I was in one of your classes years back with Panasonic. I am looking for info pertaining to the legalities of signs stating that you are on video.
Sign me, Hung UP
Dear Hung UP,
Nice to hear from you. Hopefully all is well and business is thriving. First
things first, I must tell you that I cannot give you legal advise. I am not
trained in law nor licensed to practice. I can give you my personal opinion and
impressions, but my best advise is to check with proper legal console before
proceeding with anything that you consider to be of legal consequence. Having
said that (to please my lawyers), let's go on.
Your question is somewhat open. Additionally, different states have different
laws and opinions as to what is or is not legal, so this will be a general
overview. To the best of my knowledge, there are no laws concerning the signs
that you put up concerning areas that are under visual surveillance. However,
there are a couple of different attitudes that you must watch out for.
1. There are many battles in place that bring the public's awareness to the
front. If you are to be recorded or viewed in a public area (shopping mall) in a
potentially private action (public restroom), there should be or must be
(dependant upon the situation and/or state) a sign of some sort warning you that
you are subject to such viewing: i.e.; this are is subject to CCTV surveillance;
or you are subject to video recording while in this building.
However, just because you place a warning sign, you don't necessarily have
the right to video tape or monitor persons in certain areas ... again totally
subjective to the state and/or area involved.
2. Some signs could lead you into trouble. Let's take a general, public area
such as a parking lot or public campus. You do have some cameras around the area
and you hang a sign that says: This area under surveillance (or being monitored
by CCTV) for your safety and protection. This opens up a potential for a
"False Sense of Security" by the people in the area. Something happens
and your cameras do not, for whatever reason, provide any safety or protection.
Something actually gets hurt and your camera wasn't even looking in the right
direction.
In this case, a sign such as: "This area subject to video monitoring
from time to time" would be more appropriate and less misleading.
You will notice three things about this last example. First, we have made no
reference to safety and/or protection due to CCTV cameras being in the area.
Second, we changed the word "Surveillance" to "Monitoring"
... this is fast becoming a softer and more popular way of saying the same
thing. Monitoring seems to be publicly accepted, while surveillance sounds like
Big Brother. Third, we changed the pretense from being continuous monitoring to
"Time To Time" ... this way something could happen, we could miss it
and still claim that we never said that we were watching all the time.
At any rate, I have to fly for now. Hope that this is the information that
you were looking for. If not, please feel free to holler at any time. I am in
your service.
Sincerely, Charlie R. Pierce President LRC Electronics Company LTC Training
Center Niche Products Catalog Electronic Service Group
