K resolution with H.265 (6–10 Mbps), the figure rises to 1.9–3.2 TB per camera for 30 days. The formula is: bitrate (Mbps) multiplied by 86,400 (seconds per day) multiplied by retention days, divided by 8, then divided by 1,000,000 for TB. Always add 15–25% for RAID parity and filesystem allocation. Our per-camera bandwidth and storage calculation guide at CCTV Bandwidth & Storage Calculation Per Camera — Guide provides worked examples for common configurations.

Yes. NVRs operate on a FIFO (first-in, first-out) overwrite cycle — when the hard drives reach capacity, the system automatically deletes the oldest footage to make room for new recordings. This is the expected and correct behaviour, provided the overwrite point occurs after the mandated retention period has been satisfied. The risk arises when storage is undersized: if the overwrite point arrives at 22 days but the retention period set for your premises is longer, the installation falls short of it, and ADMCC decides the consequence of any gap, whether the shortfall was caused by undersized storage, additional cameras added without capacity planning, or bitrate increases from firmware updates. Proactive capacity planning at the design stage — using measured sustained bitrates, not marketing figures — prevents this entirely.

Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 (the UAE Personal Data Protection Law) classifies CCTV footage containing identifiable persons as personal data. Article 5 requires that personal data be retained only for the period necessary to fulfil the declared purpose of collection. This creates a countervailing obligation to the retention period ADMCC sets for your premises: retaining footage for 180 days when your stated security purpose requires only 30 days can be difficult to justify under the PDPL storage-limitation principle, even if you have ample storage. The considered solution is a documented retention policy that states the purpose, meets the ADMCC minimum, justifies any extension in writing, and enforces automatic deletion at the declared boundary. Our CCTV privacy and PDPL camera placement guide at CCTV Privacy & UAE PDPL: Camera Placement Compliance — Guide addresses the full data-protection framework.

A legal hold is the process of immediately exporting or write-protecting a specific segment of CCTV footage to prevent the NVR's automatic FIFO overwrite cycle from destroying it. You should initiate a legal hold the moment an incident occurs — a theft, an accident, a workplace injury, a liability claim, or any event that may require evidential review. The critical factor is time: once the overwrite cycle reaches the timestamp of the incident, that footage is permanently and irrecoverably deleted. Best practice is to export the relevant time window (including at least 30 minutes before and after the event) to an external USB drive or network share within hours of the incident — not days. We configure export workflows during commissioning and document the legal-hold procedure as part of the handover package, so your team knows exactly which steps to follow under pressure.

Contact Emirtech Technology at +971 55 651 7843, email [email protected], or submit a detailed brief through our quotation page. Provide your camera count, current or planned resolution (1080p, 4MP, 4K), required retention period, and site classification. We will return a meticulous storage capacity calculation with RAID recommendations, NVR or server specification, and retention schedule configuration — all engineered to satisfy your ADMCC obligations. As an ADMCC-approved integrator operating from M44, Mussafah Industrial Area, Abu Dhabi since 2018, we configure retention correctly from the outset so compliance is built in, not bolted on.