The Hidden Camera

Hidden cameras and other surveillance missteps can sour employees, threaten your success or get you sued.

What Bielec came up against was a very open, creative corporate environment, not unlike that found on a college campus. To many employees, the installation of cameras screamed of Big Brother syndrome. Bielec assured employees that the system was more about customer service (such as letting employees back in the building if they accidentally got locked out during a smoking break), to give employees peace of mind and to keep an eye on more places than was otherwise humanly possible (data centers, for example).

It was a good lesson for Bielec, one he fell back on recently. After a fire in the area of the loading dock outside SAS's production studio (a container of linseed-soaked rags ignited in the bed of a pickup truck), Bielec had installed a camera to monitor the racks where solvents are stored, intending to get a better chance of catching any accidental combustion early. The camera actually panned a little bit into the shop area, where workers built set pieces. The workers expressed some concernthey understood the need for the camera, but didn't want theirs to be the only work area under surveillance. So Bielec solved the problem by moving the camera 20 feet away, so that it looked only at the area where the flammable materials were stored.

DON'T use dummy cameras without considering the risks.

If cameras deter theft by their mere presence, CSOs may be tempted to nail up a few cameras that aren't activated. In CSO's survey, 23 percent of respondents said they include some fake or deactivated cameras as part of their surveillance practice.

But are fake cameras worth the potential downsides? Douglas Durden, manager of safety, security and asset retention at Mallory Alexander International Logistics, thinks that often they are not. He believes fake cameras can impart a false sense of security. "Let's say someone is standing in front of what appears to be a camera. If a guy pulls a gun and takes a person's wallet, you should be able to pull it up on tape [but you can't]. Then you have to tell the person it was a fake camera," he says.

Lawsuit, anyone?

Walter Palmer, founder and principal of PCGsolutions, a retail loss-prevention consultancy, also advises caution. "One of the things you have to be careful of is, do you have an obligation to provide certain levels of security? If you don't have cameras and something occurs or you have dummy cameras, could you be liable for negligent security?" he asks. It depends on the circumstances, of course, but the short answer is yes.