An explanation from a security guard on why "you can't take photos here"....

faddius said:
Well, I for one didnt exactly know the laws surrounding photography and what was allowed and what wasnt until I started getting more involved in it.

Is it that reasonable to expect every security guard out there to know all the laws?
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In most of these cases, there seems to be a company policy about photography, or at least the guards claim that there is. However, it seems that these policies often directly contradict the law. Security companies should be aware of the law, they should make their employees aware of the law, and they should be prepared to stand up for their employees if they refuse to enforce policies that are illegal. Knowing the law is a pretty basic requirement, given the nature of the job.
 
Tenubracon said:
but if a guard knows the law, he/she can explain it to the manager in situations like this, surely?
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I agree, in an ideal world. Sadly, it's likely to fall on deaf ears or get you a *******ing at the very least.
What then do you do if you want to keep your job :shrug:
Personally, I always approach people with a smile and a 'can I help you', even when they're jimmying the door :D
('Yeah, you can hold the torch' isn't the response I'm looking for!)
 
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jabbermack said:
If he had of produced the memo, they would have simply screwed it up and thrown it on the floor, or worse, "at him".
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Carter64 said:
all security staff are brainless grunts, barely capable of writing their own name, and therefore fair game for baiting. Bit like picking on the slow kid at school. Not big or clever. Grow up.
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faddius said:
Its this attitude, though I wouldnt go as far as to say its the general consensus of this forum, that causes the vast majority of problems.
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:thinking:
 
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Tenubracon said:
In most of these cases, there seems to be a company policy about photography, or at least the guards claim that there is. However, it seems that these policies often directly contradict the law. Security companies should be aware of the law, they should make their employees aware of the law, and they should be prepared to stand up for their employees if they refuse to enforce policies that are illegal. Knowing the law is a pretty basic requirement, given the nature of the job.
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The security companies generally care less for their employees than the companies that they are supplying security for.

Ive been used as a scape goat many times by companies to avoid paying me, did the security company I work for do anything to stand up for me? :shake:

Companies just expect security guards to turn up and get on with the job with no briefing, no tour of the area, no explanation of their company policies. You are just expected to know these things even if you have never been there before, and unfortunately all you can do is act according to what you believe your employer would want. Such as a situation like this, if the guy looks dodgy or is being difficult, get rid of him before he causes problems.

Then if you get it wrong, even slightly, such as not approaching the guy because you know what he is doing is fine by law but your peers believe differently, you get fired, simple as that. They wont talk to you, tell you why they werent happy with what happened, or go look up the laws, so you can learn, they just tell you to leave. How can you win?
 
faddius said:
The security companies generally care less for their employees than the companies that they are supplying security for.

Ive been used as a scape goat many times by companies to avoid paying me, did the security company I work for do anything to stand up for me? :shake:

Companies just expect security guards to turn up and get on with the job with no briefing, no tour of the area, no explanation of their company policies. You are just expected to know these things even if you have never been there before, and unfortunately all you can do is act according to what you believe your employer would want. Such as a situation like this, if the guy looks dodgy or is being difficult, get rid of him before he causes problems.

Then if you get it wrong, even slightly, such as not approaching the guy because you know what he is doing is fine by law but your peers believe differently, you get fired, simple as that. They wont talk to you, tell you why they werent happy with what happened, or go look up the laws, so you can learn, they just tell you to leave. How can you win?
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You have my sympathies, this is no way to treat an employee. The security industry does seem to be largely unregulated. Perhaps if it were run along more professional lines, with better training and job security for the guards, the kinds of problems we see in these videos would be less common. However, I do think that security guards can also be their own worst enemies sometimes, as exemplified by the attitude and appoach of the woman in this video. A little more respect for the people they want to talk to would go a long way.
 
Carter64 said:
I agree, in an ideal world. Sadly, it's likely to fall on deaf ears or get you a *******ing at the very least.
What then do you do if you want to keep your job :shrug:
Personally, I always approach people with a smile and a 'can I help you', even when they're jimmying the door :D
('Yeah, you can hold the torch' isn't the response I'm looking for!)
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How about "Can you hold my D4?" :)
 
Tenubracon said:
You have my sympathies, this is no way to treat an employee. The security industry does seem to be largely unregulated. Perhaps if it were run along more professional lines, with better training and job security for the guards, the kinds of problems we see in these videos would be less common.
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I'm all for that. In fact, that's one of the reasons the SIA was originally set up to achieve. Fail!
Even before the recession, a manned guard was often little more than an insurance offset than an employee and a 'due diligence' scape-goat.
For various reasons, I'm pretty much stuck for a year or so and will have to make the best of it.

Tenubracon said:
However, I do think that security guards can also be their own worst enemies sometimes, as exemplified by the attitude and appoach of the woman in this video. A little more respect for the people they want to talk to would go a long way.
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Maybe I was fortunate in that the two biggest chunks (by far) of my particular training course were relevant laws and conflict management.
 
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Carter64 said:
Which is why I originally said:
"this forum's vocal minority consensus "

And very happy to be proven wrong :)
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Oh Carter I was using your post to illustrate your point in someone elses post :)

I fail to believe that though the woman wasnt the most polite of people, she wouldnt necessarily screw up a memo explaining where she was wrong and throw it on the floor, or even attack the photographer. As would be expected for an uneducated, knuckle dragging dim wit. :)
 
jon ryan said:
Umm, I don't think UK security guards are allowed to carry guns.
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Crikey! You don't think he could have meant abroad do you? I mean, actually taken his camera out of the UK? I heard of someone that did it once.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Crikey! You don't think he could have meant abroad do you? I mean, actually taken his camera out of the UK? I heard of someone that did it once.
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My friend did that, he fell into a small waterfall with it, got throughly submerged and soaked :LOL:

Amazingly, after a couple of days drying out, everything worked but the screen, he was still able to take shots on it :eek:
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Crikey! You don't think he could have meant abroad do you? I mean, actually taken his camera out of the UK? I heard of someone that did it once.
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That and some UK security do carry guns, not talking about your average crisp factory though.
 
Seems like another Michael Moore wannabe, "righting the wrongs" for the sake of their own exposure? Sadly, there's a lot of it about. It's all very silly and in this day and age security guards should be trained to handle them.
 
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ZoneV said:
Seems like another Michael Moore wannabe, "righting the wrongs" for the sake of their own exposure? Sadly, there's a lot of it about. It's all very silly and in this day and age security guards should be trained to handle them.
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If security guards just ignored them, there wouldn't be a problem.
 
I'm with Robert on this deliberate provocation of security personnel will only make things worse for other togs.

Martin
 
Judging by the badly maintained road surfaces, the lack of road markings, street lights and highway signage - is the person that made the video 100% sure this is a public highway and not simply a private road on private land - like an industrial business park?

If it is private land, the whole purpose of this "Security Guards - You've Been Framed" video will do more damage than good.

It would be good to know who owns the land and whether or not it is in fact privately owned and maintained.

If it is privately owned and managed - I hope the photographer will be man enough to go back and say "Sorry" for baiting a response from the security staff.
 
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I think the chap knew he was on public land.
 
Carter64 said:
Personally, I always approach people with a smile and a 'can I help you', even when they're jimmying the door :D
('Yeah, you can hold the torch' isn't the response I'm looking for!)
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Lol - earlier this week i approached a little scrote who was busy trying to lever one of our signs off its mounting

me: scuse me mate, can i ask what you're up to ?
him : yeah bro, I'm stealing this sign for scrap :shrug: :bang:
 
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I think Rhody raises a good point, some factories and industrial sites extend beyond their front gates sometimes incorporating a private road leading from a public road. You can't really tell the difference.

Reminds me of the Jag plant in Coventry.
 
big soft moose said:
Lol - earlier this week i approached a little scrote who was busy trying to lever one of our signs off its mounting

me: scuse me mate, can i ask what you're up to ?
him : yeah bro, I'm stealing this sign for scrap :shrug: :bang:
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At least he was honest about it :LOL:
 
faddius said:
At least he was honest about it :LOL:
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Ive got hundreds of stories like that - including the guy a few years back who was given a chainsaw for xmas and decided to try it out on one of our picnic tables

caught in the act he says " yeah mate, i'm sawing up this table" like its the most natural thing in the world :bang:

I could go on but i dont want to hijack
 
big soft moose said:
Ive got hundreds of stories like that - including the guy a few years back who was given a chainsaw for xmas and decided to try it out on one of our picnic tables

caught in the act he says " yeah mate, i'm sawing up this table" like its the most natural thing in the world :bang:

I could go on but i dont want to hijack
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I don't think you're hijacking, I think it just shows that security have other things to think about than someone taking photos.
I get the impression that the guy who took the original video is sitting nekked in a bean bag somewhere watching his video and rubbing his cheesy whotsit.
 
yeah lol - I'm a ranger rather than security , but anyone who deals with the public in an enforcement role has lots of tales of public stupidity ( like the mother of a child caught climbing the fence into a transformer enclosure who said " he needs to be allowed to find his own boundaries " hmm yeah , like electrocution :shake: )
 
rhody said:
Judging by the badly maintained road surfaces, the lack of road markings, street lights and highway signage - is the OP 100% sure this is a public highway and not simply a private road on private land - like an industrial business park?
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:thinking:

I never said either way :shrug:
 
I think we all need to realise that in this case we are talking about security guards at a CRISP FACTORY - not a nuclear power station, RAF base or a science park.

The two numpties are just too full of their self importance.
 
Well having had the time to go and look at some of the other stuff this guy had done I'm 100% certain that all he was doing was deliberatly trying to get a reaction from the security as he appears to site a number of other times he has had run ins with security :LOL:

Matt
 
malo50 said:
The only scunner in that video was the photographer who went out of his way to belittle two people trying to do their jobs.
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So its ok for golden wonder staff to act like that,when the chap was breaking no laws.
And if they were better trained it wouldnt of happen :p
 
simonblue said:
So its ok for golden wonder staff to act like that,when the chap was breaking no laws.
And if they were better trained it wouldnt of happen :p
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The fact is, that acts like that on the part of security guards constitute the first half of harassment.

@rhody - some public roads are very badly maintained, often around factories with high volumes of truck traffic for some strange reason ;). I am thinking of a through road that I used yesterday - not even a factory approach. So it is probably a public road until proven otherwise.

Oh, and as a last thought, many mundane buildings are often of potential use as "textures" and such like.
 
Not read all the posts..just skimmed..
So what if the guy was baiting? He was making a documentry (albeit a youtube one) of something he feels strongly about, as do most photographers when faced with untrained security personnel.
If the security were polite from the beginning, perhaps he would have given a better explanation about why he wanted to photograph the GW building.

With the names he was called by one guy and the anger the woman showed when a barrier pole was bought off it's support to the ground, I wonder if these people should be in the job they are in? They were much more confrontational than the alleged baiter and knew nothing about the rights of a member of the general public.

The video itself proves that these type of people (Jobs-worths) are about and need to be properly trained.
 
NigelPaul said:
Not read all the posts..just skimmed..
So what if the guy was baiting? He was making a documentry (albeit a youtube one) of something he feels strongly about, as do most photographers when faced with untrained security personnel.
If the security were polite from the beginning, perhaps he would have given a better explanation about why he wanted to photograph the GW building.

With the names he was called by one guy and the anger the woman showed when a barrier pole was bought off it's support to the ground, I wonder if these people should be in the job they are in? They were much more confrontational than the alleged baiter and knew nothing about the rights of a member of the general public.

The video itself proves that these type of people (Jobs-worths) are about and need to be properly trained.
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They were much more confrontational than the alleged baiter
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Of course if you set out to bait some one you are going to keep your calm and do your best to provoke them, one would be wise to rehearse before doing it.

and knew nothing about the rights of a member of the general public.
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If everybody new everything about the law then there would be no need for lawyers would there.


I would bet that each one of us breaks some law every day without knowing it, things we just take for granted...jay walking. I was recently stopped by a police officer, my offense I had driven across a nearly empty parking lot in a shopping center and not used the lanes in between where cars park. He explained yes it is a driving offense and let me go yet I see this every day.
A friend recently got a ticket. He was pulling up to a intersection and the light was red. So he pulls into a garage on the corner drives across the forecourt and exits the other side, made his turn on a red light.....illegal
 
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