Timestamped rental car photos: what actually counts as proof
Taking photos at pickup is a good habit. But a gallery photo’s date can be changed in two taps, and its location is often stripped when you share it. For a photo to carry weight in a dispute, it needs more than your phone’s clock.
Where ordinary photos fall short
A photo taken with your camera app carries your phone’s date, which you can set by hand. The metadata (date, place) often disappears when the photo is sent by message or email. And the rental company has no copy from pickup.
What makes a photo hard to dispute
Several things that reinforce each other:
What RPA does
RPA brings these four together, for free. Each report is sealed in the Bitcoin blockchain through the open OpenTimestamps protocol, so anyone can check on opentimestamps.org that the files have not changed since.
Qualified eIDAS timestamps, sold by certified providers, carry even more legal weight in the EU. RPA is built for everyday use: strong, immediate, free evidence.
Questions
Do timestamped photos hold up legally?
Courts weigh all the evidence. A photo with a reliable time, a location and a copy sent to the rental company carries far more weight than a gallery photo.
Does the Bitcoin seal cost anything?
No. It is included with every report. Only a fingerprint of the files is sent, never the photos themselves.
Can I check the seal myself?
Yes. The report offers the manifest and the proof for download, with a short guide to checking them on opentimestamps.org.