Why the market is like this
Technical surveillance countermeasures is not a licensed profession in most states. Anyone may call themselves a sweep team, and the equipment ranges from a thousand-dollar detector that beeps near a microwave oven to a spectrum analyzer that costs more than a car. The customer rarely sees anything found, because usually nothing is there, so a poor inspection and a good one produce the same reassuring result. The only protection is the report, and what the vendor was willing to put in it.
We perform inspections ourselves with field equipment that finds what is actually planted in athletic programs, and we bring in a named partner with laboratory-grade equipment when a sealed-room certification is warranted. We would expect to be asked these questions, and we think every vendor should be.
1. What equipment will you use, and what can it not detect?
A professional answers the second half without being prompted. Radio-frequency equipment detects transmitters that are transmitting; a device that stores and sends later, or sends in a burst at three in the morning, may not be. A non-linear junction detector finds electronics in walls and furniture, powered or not, and also finds the nails. Thermal cameras see heat, which means a device that is switched off is invisible to them. Optical lens finders find camera lenses that are pointed at the finder. Each instrument covers part of the problem, and a vendor who claims one of them covers all of it is selling the instrument.
The answer should also name the categories: radio-frequency survey, optical search, thermal and physical inspection, device discovery across Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular, and inspection of telephone and data lines. If the vendor does only one, the price should say so.
2. What will the report say if you find nothing?
The honest answer is that it will say nothing was found, by these instruments, in these rooms, on this date, against this threat, and that it will list what was not examined. A report that says the room is clean, or clear, or secure, has promised something no instrument can deliver. The phrase to listen for is what we did not do. A vendor who volunteers it can be trusted with the rest.
The report should also include observations: matters that are not devices but bear on security, such as a door that does not latch, a closet on a master key behind the staff room, or a conference telephone that is always live. In the principal's experience these observations are where most of the value of an inspection lies, because they are what a motivated person would actually use.
3. What do you do if you find something?
Photograph it in place. Do not touch it until the client contact has been told, by telephone, the same day. Preserve it with a chain-of-custody note so that it is useful to campus police and, if it comes to that, a court. Do not remove it until the department has decided whether it would rather know who comes back for it. A vendor whose answer is that they pull it out and hand it to you has destroyed the only evidence of who put it there.
4. Who, personally, will be in the room, and are they licensed for anything else you are offering?
The person on the proposal should be the person in the building. Sweep vendors subcontract, and the subcontractor's equipment and judgment are what the department is actually buying. Ask for the name.
Ask also what else the vendor offers. Some sweep companies also sell investigation, monitoring or jamming equipment. Investigation of an individual requires a state license in most states; jamming is unlawful under federal law for private parties; monitoring of a department's own staff is a decision for counsel, not a line item. A vendor who offers all four in the same conversation should be asked which license covers which.
5. How often do you think we should do this?
The wrong answer is monthly. The right answer begins with a question: which rooms, and what happens in them? A war room where the weekly install and personnel decisions take place warrants inspection on a schedule and after any renovation or re-key. A bowl meeting room warrants inspection before the first meeting. A position coach's office probably warrants nothing. An assessment of how the program actually operates answers this for every room, and most programs require fewer inspections than they feared. A vendor whose recommendation is the same for every room is recommending revenue.
What a good answer sounds like
It is specific about instruments and candid about limits. It describes a report the department could hand to its counsel and its campus police without embarrassment. It names the person. It declines to do the things it is not licensed to do and says who is. And it ends by suggesting that the department might need less than it asked for. That last part is the tell. The firms worth hiring are the ones that will talk themselves out of work.
Technical surveillance countermeasures · What a sweep can and cannot find · The sweep report, section by section