Three Favours for the Loss Prevention Manager
You hold a security guard licence under Alberta's Security Services and Investigators Act and work in-house at a retail chain's Edmonton warehouse with 300 staff. The loss prevention manager - who holds no licence - asks you to do three things: (1) covertly follow a named employee for two weeks and record who he meets after shift; (2) question him in the lunchroom about missing phones without telling him why; (3) cut the padlock off his assigned locker while he is on shift and search it. The manager adds that the handbook says lockers are company property and "the union can't stop us."
1. Which of the three requests fall outside your authority, and under what law? How do you respond to the manager?
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Alberta licenses security work by individual and by class. The two core functions are security services (guarding people and property) and investigation services (surveillance, inquiries, gathering information about people). They are licensed separately, and your guard licence does not authorize investigator work. Confirm the exact class wording with the Registrar's office before you rely on it - but the principle is stable: the licence defines the task.
- Request 1 - covert surveillance of a named person over two weeks: outside your authority. This is squarely investigation work, done covertly, about an identified individual. It is also personal information collection governed by Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act.
- Request 2 - a confrontation interview: not a guard function, and legally risky. If he is not free to leave, it becomes a detention; if accusations are put as fact, it edges toward the torts of intimidation and defamation. It is also the unionized employer's disciplinary process, which carries its own collective agreement obligations.
- Request 3 - cutting a padlock and searching a locker: the closest of the three to a guard function, but not yours to lead (see next task).
How to say no: in writing, framed around risk and cost, not around stubbornness. "I'm not licensed for investigative surveillance; if we do this without a licence the company and I are both exposed under the SSIA, and anything we find becomes hard to use. The route is a licensed investigator or EPS." Then copy your supervisor. A guard who quietly does the task anyway owns the liability personally - the licence is yours, not the manager's.
2. Analyse the locker search. What makes it lawful or unlawful, and what is your proper role in it?
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What supports it
- The locker is on company property and the handbook states it is company property subject to search with a manager present. Clear, communicated policy reduces - it does not eliminate - the employee's reasonable expectation of privacy.
- An employer has a genuine property and loss-prevention interest, and a private employer is not bound by the Charter. On these facts no police officer is directing the search.
What cuts against it
- The search must follow the written policy: notice, a manager present, scope limited to what is being looked for, and a record of what was found. Improvising off the side of the policy turns a defensible search into a high-handed one.
- Cutting the padlock destroys property. The padlock may be the employee's, not the company's. Photograph it, cut only if the policy or a manager authorizes it, and keep the pieces.
- Anything collected is personal information under PIPA - collect the minimum, keep it secure, and share it only on a need-to-know basis.
- If a union is involved, the collective agreement may add notice or representation requirements. "The union can't stop us" is a manager's opinion, not an answer.
Your proper role: security presence and scene integrity at the door, a witness, and an accurate record of who searched, when, what was moved and what was seized. You do not lead the search for stolen goods; a manager conducts it, with HR informed. Write the record even if nothing is found - an empty search with a contemporaneous note is powerful evidence later.
3. You are then told to question the employee in the lunchroom and "not let him leave until he admits it." What are the legal landmarks here?
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Detention is the danger zone. Private security may detain only with lawful authority - a valid citizen's arrest (Criminal Code s. 494), or a statutory power such as the Trespass to Property Act remedy for someone found committing an offence under that Act. Neither exists here: no one saw this employee take a phone. Blocking the door, taking his keys or telling him he cannot leave without that authority is false imprisonment, and it can amount to assault the moment you touch him.
Say it out loud. "You are not under arrest. You are free to leave. I'd like to talk to you about a discrepancy and you can decline." Then mean it - a door left open, no one standing between him and it.
No threats, no promises. "Admit it and we won't call police" is a promise you cannot keep; "you'll be fired and never work in retail again" is a threat. Both destroy any statement you get and expose the company.
Record, don't conclude. Verbatim quotes and observed behaviour - "he said, 'I don't know what you're talking about'" - not "he was evasive and clearly guilty."
Criminal versus employment. The company can discipline; only police and the Crown can investigate and charge. Confusing the two is how organizations end up defending a wrongful dismissal with a security guard as the star witness.
The best answer to "don't let him leave" is: "I can't hold him without grounds; here's what I can do - document, preserve the records, and call police if the company decides to report it."