Buying a camera kit online takes ten minutes, and for a while it feels done: lenses in place, phone buzzing at every movement. Then someone points out that one camera films the counter where your shop assistant works all day, that there is no sign at the door, and that the recorder has been keeping footage for a month because nobody ever chose otherwise. In a workplace these are not details to tidy up later: they are the design. At home you decide; where customers and employees walk in, the law decides first.
The service is the complete project for shops, offices, warehouses and workshops: site survey and camera positions, data cabling with PoE power, recording to an NVR, SD card or cloud, app and notifications on your phone, privacy masks wherever a lens would take in too much, signs and notices in the right places. Turn-key here means something precise: the system handed over working and tuned, plus the technical file — camera map, angles, masks, retention times — written into the end-of-job report, ready for the union agreement or the Labour Inspectorate application whenever they are needed.
The formula is a turn-key project: site survey, one clear fixed quote before we start, installation and a handover test done together. And we are upfront about the boundaries of the trade: we are an IT lab, not a security firm — the system alerts you, it does not send anyone; mains electrical work belongs to your licensed electrician; the union agreement or the Inspectorate application are not ours to file — we tell you in advance that they are needed and we prepare the technical part. For your home, there is a dedicated page.
In a shop the first question is not how many megapixels, but who ends up in the frame. At home, a camera watching your own property sits under a lighter regime; step through the door of a business and that regime is gone: customers walk into the lens and, almost always, so do the people who work for you. Italian law has been precise here for over half a century: Article 4 of the Workers' Statute (law 300/1970, rewritten in 2015 by the Jobs Act reform) governs any system from which remote monitoring of employees' activity could derive. The boundary — echoed by Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, in its video surveillance FAQ — is that workplace cameras are lawful exclusively for organisational and production needs, for safety at work or to protect company property. The three purposes are no formality: they are the ruler for every camera position.
Before the switch goes on comes a signature: the union agreement or the Inspectorate's authorisation. Article 4 sets the route: a system that can film employees goes in after an agreement with the union representatives; where there are none — the typical micro-business case — an application goes to the National Labour Inspectorate's local office, on official forms. Europe's video guidelines pull the same way — the EDPB notes that "an employee in his/her workplace is in most cases not likely expecting to be monitored by his or her employer". Our role is stated up front: we are not employment consultants — agreement and application are not ours to draft. We tell you when they are needed, design the system so both are easy to respect, and the technical file — camera map, angles, masks, retention — comes out of our report: your consultant gets the paperwork, not the surveying.
The sign at the door is part of the system, not an afterthought. Whoever walks in — customer, courier, employee — must know before being filmed: the Garante's FAQ requires the notice placed before people enter the monitored area, a short sign saying who films and why, pointing to the full privacy notice; the exact camera positions need not be revealed, as long as it is clear which zones are covered. And the declared purpose must be real: the EDPB guidelines warn that justifying cameras with a bare "safety" or "for your safety" is "not sufficiently specific". Wherever a lens would take in too much, privacy masks do the work: the cashier's station cut out of the frame, the management screen blacked out, the pavement beyond the window trimmed away. The ground rule is minimisation: film what the declared purpose needs, not everything the lens can reach.
How long footage stays on the recorder is a choice to justify, not a factory default. The Garante's FAQ states the principle plainly: recorded images may be kept no longer than their purposes require, and the longer the retention — especially beyond 72 hours — the stronger the argument behind it has to be. Its own example is the small shop, whose owner would normally notice damage the same day: a retention of 24 hours is then sufficient, with weekend closures or holidays justifying somewhat more. We turn that choice into configuration: retention days set on the NVR, automatic overwriting, and the figure written into the report — so the business register, from the till to the stockroom to after closing time, stands up to an inspection rather than hoping never to face one.
The technique is our everyday trade; what changes in a business is the register, not the physics. Cabling is the choice that simplifies everything: with PoE, data and power travel on one network cable, so the camera goes where it is needed, not where a socket is — and if the company network needs sorting first, that comes first. On recording we are frank: an on-site NVR keeps recording with the line down, cloud copies outlive a stolen recorder, and the honest design often combines the two. App and notifications land on your phone, and the system's admin credentials are documented and handed to you: they belong to the business, not to us. Boundaries go in the quote: new sockets and mains work to your licensed electrician; no guarding, no call-outs. For your home there is the dedicated page; for formulas and quotes, the business area.
| Rooms and camera positions | shop, office or warehouse: how many zones to cover and what each must actually see — every position is a small project |
|---|---|
| Who is in frame | goods and entrances only, or workstations too: the Article 4 frame changes design, masks and timelines |
| Cabling and network | where the PoE cable can reach, where the cabinet sits, whether the switch copes: sometimes the network gets sorted first |
| Where footage lives | on-site NVR, SD card or cloud: hardware, possible fees and what happens when the line goes down |
| Retention and access | how many days footage is kept and who may review it: decided first, then configured and written into the report |
| Electrical works | new sockets or mains runs are your licensed electrician's trade: priced into the quote from day one, not mid-job |
What genuinely moves the quote for this service: how many workstations and people, what is already in place, what must stay up. Agreed together before we start — and the quote, numbers included, arrives by email: one-off jobs by the hour, ongoing support priced to fit.
ElectrONIK Lab is an independent workshop: it is not an authorised service centre and is not affiliated with the manufacturers. The trademarks named here belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify the devices we work on. Your statutory consumer rights towards whoever carries out the repair are unaffected.
A free consultation, a clear quote up front and a written report after every job.