Record the incident. Keep the evidence.
Record the incident. Keep the evidence.
One press records video and sound in your shop. Witnal sends each segment off the phone while the browser stays open and connected, then seals the evidence with a log of its handling. You review the drafted statement before handing it to the police.
The British Retail Consortium counts more than 2,000 incidents of violence or abuse against UK retail staff a day. In 2026 the Crime and Policing Act created a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker.
The law moved. The footage still has to prove what it is.
One press starts video and sound together. While the browser stays open and connected, segments upload as recording continues. Received segments remain on the server if the phone is later lost or damaged.
Each segment gets its SHA-256 hash on the device, the moment it is written. On arrival the server recomputes every hash. An independent timestamp authority signs the evidence hash under RFC 3161. The original is written once and never rewritten; every action on it is one more line in a log that only grows.
Witnal drafts the witness statement from the sealed segments and the account on the record. You approve it or you do not; Witnal never submits on your behalf. It suggests a force from your postcode for you to check. The crime reference that comes back is kept against the incident, with a date on every step.
Where the shop belongs to a Business Crime Reduction Partnership or the National Business Crime Solution, Witnal prepares the share into the scheme, with the lawful basis recorded against it. No membership, no share.
Shops in the UK whose staff face abuse or violence at the counter. Shares go only into a Business Crime Reduction Partnership or the National Business Crime Solution where the shop is already a member.
None of the record proves the camera saw the truth; no software can. What it proves is narrower: the file is the one sealed at capture and any change since would break its hash.
Witnal is running with a demonstration shop. It has no customers yet. Capture currently runs in the browser and needs the page to stay open. A native app is planned for use on the shop floor; it is not available to download yet.
There is no face matching and no watchlist. Witnal keeps no database of people, so there is nothing to match a face against. Detection describes; it never says who anybody is.
Witnal recommends the reporting channel and shows its reasoning. If the right channel is 999, Witnal says so and you dial. It never places a call itself.
There is no public feed and nothing here names a suspect. Sharing exists only into lawful schemes the shop already belongs to.
No. There is no face matching and no watchlist. Witnal keeps no database of people, so there is nothing to match a face against. A face in a recording is ordinary evidence for the police, exactly as it would be from the camera above your till.
Whether evidence is admitted is for a court; so is what it proves. Witnal’s work stops at what it can demonstrate: the file and its handling.
Your shop is the data controller for its recordings under UK GDPR. Evidence objects are private. Every sealed segment carries a retention date, written into the record itself. Every action on an incident lands in the append-only custody log.