Using CCTV for Workplace Safety Compliance Checks

Treat the cameras as a scheduled walkthrough of one fixed area: a still image every 10 to 60 minutes, a short list of yes-or-no criteria for that area, and a named person who reviews every flagged image and closes the finding.

Most warehouses and plants already have cameras covering loading docks, aisles, chemical stores and exits. They were installed for security, and the footage is usually watched only after something has gone wrong. The same views show conditions that safety inspections check: whether a fire exit is clear, whether drums are closed, whether pallets have crept into a walkway. This guide covers which checks suit a camera, how to set one up, and the privacy steps to take before you start.

Periodic snapshot checks versus live monitoring

There are two different ways to use cameras for safety. Live video analytics watches the stream continuously and reacts within seconds. A snapshot check saves a still image at set intervals and reviews those images later, either on a schedule or on demand. This article is about the second approach, which works with ordinary cameras and needs no change to the camera network.

The difference decides what you can catch. With one image every 10 minutes, a condition that lasts two hours appears in about twelve images. A forklift passing too close to a pedestrian, lasting perhaps 30 seconds, has roughly a one-in-twenty chance of being in any frame at all. Snapshot checks are good at persistent conditions and poor at brief events.

Soter's Help Centre makes the same point about its own CCTV setup: it describes it as a scheduled inspection tool for persistent physical hazards and compliance checks, and lists forklift near-misses and brief PPE lapses as events it may miss (Build Your Own CCTV Safety Monitor).

A public SoterAI webinar in September 2026 showed the approach in practice. A customer who runs an industrial painting business pointed a camera at a hazardous waste storage area, saved an image every 10 minutes, and had a scheduled workflow review the stored images twice a week against four criteria: lids sealed, drums on spill containment, no blockage in the area, and a spill kit present. Each criterion came back as pass, fail or unable to determine (Turn Your Security Cameras Into Compliance Tools, 3:32 to 8:03). Those four checks were his choice for his site. They are an example of how to write criteria, and they do not define what a hazardous waste inspection requires.

What a snapshot can and cannot show

Use the table to decide which conditions to give each camera. The frequencies are starting points to adjust after a few weeks of results.

The strongest rows map to written requirements that describe a visible state. US general industry rules say no materials or equipment may be placed within an exit route, permanently or temporarily (29 CFR 1910.37(a)(3)), and that aisles and passageways be kept clear and storage not create a hazard (29 CFR 1910.176). In Great Britain, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require floors and traffic routes to be kept free from obstructions so far as is reasonably practicable (regulation 12(3)). A camera can show whether an exit route is obstructed at 14:10. It cannot tell you whether the site meets the whole standard.

Machine guarding needs particular care. A camera may show an open guard panel; it will not show the hazards an assessment finds at the point of operation. For that work, see finding machine guarding violations before OSHA does.

What to set up

The setup has four parts: image export, a folder per camera, written criteria and a review routine. The first two are usually work for whoever manages the cameras; the last two belong to the EHS team.

1. Export still images from the camera or recorder

Many IP cameras and video management systems can save a still image on a timed schedule and send it to an FTP server or network share. From there, a synced folder moves it into cloud storage such as SharePoint or Google Drive. Soter's Help Centre lists setup steps for several common camera platforms and recommends JPEG or PNG files with a timestamp in the filename, for example camera1_2026-08-06_14-00.jpg, so each image can be matched to its time.

Choose cameras with a fixed view of one area, enough light on working shifts and nothing permanently blocking the scene. A camera that pans or zooms on a tour makes images hard to compare.

2. Keep one folder per camera

Put each camera's images in its own folder, named after the area, such as Camera-2-WasteArea. Separate folders let you give each area its own criteria and keep a loading-dock rule from being applied to a chemical store.

3. Write criteria as questions with three answers

Write three to six questions per camera that someone could answer from the image alone: "Is the walkway between the yellow lines clear of pallets?" works; "Is the area safe?" does not. Allow three results for each: pass, fail and unable to determine. The third answer matters. Glare, a parked truck or a person standing in front of the spill kit should produce "unable to determine", not a guess.

Base the questions on what your physical inspections already check. Your OSHA inspection checklist is a good source for visible conditions.

4. Set the capture interval and the review schedule separately

Capture and review are two schedules. In the webinar example, the camera saved an image every 10 minutes while the review ran twice a week across everything stored since the last run. A site that needs faster follow-up can review hourly instead. If review runs on a schedule, start it a few minutes after the camera's export time so the latest image has arrived; the Help Centre suggests an offset of 5 to 10 minutes.

5. Name who reviews findings and how they are closed

Each fail or unable-to-determine result needs an owner, a check on site or by a second look at the image, and a recorded outcome. Log confirmed problems as hazard reports and track the fix as a corrective action. Without this step the camera produces a growing folder of flagged images and no change on the floor.

6. Test with a known failure

Before relying on the checks, run them on a week of stored images and compare the results with what you know happened. Then stage a failure. In the webinar demo, the customer had moved the spill kit out of view before the image was taken, and the review returned a fail for that criterion. A test like this shows whether the criteria are specific enough and whether the camera angle actually covers the item.

Privacy, workers and unions

Pointing existing cameras at a new purpose changes how people on site are being monitored, even if no camera moves. Plan for it before the first image is reviewed.

In the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office publishes guidance on video surveillance, including CCTV, and on monitoring workers. The monitoring guidance says employers must inform workers about monitoring, should seek and document the views of workers or their representatives such as trade unions, and must carry out a data protection impact assessment before processing that is likely to be high risk. It also limits changing the purpose of monitoring: data collected for one purpose can only be used for another where the new purpose is compatible, the person consents, or there is a clear legal obligation or function. The ICO notes that this guidance is under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act, so check the current version (ICO: Data protection and monitoring workers).

In the US, there is no single rule to summarise here. Requirements vary by state, and a represented workforce adds questions for the union relationship. Ask employment or labour counsel before changing what the cameras are used for, and bring the union in early if there is one.

Some design choices make the change easier to explain and justify anywhere:

• Write criteria about conditions, such as a blocked exit or an open drum. Most condition checks need no one to be identified.
• Exclude areas where people expect privacy, such as break rooms, toilets and changing areas.
• Decide and write down whether findings can ever be used for individual discipline, and tell workers what was decided.
• Set a deletion schedule for the exported images and restrict who can open the folder.
• Keep audio out of the setup. Snapshot checks do not need it, and the ICO advises switching audio recording off by default when monitoring workers.

A person checks every finding

AI image review is useful because it reads hundreds of images that no one would open. It still makes mistakes in both directions. It can miss an item hidden by a pallet, mistake a grey bin for a closed drum or flag a spill kit that has been moved two metres to a new marked spot.

Build the review on that assumption. A person confirms each fail before it becomes a hazard record. Unable-to-determine results go to someone who can look on site. Once a month, sample some passes as well, because a criterion that never fails may be badly written or pointed at the wrong part of the image. When a finding is closed, the record should hold the image, the criterion it failed, who reviewed it and what was done. That trail is the evidence you can show in a later audit.

For a wider view of how automated checks sit alongside inspection programmes, see automated safety inspection software.

Where SoterAI fits

Soter's Help Centre documents a CCTV setup built with SoterAI custom workflows. The camera system exports images to a SharePoint or Google Drive folder; SoterAI reads that folder through a read-only connector and never connects to the camera network. The workflow instructions name the folder, the focus items and the rating scale, and the workflow can create a Hazard record when an image is flagged (Build Your Own CCTV Safety Monitor; Using SharePoint with SoterAI).

Workflows can run on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly schedule, or on a custom cron expression, in the user's own timezone (Scheduling Workflows). The Help Centre gives typical analysis time as 2 to 5 minutes per image, which is another reason to treat this as a scheduled inspection. TheCCTV monitoring workflow page shows the full build. To see the pattern on your own cameras, start with one area, four criteria and a week of images, and compare it with the hazard inspection workflow in the workflow library.

Pick one camera and four criteria before buying anything new. Browse inspection workflows.