Why The National Lottery Bans Using Store CCTV To Track Down Unclaimed Winners

The UK National Lottery does its best to find unclaimed prizewinners, but stops at searching CCTV footage. Photo: ITV

A winning €3 Quick Pick ticket was purchased back in November of 2014, and is still unclaimed 3 months later with a few days to go to the deadline. But unlike some USA lotteries, the National Lottery won't use the store's CCTV to try and identify the winner.

The ticket was bought here at the Claremorris Tesco in Mayo, Ireland, and is still unclaimed.

The jackpot winner has until the close of business on Friday 27 February 2015 at 5.30pm to present themselves and their ticket at the National Lottery HQ in Dublin.

The National Lottery has a specialist dedicated to finding missing winners. This is their response to ban using CCTV footage:

"There are a number of reasons why we can’t do this. Firstly, it’s all about player protection and making sure that we in no way compromise the choice of the winner to decide if they want to tell the world about their win or keep it entirely to themselves."

Patrick Lisoire finds missing and unclaimed millions for the National Lottery. Photo: National Lottery

"We can’t make that choice for them by, for example, releasing their image from CCTV footage. This duty of care to players is part of the strict licence we operate under."

Another stunt used by the National Lottery to find an unclaimed prize, worked! The ticket was claimed.

"Aside from that, we have to act within the law and the only way that CCTV can be used at present, in keeping with the Data Protection Act, is either as part of an investigation into a crime or if we had the express permission of the ticket-holder."

Winner Kathryn Jones was pleasantly shocked to learn how Canadian lottery officials had tracked her down to give her a $50 million Lotto Max jackpot.

The National Lottery website continues, "Clearly, no crime has been committed when someone simply goes into a shop to buy a lottery ticket, and we can’t get the permission of the ticket-holder to release their image as we don’t know who they are."

"It’s also worth pointing out that even if we were able to use CCTV in some way, not all retailers have CCTV or, indeed, have a back catalogue of recordings in high enough quality that could be used."

Another winner was identified in 2009 by the National Lottery. 35-year-old Dermot Finglas from Drogheda was caught on CCTV as he left his winning ticket behind in a shop and forgot that he had bought it.