Strengthening your counter-surveillance strategies with affordable, professional solutions

The idea of surveillance countermeasures is usually relegated to governmental and law enforcement applications: protecting classified speech, corrections officers scanning subjects for cell phones, counterintelligence operations. Whether it's because the technology can be construed as complex, or that the information that governments deal with is highly sensitive, most business security managers tend to ignore these tools as unnecessary within their field. The fact of the matter is, with advances in business counter surveillance technology, there are a number of practical, affordable applications for counter surveillance tools in everything from high-level business meetings to retail loss prevention, all with the goal of protecting information as well as the privacy of both employees and customers.

Deploying Counter Surveillance Tools to Protect Sensitive Information

When conducting high-level business meetings, it's of the utmost importance to ensure confidentiality. While it may seem alarmist, high-profile cases of corporate or industrial espionage have plagued multiple industries, especially the tech industry, for years. For example, in 2006, Hewlett-Packard was ensnared in a scandal involving boardroom leaks of sensitive information.

With modern counter surveillance solutions, protecting valuable company information has never been easier. Bug scanners can cover most radio frequency (RF) bands in small, portable packages. Perfect for transporting to any high level meetings, these counter surveillance devices can sweep an entire room (and all the people therein) in a matter of minutes, allowing you to uncover cell phones, wired and wireless microphones, GPS devices, laser listening devices, WiFi transmitters—if there's a recording device on hand, there's an affordable bug detector with the ability to pick up its frequency. Most recording devices operate between 800 and 3000 MHz, and as such, even the most cost-effective bug detectors will cover that range.

For the most advanced conversation protection available, a device such as the government-grade Stealth Druid Speech Protection System makes it almost impossible for a conversation to be recorded illicitly. Much like the fictional "Cone of Silence," this method of speech protection jams all recording devices while also generating white noise to ensure absolute confidentiality. Users wear headphones connected to the base unit, which unscrambles the audio so participants can have a normal conversation without anyone else listening.

Uncovering Surveillance Devices to Protect Privacy

As a security manager, you're tasked with not only the responsibility to protect company property and assets, but also all of the employees and customers on that property. While much of the focus of that task is ensuring physical safety, it's also a security manager's responsibility to protect the privacy of anyone who walks into their business.

Illicit recording of dressing rooms and employee changing rooms should be a top priority of any store security manager. Not only is that type of privacy invasion a complete betrayal of the trust enshrined upon a business, but it's a negligence for which a business could be legally liable. By protecting customer and employee privacy, you reinforce trust and save yourself from potentially costly lawsuits.

Combatting illicit recording can be done quickly and easily using a hidden camera detector. When selecting a hidden camera detector, it's best to consider which range of recording devices you're looking to uncover. A simple, low-cost laser hidden camera detector can be used to scan a room in minutes, pinpointing the presence of a camera lens and allowing you to address any recording devices. By running routine sweeps of changing areas and restrooms, you help address privacy concerns that employees and customers may not consider until it's too late. Other devices not only feature a hidden camera detector, but scan for other bugs as well. These multi-purpose tools allow you to sweep a retail space for cameras while uncovering other RF recording devices at the same time.

Enforcing Your Retail Loss Prevention Strategy Through Counter Surveillance Measures

Similarly to store security managers, retail loss professionals can deploy counter surveillance measures as a way to strengthen protocols already in place. When taking on a retail loss prevention strategy, it's important to present a multifaceted approach: Security cameras, hidden cameras to cover blind spots in a security camera system, GPS trackers to combat smash-and-grab operations, body worn cameras to capture covert evidence, and more. Any successful loss prevention strategy relies on staying a step ahead of shoplifters, employee thieves, and organized retail crime operations; by adding counter surveillance measures to your existing loss prevention strategy, you ensure just that.

If criminals are deploying their own surveillance measures in order to compromise your loss prevention strategy by monitoring shipments, tracking employee patterns, or recording vulnerable areas like safes or point of sale machines, it's important to uncover those devices using counter surveillance solutions. By running routine bug scans and camera sweeps, you ensure that all of your loss prevention efforts aren't in vain. While many of the bug scanners and hidden camera detectors we highlighted previously are a great place to start, for portability among multiple retail sites, loss prevention specialists may want to consider a counter surveillance kit. Easily transportable, a custom counter surveillance kit lets a retail loss prevention specialist carry three separate solutions to job sites, conducting full sweeps of a store in a matter of minutes.

No matter what aspect of business security is your speciality, it's important to consider counter surveillance within your strategy to ensure that all of your efforts are effective, and to protect the privacy of all employees and customers.

Published January 13th, 2021