Best Practices:

Protect the Back Door

The back door facilitates the necessary logistics of any operation – e.g. trash removal and vendor receiving. Being the backdoor, relatively out of sight, it is often a susceptible portal to crime. Managing the back door with the appropriate policies and procedures, aided by technology, you can help to protect yourself against potential issues.

An effective backdoor policy should include:

• Times when the back door should not be opened at all – e.g. after dark or during peak hours.
• When (perhaps always) the backdoor is to be locked.
• Who possesses the keys to the backdoor – i.e. who is allowed to open the backdoor?
• The Backdoor should never be propped open.
• Any request to enter through the backdoor, for example, by a vendor, should be made at the front counter.

Actions

• Have a backdoor policy.
• Make sure your employees know and understand the policy. Post the policy where employees will frequently see it – perhaps on the backdoor, itself.
• Use a video surveillance system on the backdoor.
  • Bonus points for cameras both inside and outside (for outdoors you may want a camera that works well in poor lighting such as an IR camera).
• Use motion search with your video system to audit activity around the backdoor when there should be none and that employees are following protocol.