Evidence Locker vs Operation-level Evidence

NearbySpy lets you look at Evidence two ways: inside one Operation, where it was captured, or across the whole Case, where you can see everything at once. The first view is the Operation gallery. The second is the Evidence Locker. They show the same files; they just answer different questions.

Operation-level Evidence

Every Operation has its own Evidence gallery — a flat grid of cards, one per file, scoped to that single Operation. This is where you upload Evidence as it is collected: the photos from today's surveillance shift go on today's surveillance Operation, the recorded interview goes on the interview Operation, the public-records PDF goes on the document-review Operation.

The Operation gallery is the right view when you are doing the work, when you are reviewing one shift, or when you are deciding what to share with a Client for that specific Operation. The cards show thumbnail or file-type icon, filename, uploader, date, and a kebab menu. Photos and video open in a lightbox. Documents and audio download. Cloud links from Dropbox or Google Drive show as preview cards. The full upload pipeline is covered in How Evidence upload and integrity work.

The Evidence Locker

The Evidence Locker is the Case-wide view of every Evidence card across every Operation in that Case. It is not a separate place where files live — every file is still anchored to the Operation it was uploaded to. The Locker simply pulls those files together so you can scan, filter, and search across the whole Case in one screen.

The Locker is the right view when you are putting together a report, preparing for a deposition, or trying to find a specific photo without remembering which Operation it was on. Filters typically include type (photo, video, document, audio, other), uploader, date range, and Operation. Click a card and you can jump back to the Operation that owns it.

Same Evidence, same hash

Both views surface the same underlying files. A photo uploaded on one Operation has exactly one SHA-256 hash, one storage path, one set of audit entries. The Locker is a lens, not a copy. Archiving an Evidence card in the Operation gallery archives it in the Locker too, because they are the same file. The same applies to restore.

What Clients see

Clients do not have access to the Evidence Locker. They see Evidence only inside Operations that have been shared with them, and only the Evidence cards from those Operations. There is no Case-wide aggregate for Client accounts, by design — the Locker is an investigator workspace and includes Operations Clients should not see. To choose what a Client sees per Operation, refer to Controlling what Clients see on Operations.

Permissions

Investigators, Admins, and Owners on the Case can use the Locker. Viewers can read it but not change anything. Clients cannot open it at all. Archive and restore in the Locker follow the same rules as in the Operation gallery — Admin and Owner only — described in Why Evidence is immutable and how archive/restore works.

When to use which view

• Use the Operation gallery while you are doing the work, after each shift, and when sharing per-Operation context with a Client.
• Use the Evidence Locker when assembling a report, preparing exhibits, or auditing the Case as a whole.
• Both views support the same lightbox preview, the same downloads, and the same cloud-link cards. Pick whichever fits the question you are trying to answer.

For higher-level reporting that pulls Evidence into a written deliverable, see Report Writer overview.