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Eight terms that carry the rest of this topic. Read these first and the others fall into place.
Asynchronous capture
Asynchronous capture
Asynchronous capture is a model for collecting visual information in which the person recording and the person reviewing are never required to be present at the same moment. A request is sent, the participant completes it whenever it suits them, and the submission is reviewed later.
Asynchronous communication
Asynchronous communication
Asynchronous communication is any exchange in which the sender and the receiver are not required to be present at the same moment: a message is composed, sent and stored, then read and answered whenever the other party gets to it. The gap between the two is treated as normal, not as a delay.
Audit trail
Audit trail
An audit trail is the chronological, system-generated record of who did what to a record, when they did it, and what the data looked like before and after, kept so the history of a decision can be reconstructed later by someone who was not there at the time.
Before and after photos
Before and after photos
Before and after photos are a matched pair of images of the same subject from the same position, one taken before work or an event and one after, used as evidence of the work done, the damage caused or the change in condition. The pair only works as evidence when the angle, time and place of each can be shown.
Blur detection
Blur detection
Blur detection is the automated measurement of how sharp an image is, producing a numeric score that is compared against a threshold to decide whether a photo is usable or should be retaken. It measures edge sharpness, not whether the picture is any good.
Capture flow
Capture flow
A capture flow is the configured sequence of steps a participant works through when submitting visual information to an organisation, specifying what to record, in what order, with which instruction shown at each step and which questions are attached along the way.
Case management
Case management
Case management is the practice of grouping everything that belongs to one piece of work, the request, the evidence, the decisions and the correspondence, into a single record with an owner, a status and a history. It is what turns an incoming message into work somebody is accountable for.
Chain of custody (digital)
Chain of custody (digital)
A digital chain of custody is the documented, unbroken record of how a piece of digital evidence was captured, received, fingerprinted, sealed and handled from that moment on, supporting the traceability of the material and its handling rather than the truth of the events the material shows.
Conditional logic
Conditional logic
Conditional logic is the branching inside a form or workflow that changes what happens next based on what has already been answered, so each person is shown only the steps that apply to their situation. It is also called branching logic, skip logic or conditional branching.
Consent
Consent
Consent is one of the six lawful bases in Article 6 GDPR, defined in Article 4(11) as a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of a person's wishes, made by a statement or a clear affirmative action. It can be withdrawn at any time, as easily as it was given.
Control points
Control points
Control points are the technical signals and recorded session events that a capture system logs around a digital submission, such as device history, IP reuse, virtual camera detection and recording location. They tell a reviewer which cases deserve a closer look. They never decide whether a claim is genuine.
Cryptographic signature (digital signature)
Cryptographic signature (digital signature)
A cryptographic signature is a value computed from a document and a private key that anyone holding the matching public key can check, establishing that the holder of that key signed exactly this content and that the content has not changed since it was signed.
Dashcam evidence
Dashcam evidence
Dashcam evidence is video recorded by a vehicle-mounted camera and used to show what happened in a collision, a near miss or a disputed incident. Its value in a UK motor claim depends on whether the footage shows the event clearly, the time and location can be trusted, the file is unedited, and its handling can be traced.
Data minimisation
Data minimisation
Data minimisation is the GDPR principle that personal data must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purpose it is processed for. In practice it is a design constraint: you decide what not to collect before the collection happens, not afterwards.
Data retention
Data retention
Data retention is how an organisation decides, documents and enforces the length of time each category of personal data is kept before it is deleted or anonymised. Under the GDPR the period is not a free choice: it has to be justified against the purpose the data was collected for.
Deepfake
Deepfake
A deepfake is synthetic media generated by artificial intelligence: an image, video, audio clip or document depicting something that never happened. In claims, it means evidence with no real-world original behind it, unlike a shallowfake, which is a real file someone edited.
Device fingerprinting
Device fingerprinting
Device fingerprinting is the practice of combining observable properties of a device and browser, such as screen dimensions, installed fonts, time zone, language and rendering behaviour, into an identifier that recognises the same device again without storing anything on it. It recognises devices, not people.
Digital evidence
Digital evidence
Digital evidence is any information created, stored or transmitted in binary form that a claims team, investigator or court may rely on to establish a fact, from photographs and video to messages, machine logs and the metadata generated alongside them.
Digital fingerprint (SHA-256 hash)
Digital fingerprint (SHA-256 hash)
A digital fingerprint is a short value calculated from the exact contents of a file, almost always using the SHA-256 hash function, so that the same file always produces the same value and changing anything at all, even one pixel in one frame, produces a completely different value.
DSAR - Data subject access request
DSAR - Data subject access request
A data subject request is a person exercising one of their GDPR rights over their own personal data, most often the right of access under Article 15, which is why it is usually shortened to DSAR, or data subject access request. The clock starts the moment it arrives.
ELA - Error level analysis
ELA - Error level analysis
Error level analysis (ELA) is a technique that re-saves a JPEG at a known quality and maps the difference, on the theory that edited regions compress differently from the rest. It is suggestive at best. Forensic practitioners warn it flags genuine images and misses altered ones at similar rates.
Evidence integrity
Evidence integrity
Evidence integrity is the set of technical and procedural controls that let an organisation prove exactly what digital material it received, when the receiving system recorded it, whether that material is still unchanged, and what the team did with the case afterwards.
EXIF data
EXIF data
EXIF data is the block of technical information a camera or smartphone writes into an image file at the moment of capture, covering the device model, exposure settings, an embedded timestamp and, where location services are on, GPS coordinates.
GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation
GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the European law governing how organisations process personal data about people in the EU. It sets processing principles, requires a lawful basis, gives individuals enforceable rights, and carries fines up to 4% of worldwide turnover.
Geotagging
Geotagging
Geotagging is the practice of attaching geographic coordinates to a file such as a photograph, video or social post, normally recorded automatically by a smartphone at the moment of capture and stored in the file's location metadata fields.
GPS-stamped photo
GPS-stamped photo
A GPS-stamped photo is a photograph that carries the location where it was taken, either printed visibly on the image as coordinates and an address, or stored invisibly in the file's metadata. It is used as proof that a person or asset was at a given place at a given time.
Guided capture
Guided capture
Guided capture is a method of collecting photos, video and answers in which the requesting organisation, rather than the person holding the phone, decides what gets recorded, in what order, and with what instruction at each step. The participant follows prompts instead of guessing.
Guided workflow
Guided workflow
A guided workflow is a defined sequence of steps that leads a person through a task one instruction at a time, in an order the organisation set in advance, rather than leaving them to work out what to do next on their own. The knowledge sits in the sequence, not in the person following it.
Hash function (cryptographic hash)
Hash function (cryptographic hash)
A hash function is a calculation that turns an input of any size into a fixed-length value, and a cryptographic hash function does so in a way that makes it computationally infeasible to work backwards to the input or to find two different inputs sharing one output.
image authentication
image authentication
Image authentication is the process of establishing that a photo or video is what it claims to be: recorded on a particular device at a particular time and place, and unchanged since. In evidence capture it rests on session recording, a server receipt time, a digital seal and a verifiable record of the session.
Image forensics
Image forensics
Image forensics is the examination of a digital photo or video for evidence of how it was produced and whether it was altered, using metadata, compression history, noise patterns and physical consistency. It produces indications rather than verdicts, and a clean result is not proof that a file is genuine.
Image quality validation
Image quality validation
Image quality validation is the automated check that a submitted photo is technically fit for its purpose, testing properties such as focus, exposure, resolution and framing before the image is accepted. It judges the picture, never the subject.
Inspection audit trail
Inspection audit trail
An inspection audit trail is the chronological record attached to an inspection showing who captured each piece of evidence, when and where it was captured, who reviewed or changed anything afterwards, and whether the files are still the ones originally received. It lets a third party reconstruct the inspection months later without trusting anyone's memory.
Inspection evidence
Inspection evidence
Inspection evidence is the material captured during an inspection that supports a finding: photographs, video, measurements, instrument readings, spoken commentary and the recorded answers to the questions asked on site. It is what turns a stated conclusion into a checkable one.
IP intelligence
IP intelligence
IP intelligence is the practice of enriching an IP address with contextual data, such as approximate location, network type, VPN or hosting status and reputation history, to help judge where a digital submission came from. It describes a network path, not a person.
Lawful basis
Lawful basis
A lawful basis is the specific ground under Article 6(1) GDPR that makes an act of processing personal data legal, and every processing purpose needs one identified before the processing starts. There are six of them. They rank equally, and your choice has to be documented and disclosed.
Metadata
Metadata
Metadata is data about data: the descriptive, technical and administrative information attached to a file rather than contained in what the file shows, such as when a photograph was taken, on what device and with what settings. It is the first thing an investigator checks and the last thing to rely on alone.
metadata verification
metadata verification
Metadata verification is the checking of the data attached to a submitted photo or video, chiefly capture time, location, device and software, against records the submitter does not control, to judge how far the file can be relied on. File metadata on its own can be edited or stripped, so it is a starting point, not proof.
Minimum evidence set
Minimum evidence set
A minimum evidence set is the smallest defined group of images, measurements and readings that must be present before an inspection record counts as complete. It is chosen so the record can still answer the questions asked of it months later, by someone who was never there.
Mobile web app
Mobile web app
A mobile web app is an application that runs inside a phone's browser and is reached through a URL rather than installed from an app store, using the same web technologies as a website but built around the interaction patterns and screen size of a phone.
Non-repudiation
Non-repudiation
Non-repudiation is the property a system aims for when it tries to make it hard for a party to credibly deny having sent, approved or submitted something. It is a design goal supported by signatures and logging, and in law it is an argument you can make, not a guarantee you can rely on.
Notification
Notification
A notification is a message a system sends to tell a person or another system that an event has occurred, or that something now needs attention, delivered outside whatever screen the recipient is currently looking at. Email, SMS, push and webhooks all count.
Object detection
Object detection
Object detection is the automated location and labelling of things inside an image, returning a bounding box, a class label, and a confidence score for each item it believes it has found. It answers where and what, not whether the finding is correct.
OCR - Optical character recognition
OCR - Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition (OCR) is the automated reading of text out of an image or a scanned document, turning pixels that look like characters into characters a computer can store and search. It is highly accurate on clean printed text and much weaker everywhere else.
Personal data
Personal data
Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person, which under Article 4(1) GDPR covers far more than a name or an address: a photograph, a video clip, a voice recording and an online identifier all qualify. Context decides the edge cases.
Photo documentation software
Photo documentation software
Photo documentation software is a category of tools that captures photos and short video on site, stamps each file with time, location and device data, organises the files by job, project or case, and turns them into a report someone who was not there can act on.
photo manipulation detection
photo manipulation detection
Photo manipulation detection is the checking of a submitted photo or video for signs that it was edited, generated, re-photographed from a screen, or reused from elsewhere, before a claims handler or inspector relies on it. It produces signals for a human to weigh, not a verdict.
Photo request link
Photo request link
A photo request link is a web link sent to a customer, tenant, driver or contractor by SMS, email, WhatsApp or QR code that opens a guided set of photo steps in the phone's browser, so the organisation receives the specific images it needs, in order, with time and location attached, instead of an unstructured batch of attachments.
Photo requirement
Photo requirement
A photo requirement is the specified set of images that must be present, shot by shot, before an inspection, claim or condition report is accepted as complete. It names each image by subject and angle, so the same evidence arrives every time, whoever is holding the phone.
proof of condition
proof of condition
Proof of condition is the evidence record of an asset's physical state at a defined moment: a vehicle at hire pick-up, a flat at move-in, a machine at delivery. It exists so that any change found later can be dated and attributed rather than argued about.
Proof of work
Proof of work
In field service, proof of work is documented visual evidence that a job was actually completed to standard, captured at the point of completion. It replaces a status field that says Completed with something a supervisor, customer or auditor can look at and check.
Provenance
Provenance
Provenance is the documented origin and handling history of a piece of evidence: where it came from, who produced it, how it reached you, and what happened to it along the way. It answers questions about the file's journey rather than about the scene it depicts.
Public key verification
Public key verification
Public key verification is the process of checking a digital signature against the signer's published public key, so anyone holding the signed data, the signature and that key can confirm the data has not changed since it was signed and that it was signed by the matching private key. No vendor login required.
PWA - Progressive web app
PWA - Progressive web app
A progressive web app, or PWA, is a mobile web app that adds an installable identity: a manifest file and a service worker let it be added to the home screen, launch without browser chrome, cache its own files for offline use, and on supported platforms receive push notifications.
Retake request
Retake request
A retake request is a targeted instruction sent back to a participant asking them to re-record or re-photograph one specific part of a submission, correcting a gap without discarding the material already collected or restarting the whole process.
Reverse image search
Reverse image search
Reverse image search is a search technique that uses a picture as the query instead of text, returning visually matching copies of that picture published elsewhere online. In claims work it is the fastest way to catch a recycled photo, and it fails quietly on edited or re-encoded files.
Screen recapture
Screen recapture
Screen recapture is the act of pointing a camera at a display and recording what is shown on it, so an existing image or video can be submitted as though it were captured live. It needs no software, no drivers and no technical skill, which is exactly what makes it durable.
Sealed submission
Sealed submission
A sealed submission is a package of evidence, the files, the answers and the session record, bound together and cryptographically signed at the moment the receiving system takes delivery, so anyone can verify later that the package is complete and unaltered since receipt.
Self certification
Self certification
Self certification is an arrangement in which the party that carried out the work attests that the work meets the required standard, instead of an independent inspector checking it. It is fast, cheap and very widespread, and it puts the check in the hands of the party with the most to gain from a pass.
Shallowfake
Shallowfake
A shallowfake is a real photo, video or document that has been altered with ordinary editing tools such as a phone photo app, Photoshop or a free web editor. No AI is involved: the original file is genuine, and something in it has been added, removed or swapped.
Shared inbox
Shared inbox
A shared inbox is a team workspace where incoming work arrives in one queue and each item can be assigned an owner, given a status and tracked to completion, rather than sitting in an individual's personal mailbox. The queue, not the person, holds the work.
Status tracking
Status tracking
Status tracking is the practice of recording which stage each item of work has reached in a defined sequence, and displaying it so the state of the queue, and of any single case within it, can be read directly rather than reconstructed by asking people.
Subdomain
Subdomain
A subdomain is a domain name that sits one level below a parent domain, created by adding a label to the left of it, so support.example.com is a subdomain of example.com. To DNS it is simply a longer name, resolved the same way as any other.
Synthetic media
Synthetic media
Synthetic media is content generated or substantially altered by artificial intelligence rather than recorded from the real world: images, video, audio and documents with no genuine original behind them. In claims, it is the umbrella term that deepfakes and AI-generated damage photos sit inside.
Tamper evident meaning: vs tamper proof and resistant
Tamper evident meaning: vs tamper proof and resistant
Tamper evident describes a control that makes alteration of a record or a container detectable after the fact rather than impossible, so anyone who checks can tell whether something changed, even though nothing physically stopped the change from being made.
Timestamp
Timestamp
A timestamp is a recorded value stating when a particular system observed a particular event, and its evidential weight depends entirely on which clock set it: a device clock the participant controls, a server clock the receiving organisation controls, or an independent third-party clock.
Timestamped photo
Timestamped photo
A timestamped photo is a photograph that carries a record of when it was taken, either printed on the image, stored in its metadata, or logged by the system that received it. As evidence, its value depends on which clock set the time and whether the file has changed since.
Upload versus capture
Upload versus capture
Upload versus capture is the distinction between two ways visual material reaches an organisation: an upload lets the sender choose an existing file from their device, while a live capture records inside the requested session itself and closes most of the window between recording and submission.
Virtual camera
Virtual camera
A virtual camera is a software device that registers with an operating system as though it were a physical camera, so any app asking for the camera feed receives whatever that software sends it. Ordinary in streaming and video calls. A recognised risk in remote evidence capture.
White label
White label
White label is an arrangement in which one company's product is delivered under another company's brand, so the end user sees the buyer's name, logo, colours and domain rather than the vendor's. In software it usually means configurable branding rather than a separate build.
Workflow automation
Workflow automation
Workflow automation is the use of stored rules to carry out steps in a process without a person doing them: when a defined trigger fires and the stated conditions hold, the system performs the action itself. It is also called business process automation.