Video Surveillance

Rockie

We have had a couple of issues with funds being stolen from front office operations. In one instance, we were able to trace stolen funds to an individal and he was dismissed and prosecuted.

We have another instance in a smaller office that involves petty cash. The office had one drawer with several different keys issued to individuals. Small amounts of money ended up missing and since there were keys issued to several individuals, no one person could be pinpointed. Individual petty cash drawer has been assigned to 2 people. At the end of the day, they have to count the cash and have someone else sign off on it...same thing first thing the next morning.

The issue now is the supervisor left a small amount of money in the old petty cash drawer to see what would happen. The drawer was locked and keys were gotten from employees that had previous access to this drawer. Supervisor opened the drawer and the money was missing. There is obviously a thief in the area and we suspect someone had a key made to this drawer.

Question is: Do any of you have video surveillance in place for these type areas. In South Carolina, this is legal to do as long as the camera is not placed in an area where there is an expectation of privacy, i.e., locker room, bathrooms, etc. Our proposal is to put a small video camera in the front office where the cash drawers are to see who is stealing this money. If any of you have these type cameras, do you have a policy concerning this?
If you do, please email me a copy at [email]scallender@scheart.com[/email].

I hate that we have to go to these lengths, but once someone starts stealing small amounts of money, they tend to move on to larger amounts.

Thanks for your help!

stilldazed

We have done it a couple of times and had success. Depending on your policy, employee work areas are also places where there should be no expectation of privacy, so you should be able to mount a camera to focus on the door or even in the office. If it is mounted in the office, there must be a reasonableness consideration about whomever might be working and have their every move recorded, so I would probably opt for the door and at least get a photo of folks as they enter and leave, with a date/time stamp on the video.

Our policy is just a general security policy that alerts employees that work places and assets belong to the company, are subject to surveillance as needed, and the employee should have no expectation of privacy. You might expand that to include that your company also expects to maintain or control all barriers to access all work spaces, i.e., doors, locks, etc.

Hope you catch the crook soon. If you have someone pilfering that work space, what you don't know is where else the worker is poking around. You might be surprised to know the whole truth.

Paul in Cannon Beach

Its been a while since I really investigated this issue and some of the legal issues may have changed but here is a couple things to consider:

1. You can't record conversation without permission from those being recorded so your surveillance camera should be video only.

2. You need to have signage that "this area is monitored by video surveillance". This is a good preventative measure too.

3. Realistic "fake cameras" can be just as effective as actual working cameras. I'll just leave it at that...

Also, video technology has been greatly improved with the advance of high speed wireless networks. You can now get cameras that send the video feed right to your office computer and keep a digital record on a hard drive.

Make sure you get a system that has the CLARITY you will need for whatever activity you are trying to monitor. A fuzzy video is essentially useless.

Dasher

Stealing in the workplace is one of my pet peeves, Rocky. Still, I would not set up surveillance cameras in small places/companies because morale is sure to take a negative hit. I love peer pressure in situations like you describe -- small amounts of money turning up missing. I like full discussion and disclosure, sorta the way my parents did it. We would not dare steal because the hurt of getting caught was not worth it.

We use an outside surveillance camera -- but the emphasis is on protection (crime) rather than "catching" an employee. Others may disagree, and that is fine, but I would not want to work in an environment where cameras were recording my every move, so I do not want to have others exposed to it either.