Expert commentary

How do employers comply with data protection laws and yet investigate wrong-doing? Monitoring staff - especially covertly - has been rather a grey area, despite the Data Protection Act. A security or fraud manager may want to observe staff - examine logs of websites visited to check that staff are not downloading pornography, say; or videoing workers outside the workplace, to collect evidence that they are not in fact sick; or asking credit reference agencies to check that staff are not in fina...

Drugs-dog searching in six Buckinghamshire schools by a private security company It was a partnership at work - school head teachers, the local education authority, Thames Valley Police, a private dog-training company [Grosvenor International Services, GIS ] and a drugs counselling agency [AddAction].  Their approach: to seek to be supportive rather than punitive.  They would regard young drug-users as victims rather than criminals, Prof John Grieve pointed out in an introduction to t...

DEADLINES FOR OFFICERS, DOOR STAFF Businesses must act now to ensure they have reputable security staff in place by next year, says the Security Industry Authority (SIA). This follows a survey by the authority which found that seven per cent of businesses in the London region were ‘not very confident' in their security solution. Commenting on the research, John Saunders , SIA Chief Executive, pictured said: “All businesses, irrespective of size or sector, need to make sure their pr...