Since 24 August 2023, and since 24 August 2024 in lower-capacity abattoirs, every Spanish abattoir has had to have CCTV cameras in the areas where live animals are handled and where they are killed. This is required by Royal Decree 695/2022 of 23 August (Real Decreto 695/2022), published in the BOE (Boletín Oficial del Estado, the official state gazette) on 24 August 2022, as a tool for monitoring animal welfare, both for the food business operator itself and for the competent authority. Three years on, most establishments have the cameras; what many do not have is the integration: the recordings are stored separately, with no link to the slaughter batch, the incident log or the management system, so that when the official veterinarian asks for the footage of a particular consignment, it has to be searched for by hand, by date and time. This guide explains what the royal decree requires, how to reconcile it with data protection for workers, and how to link CCTV with traceability and the meat ERP so that it serves as more than just an obligation.

What Royal Decree 695/2022 requires

In Spain, the royal decree implements Regulation (EC) 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing and requires abattoir operators to install a CCTV system with the following features:

Areas covered: the unloading of the animals, the facilities where there are live animals (holding pens and lairage), the passageways and races, and the areas for stunning and bleeding until the death of the animal. For poultry and pigs, the cameras must also be able to record scalding, to check that no animal showing signs of life enters that stage.
Image quality: sufficient to see how the animals are handled and to verify compliance with animal welfare legislation, covering the whole process in those areas.
Retention and access: the footage must be accessible for 30 days for inspections relating to animal welfare, and be made available to the competent authority (the official veterinary services of the autonomous community, or region) on request, either on the premises or by whatever means are agreed.
Use by the operator: the system is also a tool for the abattoir itself, for its own checks, its animal welfare procedures and the training of its staff.
Deadlines: in force one year after publication, on 24 August 2023, with two years for lower-capacity abattoirs, that is, until 24 August 2024.

Non-compliance is penalised under animal welfare and animal health legislation, and is reflected in the establishment’s official controls.

The other law that applies: workers’ data protection

The cameras record animals, but also the people who handle them, and that brings into play the GDPR and Article 89 of Organic Law 3/2018 (Ley Orgánica 3/2018, the LOPDGDD, Spain’s data protection act) on video surveillance in the workplace. The operator must:

Inform workers and their representatives, expressly, clearly and concisely, of the existence of the cameras and of their purpose, and put up information signs in the areas being recorded.
Limit the purpose to monitoring animal welfare and regulatory compliance; use the recordings for disciplinary purposes only on the terms the law allows, and always provided that the prior information has been given.
Not install cameras in rest areas, changing rooms or toilets.
Set a retention period that reconciles the royal decree’s 30 days with the data minimisation principle, and delete the footage afterwards unless it has to be kept because of an incident or proceedings.
Restrict access to authorised persons, with an access log, and document it in the record of processing activities and, where appropriate, in a data protection impact assessment.

A CCTV system that complies with the royal decree but not with the LOPDGDD simply swaps a problem with the autonomous community for one with the Spanish Data Protection Agency.

The real problem: recordings disconnected from the process

In most abattoirs, CCTV is an island: a recorder with its disks, a date and a time. When the authority asks for the footage of the consignment that came in on Tuesday morning, or when the quality team wants to review the stunning of the batch that has a nonconformity, someone has to match the slaughter record against the recorder’s timeline by hand. And once the 30 days have passed, the footage has been overwritten even if the batch has an open complaint.

The solution is not more cameras, but linking the recording to what the meat ERP already knows: which consignment was unloaded at what time, which pen it was held in, when it entered the line, which carcass batch came out and which incidents were recorded.

How to integrate CCTV with traceability and the ERP

Clock synchronisation: the recorder and the ERP must share a time reference (NTP), or no correlation will be reliable.
Timestamps for each event in the ERP: arrival of the transport, start and end of unloading, entry into the pen, entry onto the line, stunning, bleeding, with the identifier of the consignment and of the batch, taken from the workflow itself (scales, readers, line terminals) and not by hand.
A recordings index: a service that, given an ERP event, returns the corresponding cameras and video segments, and allows them to be opened from the consignment record or the batch record.
Smart retention: 30 days as the rule and, on top of that, automatic extended retention of the segments associated with consignments that have an incident, a nonconformity, a complaint or a request from the authority, until these are closed.
An animal welfare incident log in the ERP, linked to the video, the person responsible, the corrective action and the resulting training, which is what the animal welfare plan and the IFS or BRC audit ask for.
Controlled, traceable access: who has viewed which segment, when and why, with separate profiles for the quality team, management, the official veterinarian and the auditor.
Handover to the authority: export of the requested segment with its consignment and batch metadata, with a record of the handover.
Data protection built into the system: masking or cropping of areas where appropriate, certified automatic deletion when the retention period expires, and evidence for the record of processing activities.

What the abattoir gains

It responds to a request from the authority in minutes, with the exact consignment.
It turns CCTV into traceability evidence: every carcass batch can show how the animals it came from were handled.
It closes nonconformities with video, cause and action, something that quality certifications and retail customers value.
It complies with RD 695/2022 and the LOPDGDD at the same time, with retention, access and deletion governed by the system and not by the recorder’s disk.
It feeds staff training with real cases, which is one of the stated purposes of the royal decree.

How CEDESA does it

CEDESA develops ERP systems for the meat industry and abattoirs with full traceability from intake of the animal through to dispatch, which we describe in ERP software for the meat industry and abattoirs. Integration with CCTV follows the pattern above: timestamped events captured on the line, a recordings index by consignment and batch, extended retention when there are incidents, and logged access, all within the same system that handles slaughter, cutting and dispatch. Where the product carries NFC tags, traceability also links the final batch to its welfare history. And because the recordings are workers’ personal data, development is carried out under ISO 27001 and the National Security Framework (Esquema Nacional de Seguridad, ENS).

Frequently asked questions about CCTV in abattoirs

Which abattoirs are required to have CCTV?

All Spanish abattoirs, under Royal Decree 695/2022: since 24 August 2023 as a general rule, and since 24 August 2024 for lower-capacity abattoirs, which were given two years to adapt.

Which areas of the abattoir must the cameras record?

The unloading of the animals, the facilities holding live animals, the passageways and races, and the stunning and bleeding areas until the death of the animal; for poultry and pigs, scalding as well, to check that no animal showing signs of life enters it.

How long do abattoir recordings have to be kept?

The footage must be accessible for 30 days for animal welfare inspections and be made available to the competent authority on request. If there is an incident, a complaint or a request from the authority, it is advisable to keep the segments concerned until the matter is closed, with due justification from a data protection standpoint.

Do workers have to be informed about the cameras in the abattoir?

Yes. Article 89 of Organic Law 3/2018 requires workers and their representatives to be informed expressly, clearly and concisely of the existence and purpose of the cameras, signs to be put up in the areas being recorded, rest areas to be excluded, and access and retention to be limited to what is necessary.

How are the recordings linked to the traceability of the batch?

By synchronising the recorder’s clock with the ERP and recording in the ERP the events for each consignment (unloading, pen, entry onto the line, stunning, bleeding) with their timestamps, so that an index returns the video segments for each consignment and batch, blocks their deletion if there is an incident and logs every access.

Conclusion

The CCTV required by RD 695/2022 is now installed in almost every abattoir; the next step is for it to stop being an island. Linking each recording to the consignment and the batch that the ERP already knows about, governing retention and access, and closing incidents with video turns an obligation into traceability evidence and satisfies both the animal welfare authority and data protection requirements at the same time. If your recorder and your ERP do not talk to each other, tell us how you record slaughter today.