Cameras in Private Schools and Kindergartens from 1 July 2026: Audio, Online Viewing and a 6-Month Archive — What Is Required and How to Comply

Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 271 of 21 May 2026 amended the Unified Regulation on licensing certain activities through a special electronic system (approved by Resolution No. 80 of 21 February 2022). Non-state educational organisations received a new licensing requirement: buildings and premises where educational services are provided must be equipped with indoor and outdoor video surveillance cameras capable of online streaming and audio recording, and recordings must be kept for at least six months.

The requirement applies from 1 July 2026 to existing and new organisations alike. Because it is a licensing requirement, non-compliance may, under the Law on Licensing, Permitting and Notification Procedures, become grounds for revoking the educational licence. In practice, non-state educational organisations means private schools, kindergartens, learning centres and courses operating under a licence.

Two months later a second document followed — Resolution No. 425 of 31 July 2026 on further improving the security system of state and non-state educational institutions, in force from 1 August 2026. It covers all educational institutions: intruder alarms, panic buttons, video surveillance and their maintenance, plus contracted physical and technical guarding under the Safe Education concept (Presidential Resolution No. 360 of 29 November 2025). Responsibility for safety rests with the institution's management. Check the exact wording of both documents for your own case in the national legislation database; below we cover the technical side.

Indoor and outdoor cameras. Indoors: classrooms, corridors, halls, canteen, gym; outdoors: entrances, yard, playgrounds, perimeter and parking. There must be no blind spots where children are, while changing rooms, toilets and the medical room are not filmed — a restriction of the personal data law, not of the resolution.

Audio recording. You need a camera with a built-in microphone or an audio input for an external one. Hikvision marks a built-in microphone with the letter U at the end of the model code (for example DS-2CD2143G2-IU); Dahua uses the S or SA suffixes. Buying such a camera is not enough: the audio stream has to be enabled in the recorder settings, otherwise the archive is silent — and that is the first thing an inspection finds.

Online streaming. The ability to watch cameras in real time not only from the guard's monitor but over the internet — from the phone of the principal, deputy head or safety officer. Technically this is the recorder's app (Hik-Connect, DMSS) or a server platform for several branches; it needs a stable internet connection with spare upload speed and properly configured access rights.

A six-month archive. The most expensive requirement: 182 days of recording from every camera. The volume depends on resolution, codec and recording mode, so there is a separate section with the maths below.

A private school for 250–300 pupils: 12 classrooms, 3–4 corridors across the floors, 2 entrances, canteen, gym, yard and perimeter — usually 22–26 cameras. A kindergarten for 100 children: 6 group rooms, corridors, entrance, kitchen block, playground — 10–14 cameras. A learning centre with several rooms fits into 6–10 cameras. These are benchmarks for typical layouts; a survey gives the exact number.

Indoors we install 4 MP dome cameras with a 2.8 mm lens and a microphone: a viewing angle of about 100° covers a classroom from one point. At entrances — bullet cameras with colour night vision so faces are recognisable in the evening. In the yard and along the perimeter — 4 MP outdoor cameras in vandal-proof housings, with 30–50 m infrared illumination where needed.

All cameras are powered over PoE from the switch, so each gets a single twisted-pair cable. For a 24-camera school that means one or two 16–24-port PoE switches and one 32-channel recorder or two 16-channel ones.

Archive size is simple to calculate: camera bitrate multiplied by the seconds in a day and by 182 days, divided by 8, gives bytes. A 4 MP camera with H.265 at continuous recording produces about 2 Mbit/s, which is roughly 21 GB a day and about 3.9 TB per camera for half a year. In a school cameras matter mostly during lessons, and H.265+ compresses the static picture of an empty classroom heavily, so real consumption is usually 1.5–2.5 TB per camera per half year.

For a 24-camera school that is 40–60 TB: an 8-bay recorder or two 16-channel recorders with four 10–12 TB disks each. A 12-camera kindergarten needs one 16-channel recorder with four 6–8 TB disks, i.e. 24–32 TB. An 8-camera learning centre — an 8-channel recorder and two 8–10 TB disks.

Use only surveillance-class disks — Seagate SkyHawk or WD Purple: they are built for round-the-clock recording of several streams, while ordinary desktop disks fail in a recorder within a year or so. The recorder is set to loop recording with a 190-day depth, and once a month you check that the oldest recording is indeed older than six months.

For online viewing the recorder is connected to the internet; the app shows cameras via a low-resolution sub-stream, so even 24 cameras need only 8–10 Mbit/s of upload. Rights are set by role: the principal sees everything, a teacher only their group, security the entrances and perimeter. Default passwords are changed at commissioning and firmware is updated — a matter of both security and the personal data law.

Audio recording makes cameras a source of personal data even more than video. Staff and parents are notified, signs about video surveillance with audio recording are placed at entrances, and an internal policy defines who may access recordings, why, and how they are released on request. More in our article on video surveillance and personal data.

The panic button and intruder alarm from Resolution No. 425 go on the same rack as the recorder: a button at the guard post and in the principal's office, detectors at entrances and in rooms where valuables are kept. One contractor for video surveillance, alarm and maintenance avoids the argument over whose zone it is when something stops working.

Equipment prices are from our catalogue and change over time: a 4 MP dome camera with microphone Hikvision DS-2CD2143G2-IU from 914,900 UZS, a 4 MP bullet DS-2CD1043G2-LIU from 568,900 UZS, a 16-channel recorder DS-7616NXI-K2 from 1,731,900 UZS, a 6 TB SkyHawk surveillance disk from 2,721,900 UZS. Installing one camera with cable in trunking costs 155,000–180,000 UZS; commissioning the recorder, audio and online access is included in the work.

At these prices a 12-camera kindergarten comes to roughly 22–27 million UZS including disks for a six-month archive and installation; a 24-camera school to 42–55 million UZS depending on the share of outdoor cameras and archive depth. These are benchmarks for a typical project; we return a quote for your building within one business day after the survey.

Where not to save: on disks (desktop instead of surveillance class), on microphones (cameras without audio do not meet the requirement) and on archive headroom (exactly 182 days is risky — any camera downtime eats the margin). Where you can: 4 MP is enough inside classrooms rather than 8, and the yard does not need PTZ cameras.

Step one — a building survey and a camera layout: where the cameras, switches and recorder go and how the cable routes run. Step two — a quote with the archive calculated for your number of cameras. Step three — installation: a crew fits a 24-camera school in 3–4 working days, a kindergarten in 2 days, a learning centre in a day. Step four — configuring audio, online access and archive depth, and checking recording on every camera.

At handover you receive the layout, an equipment list with serial numbers, the apps configured on the phones of responsible staff and instructions for the guards. We give a 3-year warranty on installation; equipment carries the manufacturer's warranty of one to three years.

Then a maintenance contract: Resolution No. 425 explicitly requires maintenance of security systems. Under the contract we check cameras, disks and archive depth, update firmware and keep the logbook — the first things an inspection looks at.