Surveillance Room: Confidentiality

By Jim Goding

Confidentiality of information is one of the most important operating principles of the casino surveillance room, or any other investigative area. There are four areas in which this principle operates:

• 1.      Intelligence information about investigations and casino operations
• 2.      Information regarding casino personnel
• 3.      Information regarding casino patrons
• 4.      Information regarding surveillance room operations and personnel

Having broken this wider concept down into four smaller areas, we will now examine each of them in turn.

Intelligence Information

Information comes into the Surveillance room from a number of sources. Chief among these, of course, is video camera surveillance of the operational areas of the casino floor, back lines and perimeter areas. Other sources of information include executive and supervisory personnel from all areas of the casino, security officers, radio traffic, reports both formal and informal from other personnel, customer complaints, interviews with staff in disciplinary actions, and plain gossip. Information for investigations can also come in from other outside sources, such as police and gaming officials. Internal and external auditors can supply information regarding areas to watch. Occasionally special intelligence information can come to Surveillance through other confidential informants developed by Surveillance staff. Guarding the integrity of one’s sources of information takes a very high priority. Even the senior executives of the organization really have no need to know the original sources, in cases of confidential informants, staff reports, and so on. . . . .

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Summary

Confidentiality of information is vital to the operation of the department. In order to safeguard the organization and ensure the integrity of our investigations, Surveillance information is not distributed beyond our own command channels. Release of privileged or sensitive information puts the organization at risk, presenting liabilities of privacy violation and other legal risks.

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Copyright ©  2009, 2011 by Jim Goding. All rights reserved. Duplication in any form, electronic or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author is forbidden, is a violation of the proprietary rights of the author and is actionable under law.