Site cameras for documentation — and what to use for security

Be clear about which job you are buying

One kind of site camera is part of a security system: live video, motion detection, alarms, a monitoring centre and somebody to call at three in the morning. Its job is to interrupt a theft while it is happening.

The other kind is a documentation system: a photographic record of how the project was built, kept so that months later anyone can see what the site looked like on a given day.

CONCAM is the second kind. We say so plainly on this page rather than letting the word "camera" do the work, because a site that thinks it has security when it has documentation is a site with a problem.

What CONCAM actually does

A weatherproof 4K camera is mounted on the site and photographs it every ten minutes, over its own built-in 4G connection, for the length of the contract. Each photo uploads automatically to encrypted EU cloud storage and is filed on an interactive project timeline you can wind to any date and hour.

There is no live video stream, no motion detection, no intrusion alarm and no monitoring centre. Nobody is watching a feed, because there is no feed to watch.

What you get instead is a complete record: archives you can download for any period, role-based access for clients and contractors, and share links for people outside the portal.

• A 4K photo every 10 minutes, uploaded automatically
• A project timeline you can navigate by date and hour
• No live stream, no motion alerts, no alarm, no guarding
• Encrypted, EU-only storage, aligned with GDPR

What to use for site security instead

If theft, vandalism or unauthorised access is the problem you are solving, talk to a security provider rather than a documentation provider. The things that actually work are a monitored alarm system with a response arrangement, guarding where the risk justifies it, proper lighting, and physical measures — hoarding and fencing, secure stores, locks, plant immobilisers and marked tools.

Ask a security supplier the questions that matter for that job: who receives an alert, how quickly, and what happens next. Those are not questions CONCAM answers, and we would rather you asked them of someone who can.

Where the documentation record still helps

It does not deter and it does not interrupt, but it does record. Because there is a photograph of the site every ten minutes, day after day, there is a documented picture of what was on site and how the site changed — which is often the first thing anyone asks for after an incident.

The two also sit together perfectly well. A monitored security system and a documentation camera are separate installations with separate jobs, and plenty of sites run both.