Car park security

• Open car park: many pedestrian access points, lighting that does not reach the edges, vehicles next to the road.
• Multi-storey: ramps and levels that cannot be seen from the entrance, stairwells with little traffic.
• Underground: low visibility, few exits. Check whether there is mobile signal on every level; if not, the help point is the visitor's only line out.
• Hotel, shopping centre or hospital car park: open to visitors, with peaks, closing time and staff shift changes.

Start from what has already happened — reports, complaints, damage — and walk the car park at night through the eyes of a visitor leaving alone. The method is that of a security risk assessment.

• Lighting: even, with no dark corners, especially in stairwells, lifts, pay machines and pedestrian exits. A dead lamp is reported and replaced the same day.
• Visibility: clear, signed pedestrian routes to the exits; levels that are not needed are closed in quiet hours.
• Help points: a button or intercom on every level, answered by a person during all opening hours — not a recorded message.
• Escort: at night, the guard walks anyone who asks to their car.

Article 5 of Directive 1/2011 requires cameras to be necessary, meaning the aim cannot be met by milder means; it names more frequent checks by existing security staff, an alarm at the entry and exit of closed spaces, and better lighting. In a car park, these are also the first measures that pay off.

• Vehicles: a barrier with ticket or card, a list of permit holders, a rule for delivery and contractor vehicles.
• Pedestrians: few pedestrian entrances, with doors that close after hours; stairwells are not left open to the street.
• After closing: what happens to vehicles still parked and who is told.
• Logging: every exception — broken barrier, lost card, vehicle without a permit — is recorded with the time.

Entry conditions are the owner's terms, not the guard's powers. The guard has no power to stop, open or search a vehicle; the driver accepts the terms or not, and if not, does not come in. For anything suspicious, the guard calls the police.

Law 2518/1997 forbids security companies to use means and methods that may cause damage, harm or nuisance to third parties or endanger public safety (art. 4 §1ζ). The guard's limits are covered in what security guards can and cannot do and bag checks.

• Unpredictable schedule: the same route at the same time is quickly learned by anyone watching.
• Checkpoints: NFC or QR on every level and stairwell — see checkpoint patrols.
• What the guard looks for: broken glass or open windows, people moving between cars without heading to one, emergency doors left open, lights out, leaks.
• The guard on their own: scheduled check-ins and a man-down device — see lone security guard safety.

OVIT records patrols, incidents and reports in the Guardly platform, so the car park operator can see when the guard passed each level, and a real person at the operations desk answers when the guard needs help.

The Code of Criminal Procedure (art. 275 §1) gives every citizen the right to arrest the perpetrator of a misdemeanour or felony caught in the act — the guard has exactly that right, no more. For offences prosecuted only on complaint, arrest is not allowed unless the complaint has been made first (art. 275 §2). Anyone arrested is brought without delay before the prosecutor, within 24 hours at the latest (art. 279 §1): the guard hands them to the police at once, and neither holds nor questions them.

The Criminal Code (art. 22) defines self-defence as the necessary harm to an attacker to defend oneself or another from a present, unlawful attack. That is why post orders say plainly: people's safety and the police first, the vehicle second. In a real incident the police decide; for a specific case, get legal advice.

• The report: time, level and bay, description of people and vehicles, who was told and when — see incident report.
• The footage: export the clip at once, before the recorder overwrites it — see how long to keep CCTV footage.
• The vehicle's owner: informed through the car park operator.

• Where: public car parks, closed or open (art. 21 §3), and the car parks of shops and shopping centres (art. 19 §2).
• Not the street: perimeter cameras do not capture adjacent roads and pavements, save in exceptional cases (art. 6).
• Information sign before the vehicle enters camera range, i.e. before the ramp (art. 12) — see what the CCTV sign must say.
• Retention: with no incident, footage is deleted within 15 working days at most; an incident against the controller, 30 days; an incident involving a third party, 3 months (art. 8).
• Staff: cameras are not used to monitor or evaluate employees (art. 27 of Law 4624/2019, as the Authority points out).

The GDPR defines personal data as any information about a person who can be identified directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as an identification number (art. 4(1)). A registration number leads to the vehicle's keeper, so a list of plates with entry and exit times is a file of personal data and may be kept only as long as its purpose requires (art. 5(1)(e)). How plate reading is set up, and why a person verifies its alerts, is explained in the video analytics guide.

• Hotel: valet keys are kept locked, and every hand-over and return is logged. See hotel security.
• Shopping centre: more guards at peak times, a sweep after closing — covered in detail in shopping centre security.
• Hospital or clinic: ambulance access is always kept clear, and staff changing shift at night can ask for an escort. See hospital security.
• Offices: a list of bay holders and a rule for visitors, as in visitor access control.