Admissibility of Private Surveillance Evidence in Czech Courts

One of the most common questions we receive from law firms, in-house counsel and insurance SIU teams is the same one in different words: "Will a Czech court actually accept what your investigators document?" The short answer is yes — Czech civil and criminal courts routinely admit photographs, video, observation reports and OSINT findings produced by licensed private investigators, provided the evidence is collected lawfully, proportionally and with a defensible chain of custody. The longer answer, which is the one that decides cases, is below.

The legal framework: three layers stacked on top of each other

Private investigative evidence in the Czech Republic sits at the intersection of three regimes:

• Civil procedure — § 125 of Act No. 99/1963 Coll. (the Code of Civil Procedure) follows the principle of volné hodnocení důkazů (free evaluation of evidence). Any means capable of contributing to the clarification of the matter may serve as evidence, including photographs, audio and video recordings.
• Criminal procedure — Act No. 141/1961 Coll. (the Criminal Procedure Code) is stricter. Recordings produced by private parties are admissible if they were obtained without coercion or deception and do not violate the absolute rights of the recorded person. The Constitutional Court has repeatedly confirmed (e.g. II. ÚS 143/06, I. ÚS 191/05) that a private recording is admissible where the public interest in the truth outweighs the recorded person's privacy interest.
• Data protection — the GDPR and Act No. 110/2019 Coll. govern the processing of personal data captured during the investigation. Lawful processing typically rests on Article 6(1)(f) — legitimate interest of the controller (the client or the investigator) — supported by a documented balancing test.

The "public space" rule and its limits

Czech courts apply a layered test that practitioners can sum up in three questions:

1. Was the recording made in a place where the subject had a reasonable expectation of privacy?
2. Was the intrusion proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued (claim verification, asset protection, protection of children, prevention of fraud)?
3. Was the evidence collected without breaching any absolute right — no entry into the home, no interception of telephone communications, no use of false identity to obtain protected documents?

Surveillance carried out from a public road, a public sidewalk or another publicly accessible space, documenting conduct that is itself visible to any passer-by, generally passes all three tests. Surveillance that requires entering enclosed private property, listening through walls or activating recording devices inside a dwelling generally does not.

Insurance fraud: the most settled category

Insurance fraud cases produce the clearest body of case law because insurers routinely litigate them. The Supreme Court has confirmed that surveillance footage demonstrating that a claimant performs activities inconsistent with the alleged disability — lifting heavy objects, working a second job, performing sport — is admissible and frequently decisive. The investigator's role is to deliver:

• Continuous, time-stamped video that cannot plausibly be argued as a "lucky moment".
• An observation report (observační zpráva) signed by the investigators present, listing positions, times, weather, equipment used and the chain of custody of the original media.
• Geolocation evidence that the activity occurred where the claimant said they were unable to be.

Corporate and employment matters

For internal investigations — suspected theft of trade secrets, conflict of interest, moonlighting in breach of a non-compete — courts expect the employer to have laid the groundwork in advance: a published internal policy, a signed acknowledgement, and a proportionate scope. Surveillance of an employee's private life outside working hours is rarely proportionate; surveillance of their conduct during working hours, on company premises or while operating a company vehicle generally is.

What kills good evidence in court

In our experience, evidence is rejected not because the underlying facts are unconvincing but because of avoidable procedural failures:

• Edited or re-encoded video files with no preserved original. Courts ask for the camera-original.
• Observation reports written days after the fact, with no contemporaneous notes.
• Use of pretexting techniques (false identity, false employment) to obtain documents — a frequent reason for outright exclusion.
• No documented legitimate-interest assessment under GDPR, leaving the recording vulnerable to a separate data-protection complaint.

Practical takeaways for counsel

• Instruct investigators in writing, defining the legitimate aim, the scope and the geographic perimeter.
• Insist on a written GDPR balancing test before fieldwork starts.
• Request camera-original media, not exports, as part of the deliverable.
• Have the investigators available to testify — a signed observation report supported by oral testimony is far more persuasive than a report alone.

Used correctly, private surveillance evidence is one of the most powerful tools available in Czech litigation. Used carelessly, it risks the case and exposes everyone involved to a data-protection sanction. Exero Group's investigators work daily inside this framework alongside Czech counsel and EU clients.

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