by Héctor R. Torres
PhD, MBA, CPP, CFE
A fraternal greeting from Puerto Rico to all colleagues and readers of this column. It is a pleasure to share again with you!
In this edition we will talk about some legal aspects about the use of security cameras. Writes Robert, a reader of this column, who asks how legal are cameras in an office without notifying employees about the use of them? Excellent question and its answer requires a deeper explanation.
Before I continue answering the question, I want to emphasize that I am not a lawyer, much less an expert in legal aspects. Whenever the use of security cameras in a corporation is considered, lawyers should be consulted.
In private corporations, the use of cameras must be governed by a written surveillance policy that is accessible to all employees. Failure to do so may result in potential legal litigation for workplace harassment. The legality of the use of cameras is based on two important aspects: the purpose for which they are used and the expectation of privacy.
The purpose of use
There are two purposes for which security cameras are used in a private corporation. Visible cameras that are used to deter crime, protect property, and detect intruders or criminal acts. Hidden cameras that support corporate investigations are used to detect theft and internal fraud schemes. For both purposes, the use of cameras should not be based on monitoring a specific person or to measure the productivity of employees.
As an example, I make the following account of a corporate investigation conducted with a hidden camera: an executive manager complains that someone unknown is stealing money from her wallet in her office during working hours. The manager tends to always have at least $100-$200 in cash stored in her wallet. She asks us to do an investigation as she suspects an employee of her business unit is involved.
We consulted with the lawyers and asked the manager for her written authorization to install a hidden camera in her office and with her permission the planning of the investigation began.
After the offices close at night, the technical staff of the corporation's security division enter the office and hide a tiny camera in the ventilation duct. This camera focuses on the place where the manager places her wallet in order to detect who accesses it when the manager is not present in her office. The next day the manager arrives at her office at 8:00 AM and starts working. At 10:00 in the morning, she proceeds to leave her office to smoke and at 10:15 AM her secretary enters the office and goes to the wallet. The secretary proceeds to extract $60 from the portfolio, closes it and puts it in its original position. At 12 noon, the manager leaves for a meeting without her purse and at 12:10 pm the secretary is caught stealing $20 from the wallet.
At 7:00 p.m., we met with the manager and showed her the recording with the captured footage. The manager could not believe that a person of her confidence had dared to do such a thing. The next day, we interviewed the secretary who confessed to us in writing that during a period of 7 months she had stolen approximately $ 1,300 from the manager. The secretary was fired after her admission.
In this investigation, a hidden camera was used to support a corporate investigation with the intention of determining whether a criminal act existed and to identify the perpetrator of the crime. The camera was used to monitor the wallet and not to monitor a possible suspect.
Privacy Expectation
An important aspect about the use of hidden cameras is the expectation of privacy that all citizens residing in democratic countries governed by law and order have.
Because of this expectation of privacy, hidden cameras should not be used in building bathrooms and department store fitting rooms. However, there are some exceptions to this rule. There are several precedents in the United States where in several high schools the city's police used hidden cameras to detect the sale of drugs on the school campus. There were certain restrictions such as not placing the cameras in the urinals or inside the toilets. The cameras were placed in the sink area where there is no great expectation of privacy. With the use of these equipment, it was possible to identify the members of a gang that sold drugs on campus.
The use of hidden cameras to support criminal investigations conducted by law enforcement agencies on a particular person should always be based on the doctrine of the least invasive investigative methodology. This doctrine states that any effort to obtain information about a person for use in a court of law must come from methods that are least invasive of the privacy of the person being investigated. It is for this reason that search warrants authorized by judges who determined probable cause that certain evidence exists in the residence or place of work of the person under investigation exist in many democratic countries. In investigations conducted by law enforcement agencies, the use of hidden cameras must be authorized by a judge and based on probable cause that a crime is being committed.
The implementation of cameras as security technology can easily be abused to violate civil rights and the expectation of privacy by malicious and unscrupulous people.
As professionals in the field of industrial safety, it is up to us to safeguard the correct, moral and legal use of this technology. I invite you to continue to share your ideas and concerns of the world and security management.
A hug and see you next time!
*If you wish you can write to the author at the email: [email protected]
