Covert surveillance is your secret weapon for reducing theft, protecting your profits and getting the video evidence needed to catch the “bad guys.” Here are some important ways that covert surveillance can work for your application.

1. Outsmart the Bad Guys

According to the FBI, 87% of all burglaries go unsolved, which is a very discouraging statistic for any business or home owner. Professional burglars have come to expect and look for traditional overt surveillance, and when committing the act, they simply disable the obvious cameras by spray painting them, destroying them, cutting their cables, or they simply avoid them by taking approaches that lack surveillance.

Hidden cameras are your secret weapon to catching thieves. Hidden cameras are virtually undetectable, which will makes them an ideal choice for outsmarting thieves and providing a clear, usable video evidence of an incident, with a mug shot of the perpetrator.

With a hidden camera, the thief doesn’t know where not to look to be captured on video. A well-concealed hidden camera can be instrumental for helping you capture video and providing facial recognition of a thief wearing a ball cap or a hoodie, that a traditional overt security camera may not be able to provide because the robber kept his head down under his hoodie or hat.

2. Use the Trojan Horse Strategy

When it comes to covert surveillance, consider the best type of concealment or “Trojan horse” that would be ideal for monitoring your environment without being detected.

Hidden cameras can come in a variety of concealments ranging from smoke detectors and thermostats, to floodlights, picture frames, clock radios, binders, speakers, AC adapters and other types of common objects. Hidden cameras are virtually undetectable to the human eye, and you can choose the concealment that blends in and works best for your environment.

If you have an environment where placing a hidden camera disguised inside a common object is a challenge, you can use a micro camera, snake camera or button or pinhole camera hidden inside an existing fixture, such as a ceiling tile, air duct vent, desk drawer or even drapery or furniture.

3. Use Funneling to Your Advantage

If you really want to get the bad guys, look for funneling opportunities. A traditional surveillance system that is visible can be used to create a “funneling” effect. This is where you funnel potential wrongdoers to find the dark corners of buildings or other areas that fall outside of your security camera system’s view to commit a crime.

The dark corners and areas that fall outside of the CCTV security system’s view are ideal locations for placing a covert video camera, to catch indisputable evidence of the bad guys in the act. We have found that this funneling effect works so well that some businesses (that have been without cameras altogether) are now installing traditional CCTV just so they could create smaller areas to focus their surveillance attention.

4. Leverage Camera Angles

Surveillance video is worthless if you don’t capture the right angle that provides a clear facial shot of a thief or criminal to make a positive identification.

You can use hidden cameras to your advantage by placing them at various angles. You can place covert cameras at eye level or below to capture facial shots that may be missed by overhead cameras.

5. Change Locations

Another strategy that will help you get the bad guys involves using covert investigation kits that enable you to move your extra set of eyes to capture the action when they think you are not looking.

The ability to change locations of the covert surveillance solution provides flexibility to adapt to your environment and needs to capture criminals in the act. Mobile and body-worn covert surveillance solution enable law enforcement agents to frequently change locations and provide surveillance when and where it’s needed.