A simple business concept which could be useful to one or two of you

I don't want to cause any more argument on this thread but I do wonder about the legality of this scheme in the UK. I work in a large store and the privacy laws do not allow us to show what the CCTV has filmed to anybody but the police. We shouldn't even show it the rest of the staff unless they are involved in an incident.

Knowing that, how can it be right I wonder, that random members of the public can sign up to an Internet site to watch in store CCTV? As a retail worker I would also feel uncomfortable if I knew that my company was taking part in a scheme like this. We all know that the CCTV can be played back and watched, but at least there would have to be an incident to cause the viewing. With this scheme anybody could watch (for a small registration fee!!!) Probably earning a pittance for the privilege of being bored to death by CCTV for countless hours without even an hourly wage, but busy bodies might not care about that.

My experience as a retail worker also tells me that this idea is flawed, I'll give some examples.

At least 3 times a week thieves come into the shop and fill large bags or shopping baskets with meat (worth between £50 and £100 each time) then leg it. We manage to foil at least 3 other meat thefts per week through luck or customer/staff vigilance.

The same happens with booze, H & B or baby products. Meat, H & B and baby products are often pre ordered from the shoplifters by people in pubs - they probably nick the booze for themselves to celebrate.

Large groups of children from the local school come in on their way to school or lunchtime, it's surprising just how many sandwiches, hot pies, chocolate, crisps, sweets and drinks have disappeared when we do our regular stock checks.

Warnings going to email or smartphone - waste of time. By the time anybody would see and have time to act upon these warnings the thieves would have legged it. If you get there in time you may be threatened verbally or with weapons - even needles, pushed out of the way or punched. You are not allowed to do anything but touch a thief's elbow or you could get charged with assault.

Yes they are on CCTV, but most of the time when the incidents are shown to the police thieves don't look up at the cameras and often wear baseball caps or hoods and are unrecognisable.

One incident involved a guy in a mask waving a gun around in front of the tills at a time of day when the shop was full of frightened young children. I was up in the office and rang the police straight away. I was told to watch the CCTV and give an account of what was happening as it happened. The thief made the assistants at the tills empty them then left the shop. The police turned up at least 15 minutes after he'd gone but they caught him. He didn't get prosecuted despite the mask with his fingerprints being found outside the shop and his DNA being on one of the assistant's arms from when he grabbed and threatened her. Not enough proof!!!

Would anything have been different with this warning system with any of these examples? I doubt it and that's why I think this business concept is flawed for my shop and many thousands of other stores in the same national group at the least.

By far the best loss prevention we've had in all of the years that I've worked there has been a security guard on the door, but that only happens for a short time after the worst thefts. Staffing budgets don't run to security guards, but it would be better spent on them than this big brother scheme.