What Victorian schools must settle first

This is the process as it actually runs, so you know what you are agreeing to before you accept a quote.

Government schools: the approval path

A Victorian government school cannot simply engage an installer and proceed. Installation must be approved by the Manager, Security Unit, in the Department of Education's Security and Emergency Management Division.

1. Consultation. The principal must consult the school council and take its views into account. Many schools extend this to staff, students and parents.
2. Expression of interest. The school submits the department's CCTV system expression of interest form to the Security Unit.
3. Initial design. The Security Unit assesses the request and works with the school on an initial design, approaching it from a risk-management position rather than a coverage-maximising one.
4. Quoting. That design is used to engage contractors for quotes, drawn from the department's list of recommended installers, through an approved procurement process. The department's CCTV installation guiding principles set the minimum standards — giving the same document to every installer is what makes quotes genuinely comparable.
5. Final approval. Before approval is confirmed, the school provides a marked-up site plan showing camera and equipment locations plus signage positions (the installer can produce this), the exact wording of the signage, and a signed CCTV policy acknowledgement.

Peninsula Smart Care is on the department's list of recommended installers, so we can be approached for quoting at step 4 and can produce the marked-up site plan your school needs for step 5.

The final decision to install rests with the principal, subject to the Security Unit's approval. Once made, the school must inform its community — newsletter, website statement or posted material on the grounds.

Where cameras can and cannot go

Schools must not install cameras in toilets, change rooms, dressing rooms, showers, or any other area where individual privacy is paramount. That list is not a guideline; it is a prohibition. Covert surveillance is not permitted either — schools cannot run their own hidden cameras, and the department will only consider it in exceptional circumstances, with Legal Division and the Privacy Branch involved.

What about classroom cameras?

Classrooms are not on the prohibited list, but they are not a default either. Most Victorian schools cover entries, gates, car parks, perimeters, corridors and yards, and leave classrooms alone. CCTV must not be used to monitor staff performance, and a camera pointed at a teaching space invites a conversation about exactly that. If your school has a specific, documented reason to cover a classroom or specialist space, raise it with the Security Unit during design rather than adding it at installation.

Audio is the one that catches schools out

Most modern IP cameras ship with a microphone, and on many systems it is enabled by default. Under the Surveillance Devices Act 1999 (Vic), it is an offence to knowingly install, use or maintain a listening device to record a private conversation you are not party to, without the consent of every party — with penalties reaching 1,200 penalty units for a body corporate. A camera recording audio in a corridor outside a counselling office is a live risk, not a theoretical one.

Ask your installer to confirm in writing whether microphones are enabled on the cameras being quoted, and have them disabled unless there is a specific, documented reason to record audio. If your school does want audio anywhere, that decision should be made deliberately, recorded, and covered explicitly in your signage and privacy notice.

Signage and the privacy notice

Signage is a compliance item, not an afterthought, and the department expects the provider to supply it as part of the installation.

• At every site entry and exit point, at minimum
• Understandable to people from non-English-speaking backgrounds — a mix of text and symbols
• Clearly visible, well lit, at normal eye level, and large enough to read easily
• Checked regularly for damage, theft and vandalism

Separately, the school must publish a CCTV privacy notice on its website or community platform, explaining the purpose of the system, listing camera locations or providing a map, and setting out how someone requests a record of footage. The department provides a template.

Retention: 31 days, and what that means for your storage

Footage must be securely retained for a minimum of 31 days. If it has not been accessed and no one has requested it, it may be deleted after that. Where footage has been accessed or requested, it becomes a record and falls under the department's school records management requirements.

This is the number that decides your recorder, and it is where under-specified quotes fail. Thirty-one days of continuous recording needs materially more storage than the two weeks many packaged systems assume. As an approximate working figure, a 4 MP camera recording continuously at a moderate bitrate consumes in the order of 40–50 GB per camera per week, so a 16-camera site needs roughly 30 TB of usable capacity to hold 31 days — before any allowance for drive redundancy. Motion-triggered or smart-codec recording reduces that substantially, but only if the settings are correct on day one.

Who can view footage

Access is limited to the principal and staff the principal nominates, authorised departmental Security and Emergency Management staff (including remotely), and anyone else permitted or required by law. Every occasion footage is accessed must be recorded in the department's viewed-footage register.

Schools cannot give copies of footage to staff, students or parents — those requests go to the department's Freedom of Information Unit. A principal may show specific footage of an incident to those directly involved, subject to conditions. Your system needs user accounts that make this workable: individual logins rather than a shared password, an audit trail, and export controls that do not require a technician to attend.

Catholic and independent schools

Non-government schools do not go through the Security Unit, but the practical bar is similar. Privacy obligations sit under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles rather than Victorian public-sector privacy law, the Surveillance Devices Act applies identically, and Victoria's Child Safe Standards — given effect for schools through Ministerial Order 1359 — require documented risk management of the environments in which children are present. A CCTV system, its placement decisions and its access controls are part of that documentation.

Specifying a system that lasts

• Vandal-rated hardware in reachable positions. IK10 housings on anything below roof height. School sites test equipment in ways offices do not.
• Cabling that supports the next system. Cat6 to every position, with spare runs to the locations you will want later.
• Camera choice matched to the task. A gate camera reading number plates and a yard camera giving situational awareness are different specifications. One camera type across a whole site usually means neither job is done properly.
• Recorder in a secure, ventilated, access-controlled location. Not a store cupboard that gets hot in February.
• A maintenance arrangement. A system nobody checks is a system that has failed silently since term two.

Timing the work

We schedule school installations in the holidays wherever possible. Booking a summer or term-break installation realistically means starting the design and approval conversation a term ahead, because the Security Unit stage is not instant. Already have a system that needs attention? See our CCTV repairs and servicing page, or the wider CCTV installation Melbourne service.

This page describes Victorian Department of Education policy as published at the time of writing and is general information, not legal advice. Schools should confirm current requirements with the department's Security Unit.