Glossary
Incident report
An incident report is the structured record of an event a guard observes during a patrol: theft, damage, injury, suspicious activity, alarm response, environmental issue. In modern guard tour software, the report is filed from the mobile app at the point of observation, attached to the GPS location and the checkpoint context, and routed to the supervisor or client portal in real time.
Definition
An incident report contains: timestamp, location (GPS + nearest checkpoint), category (taxonomy varies by client — common categories include theft, damage, medical, suspicious activity, environmental, access violation, alarm response), severity (1-5 or low/medium/high/critical), free-text narrative, photos, optional video, optional voice memo, witness names, follow-up actions taken. The system links the report to the surrounding scans (the last scan before, the next scan after) and to the guard's full shift trail.
Context
The incident report is the highest-value artifact a guard tour program produces — it is the record that gets cited in litigation, insurance claims, internal audits and client SLA reviews. Quality varies enormously: paper logs produce illegible, unverifiable narratives; modern apps with structured taxonomies and required photo evidence produce reports that hold up under cross-examination. Multi-language taxonomies are critical for multinational programs.
Compliance relevance
Many regulators require incident reports to be retained on a defined schedule: HIPAA workplace incidents (6 years), OSHA 300 logs (5 years), GDPR-relevant data subject incidents (3 years per ENISA guidance). NERC CIP requires physical security incident reports for critical assets. Insurance carriers often require incident records within 24-72 hours of the event for valid claims.