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What to do if you require temporary CCTV for a short period of time?

If you own your own premises, installing fixed CCTV is a no brainer. It might cost a decent amount to start with but the long-term protection that such a system provides against criminal activity means it will almost certainly save you money in the long run.

However, what about those times where you are only using a site for a short period of time? Festivals for example can see many thousands of people gathering in a field in the middle of nowhere for just one week of the year. You hardly need full-time surveillance to watch sheep grazing for the other 51 weeks!

Construction sites as well. These projects change so quickly and the landscape alters so much in a short period of time that installing fixed CCTV would be a complete waste of money, not to mention not even being possible in many cases due to a lack of electricity access.

CCTV tower

In this guide we will be examining the most effective temporary CCTV solutions that are currently available, ensuring that you have all the necessary protections in place when they are needed without wasting a penny of your hard earned cash.

CCTV towers

CCTV towers have fast become the go-to choice for temporary security in the construction industry and whilst they are still a relatively new phenomenon it is plain to see why.

The great thing about CCTV towers, well one of them, is that they are only offered by select top security firms. This offers you reassurance that the product you are receiving is of high quality, and peace of mind that if maintenance is required it will be handled by a highly trained expert security professional.

Furthermore, it means that most CCTV towers come with remote monitoring capabilities where the firm in question will observe the CCTV tower from a central location and deploy their own staff in the event of an emergency.

This keeps your workers out of harms way and guarantees a 24 hour response to potential intrusions.

CCTV towers are not only popular in construction but are just as effective for events such as sports and music festivals and for monitoring remote locations such as transport depots or car parks.

Wireless Cameras

On a domestic property or smaller indoor commercial site, wireless battery powered CCTV systems are a perfectly viable option.

They may not be packed with the same bells and whistles as a CCTV tower, but they can be installed instantly with zero wires and most systems nowadays will send footage via 5G to your mobile phone.

Property developers with many different sites across the nation will often use wireless CCTV to save themselves the time and hassle of roaming across the nation simply to check that everything is as it should be.

Lots of homeowners have a wireless CCTV system in place in the form of doorbells from companies such as ring, although these do limit your observation to the front porch alone.

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The Psychology of security: Using human behaviour to reduce risk

Security is a lot more than simply locks, alarms, and CCTV. Effective risk management that will reduce the threat of criminal and anti-social behaviour stems from understanding what leads to such behaviours and what can be done to prevent it.

The organisations and security companies who are most effective at doing what they do are the ones who understand this fact and account for human psychology when designing and implementing their security systems.

Prime Security services and human psychology are closely interlinked and in this article we will examine this relationship in much closer detail, investigating how the biases and preconceptions we all possess could be impacting on our safety and the safety of those around us.

Security psychology

Understanding Risk Perception

We might like to think of all criminals as mindless thugs who pick their targets randomly and that those who are targeted were simply unlucky. This is rarely the case however.

Just like you and I, criminals have a build in risk management system in their minds and their actions will be controlled heavily by how they perceive a certain risk.

How we perceive risk is based on our past lived experiences and inherent cognitive biases.

Criminals will make a decision when they see you site, based on the perceived risk they believe they face. If the reward is high enough, they may be willing to take more risks, but the more doubt you can put in their mind and the more security measures are visible on your property, the higher the perceived risk and the less likely you are to become their next victim.

A culture of deviance

If you create an atmosphere in your workplace where minor security or health and safety breaches become normalised, a culture of deviance is established, and much more serious incidents are much more likely to occur.

Ignoring fire evacuation drills, nicking the odd piece of stationary, not wearing the correct PPC for certain tasks. Let your standards drop and your employees will become desensitised to risk and believe that their actions have no consequences. When a real security breach happens, the response will be insufficient as a result of this culture.

 A culture of care

Look after your staff and your staff will look after you. We aren’t saying that you should expect your staff to put themselves in harm’s way in the event of a security breach but if you create a culture where staff know they are valued and respected they are much more likely to want to help you protect the business itself.

It could be something as simple as noticing that a fire door isn’t closing properly or the fire escape alarm doesn’t go off. If your staff want to help you succeed they are much more likely to report these things and provide you with valuable information that you can use to optimise your security systems.

At the end of the day this will help your staff as much as you by creating a safe and happy working environment.