Construction site theft: how to protect a project

• Materials: anything easy to resell — copper, cable, metal sections, plumbing and electrical items before installation. They are most at risk while they wait on the ground.
• Tools: small, expensive and portable; they often go without any break-in, because nobody checks who leaves with what.
• Fuel: from tanks and from machine fuel tanks, usually at night.
• Plant and parts: generators, small machines, batteries, components taken from large machines.

The cost is not only the item’s value: a stolen cable or a disabled machine can stop a crew and push back the programme. So protection starts with an inventory: what is on site this week and where it is kept.

If the site works Monday to Friday, 07:00–18:00, it is staffed 5 × 11 = 55 hours a week. For the other 168 − 55 = 113 hours nobody is working there — and 61 of them run without a break, from Friday evening to Monday morning.

• Nights: darkness, nobody on site, noise that no one hears.
• Weekends and public holidays: the longest unbroken gap; a theft may only be found on Monday.
• Between phases: when one contractor leaves and the next has not arrived, nobody is in charge of the site.
• After a large delivery: materials on the ground before they are installed or locked away.

A post covered around the clock is 168 hours a week — on Greece’s 40-hour full-time week (Labour Code, art. 189), at least 4.2 full-time positions. The 113 out-of-hours alone are already 113 ÷ 40 ≈ 2.8 positions.

• Fencing: continuous and checked daily — an opening made for one delivery often stays open.
• Gates: as few as possible, locked, with a named person responsible for opening and closing.
• Lighting: perimeter, gates, stores and plant parking; no shadows behind stacks of material.
• Storage: a lockable container for tools and valuable materials, away from the fence line.
• Plant: parked together in a lit area, with no keys left in it.
• Fuel: a locked tank and a refuelling log, so consumption can be compared with machine hours.

OVIT starts each project with a perimeter survey: site boundaries, power availability, blind spots and high-value storage zones (worksite security).

• Access list: which companies are working this week, which people and which vehicles, kept up to date by the project manager.
• Gate log: name, company, time in and out, vehicle.
• Identification: a card or marking that shows which contractor each person belongs to.
• Leaving with materials or tools: only with written approval from the project manager.
• Keys: who holds which key, and handed back when the contractor finishes.

The list changes with the project: when a contractor finishes, they come off the list the same day. What the gate records is personal data, so agree from the start who manages it and how long it is kept.

• Static guard: constant presence, gate and delivery checks, immediate response. Takes the most hours.
• Patrols: visits at varying times with logged checkpoints. Fewer hours, but between visits nobody is there.
• Remote monitoring: cameras watched from a control room. Needs power and connectivity on site, and a plan for who goes when something is detected — a patrol or the police.

Site cameras follow the rules for any video surveillance in Greece: clearly visible signs before the camera’s range, naming the controller, the purpose and whom to contact about data-subject rights (DPA Directive 1/2011, art. 12); deletion within 15 working days at most if no incident occurs (art. 8); and no use to monitor or evaluate workers (Hellenic Data Protection Authority, art. 27 of Law 4624/2019).

For construction sites, OVIT designs turnstile access, mobile CCTV towers and patrol response to suit the project. In the Guardly platform the client sees patrols, incidents and reports in one live picture.

• Time and vehicle: when it arrived, which driver, which registration.
• Delivery note: what is declared, checked against the order.
• Count: what was actually received, and who counted it.
• Photo: the load and where it was stored.
• Signature: who received it on behalf of the project.

For incidents — break-in, theft, a cut fence, an unknown vehicle — record the time, place, what was found, photos, who was told and whether the police were called. The record serves the police, the insurer and the conversation with contractors; a Saturday incident written up on Monday has already lost detail.

A delivery that was never counted cannot later be proven stolen. The first gap in the chain is often at the gate, not in the night.

• Excavation and foundations: heavy plant and fuel; focus on the perimeter, lighting and keys.
• Structure: rebar and steel on the ground, many lorries; focus on the gate and deliveries.
• Services and finishes: cable, copper, equipment and appliances inside the building; focus on floor-by-floor access control and nights.
• Before handover: the building is nearly finished and empty; the risk lasts until the owner takes it over.

Agree from the start that cover is reviewed at every programme milestone, with the previous phase’s incidents on the table. Request a proposal for your project.