Flagrant AI provides computer-vision monitoring for the built environment, including automated detection of fly-tipping. This policy explains how we handle personal data across everything we do: our website, our business relationships, and our camera monitoring services.
Flagrant AI is the trading name of Louie Madden. Our registration with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is in progress; this policy will be updated with the registration number once issued.
Contact for anything in this policy: maddenlouie99@gmail.com.
1. Website visitors
What we collect: information you send us through the contact form (name, email, organisation, message), and limited technical data needed to run the site (such as IP address in server logs).
Why and on what basis: to respond to your enquiry and manage our business relationship with you (legitimate interests). We do not use analytics or marketing cookies, and we do not sell data to anyone.
How long: enquiry correspondence is kept while we deal with your enquiry and for up to 12 months afterwards, then deleted.
2. Clients and business contacts
What we collect: names, work contact details, correspondence, and contractual/billing information for the organisations we work with.
Why and on what basis: to deliver our services and administer contracts (performance of a contract; legitimate interests; legal obligations for accounting records).
How long: for the duration of the relationship, plus the periods required by law (typically 6 years for contractual and accounting records).
3. Camera monitoring and detection services
This is the core of what we do, so we set it out fully.
What our systems capture
Our cameras record video of monitored locations, such as known fly-tipping sites. Footage may include identifiable individuals, vehicles, and vehicle registration plates. Cameras are sited to cover the monitored location and minimise capture of surrounding areas, and signage is displayed at monitored sites stating that CCTV is in operation and who operates it.
What our software does with it
Our software analyses footage to detect the behavioural pattern of fly-tipping (a vehicle stopping, waste being deposited, and waste remaining after the vehicle leaves). When that pattern is detected, the system compiles an evidence pack: relevant video frames, photographs of the vehicle and its registration plate, and a timestamped log of events.
A human always reviews the output. Detections are automated, but no enforcement decision is taken by software alone: every evidence pack is reviewed by a person before it is shared, and any enforcement action (such as a fixed penalty notice) is decided by the relevant authority, not by us.
Who is responsible for the data
- Where we operate cameras on behalf of a client (for example, a local authority), the client is the data controller and we process footage as their processor, under a written agreement and their instructions.
- Where we operate our own cameras (for example, during a pilot with a landowner's or authority's permission), we are the data controller, and process footage on the lawful basis of legitimate interests: the prevention and detection of environmental crime, and provision of evidence to bodies with enforcement powers. Fly-tipping is a criminal offence, and we assess that this monitoring is a proportionate response to it at known hotspot locations.
Who we share footage with
Evidence packs relating to suspected offences are shared only with the relevant enforcement bodies: the local authority for the area, and where appropriate the police or the Environment Agency. We do not publish footage, share it for marketing, or sell it. Anonymous, non-identifying imagery (with plates and faces obscured) may be used to demonstrate our technology, and only where no enforcement matter could be prejudiced.
How long we keep footage
- Footage in which no incident is detected is deleted automatically within 31 days of capture.
- Incident evidence packs are retained until the matter is concluded by the relevant authority (including any appeal), then deleted, unless the authority has taken its own copy as evidence owner.
- Logs of vehicle stops that did not involve an offence are retained for up to 31 days to allow retrospective investigation if dumped waste is later discovered, then deleted.
Where processing happens
Footage is processed on equipment under our control in the United Kingdom. Individual video frames are also processed by Roboflow, Inc., a US-based provider, for object detection, under the UK GDPR's international data transfer safeguards (standard contractual clauses with the UK addendum). We are working to bring all processing onshore. Review and storage of evidence packs takes place on secured systems in the UK.
4. Security
Footage and evidence are stored on encrypted, access-controlled systems. Access is limited to trained personnel who need it to operate the service. Cameras transmit footage over authenticated, private connections. We record an audit log of every action taken on an evidence pack.
5. Your rights
You have rights over your personal data, including access, correction, erasure, restriction, and objection. You can exercise them by contacting maddenlouie99@gmail.com. We respond within one month.
Note: where footage forms part of a suspected criminal matter, some rights are limited by law (UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 exemptions for the prevention and detection of crime). Where an exemption applies we will tell you, unless doing so would itself prejudice an investigation.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk / 0303 123 1113.
6. Changes to this policy
We will post any changes on this page and update the date at the top. Significant changes affecting monitored sites will also be reflected in on-site signage where practical.