Can a business sell its security camera footage to AI companies?

Rarely. As of October 2026, FileYield, a listing site, names surveillance footage and LH2 AI Labs lists “floor video”; no other provider names security footage. Common systems delete footage within 30 to 60 days by default, and faces bring biometric laws into play.

Why do most buyers of company records pass on camera footage?

Because what they describe buying is a record of decisions, and a fixed camera rarely captures one. Polyshares says “The value is not in volume. It is in reasoning that was captured while the work happened.” A camera over a loading dock shows who moved what, not why; the emails and job records that explain it live elsewhere.

Providers that do want video ask for things security footage lacks, as of October 2026:

• The worker’s point of view. License My Data’s most-wanted video list starts with first-person, head-mounted footage of everyday tasks, which it calls “the largest shortage in the market”. A ceiling camera does not record from that position.
• Production quality. Troveo’s content-owner program asks for “Well-framed, clear subjects”, professional or well-shot footage and clear audio.
• Documented rights. License My Data calls “Clean, documented rights” the strongest single differentiator in an archive, and Defined.ai’s consent requirements are on the video and audio list. Customers, delivery drivers and passers-by on camera signed no release.

Faces used without consent have cost a company its models. In May 2021 the FTC finalized an order against the photo-app developer Everalbum, which it said had switched on face recognition automatically for most users while telling them they would have to opt in. The order required Everalbum to delete deactivated users’ photos and videos and “the models and algorithms it developed by using the photos and videos uploaded by its users”.

Which providers name footage at all?

Two, as of October 2026. FileYield names surveillance footage outright, and LH2 AI Labs lists floor video among the recorded work it takes.

Provider	What it is	What its own pages name
FileYield	Listing site; buys nothing itself	“surveillance footage, dashcam recordings, drone video” among its video listing categories; a buyer who finds a listing deals with you directly
LH2 AI Labs	Licenses directly	Floor video under “Recorded work”, alongside calls and meetings, de-identified inside the source perimeter

License My Data, Troveo (through its content-owner program) and Defined.ai take video of other kinds, as described above, and none names security footage. License My Data’s list also asks for “specialist science, engineering and manufacturing” footage, from a video track aimed at producers, filmmakers and broadcasters. Polyshares groups photos and video as “Site and product photos, video libraries and social accounts”, with no camera system among its guides. No other provider Data Licensing Report tracks names security cameras, surveillance footage or a camera system (checked October 2026).

How much footage do we have, and how far back does it go?

Usually weeks, not years. The systems below delete footage on a rolling basis unless someone saves a clip or pays for longer storage.

System	What it keeps by default	Source
Verkada	Onboard storage of “30 days of continuously recorded video” on standard models, with 60, 90, 120 and 365-day options; the camera deletes the oldest footage to make room, while archived clips stay “for the lifetime of your Verkada account”	Verkada help center
Ring	“30 days for 4K devices and 60 days for 1080p and 2K devices” in the US, adjustable up to 180 days with a subscription	Ring support
Google Nest	Up to 3 hours of event history without a subscription on newer cameras; “Up to 30 days of event video history” on Nest Aware, and 60 days of events plus 10 days of 24/7 video on Nest Aware Plus	Google Home help

What lasts, then, is mostly the clips someone chose to save, such as a theft or a fall in the aisle. Those are the recordings most likely to show an identifiable person in a crime or an injury, and some are held for a claim or lawsuit. Corpus asks sellers to keep out anything under legal hold, and leaving out records covers writing such exclusions into a scope.

What do faces in the footage mean under biometric laws?

The laws below cover measurements of faces, which software can take from ordinary footage. Whether footage nobody has scanned falls under them is a question for your lawyer; what a buyer’s software would do with the faces is a question to put to the buyer.

• Illinois. BIPA counts a “scan of hand or face geometry” as a biometric identifier while excluding photographs. It requires a written release before collection and says no private entity holding such data may “sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from” it. People can sue for $1,000 per negligent violation and $5,000 per intentional or reckless one. Verkada makes Face Detection, Gender Appearance and Person of Interest Notifications unavailable in Illinois and Portland, Oregon.
• Texas. The biometric law covers a “record of hand or face geometry”, requires notice and consent before capture for a commercial purpose, limits sale to a few listed cases, and carries a civil penalty of up to $25,000 per violation. Texas’s first lawsuit under it ended in a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta over Texans’ facial geometry, which the state said Meta processed without the required consent (Hunton, August 1, 2024). The newer Texas privacy act excludes photographs and video recordings from its own definition of biometric data.
• New York City. Shops, restaurants and venues that collect customers’ biometric identifier information must post a sign at customer entrances, and the code makes it unlawful to “sell, lease, trade, share in exchange for anything of value or otherwise profit from the transaction of biometric identifier information”.

Did our employees get the notice the law requires?

That depends on the state, and the notice covers monitoring, not a sale. Connecticut’s law defines electronic monitoring to include a “camera, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photo-optical systems”, requires prior written notice to affected employees and a posted notice, and excludes collection “for security purposes in common areas of the employer’s premises which are held out for use by the public”. New York’s notice law names phone, email and internet use, not cameras.

Some places may not be recorded at all. Without a court order, California bars employers from recording employees in restrooms, locker rooms or changing rooms, and says “No recording made in violation of this section may be used by an employer for any purpose”; New York’s Labor Law §203-c bars video recording in the same rooms. What your handbook told staff about cameras is one of the documents the legal page asks you to gather.

Do signs at the door or microphones on the cameras change anything?

A sign is notice. BIPA asks for a “written release executed by the subject”, Texas’s biometric law for notice and consent before capture, and New York City’s sign rule sits beside its ban on profiting from biometric information. Whether a sign you posted counts for anything in a license is a question for your lawyer.

Sound brings in a second set of laws. Federal wiretap law protects an “oral communication” “uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation”, and its one-party exception covers a person who “is a party to the communication” or has a party’s consent. A microphone over a counter records conversations the business takes no part in. Some state laws reach further. California’s covers recording a confidential communication without everyone’s consent “whether the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another” or by phone, and the call recordings page lists the other all-party states. If your footage has audio, a scope of video only, with the sound tracks removed, takes sound out of the license.

What could security footage be worth?

Security footage has no published price from any provider, as of October 2026. The per-minute figures that have been reported concern creators’ footage and are on the video and audio list. If cameras are among your records, tick them on the application with the others and let the providers that answer say whether they take them; Does my company’s data qualify? covers the records providers name most often.