The problem a centre manager inherits
Shop theft in a centre is everybody’s problem and nobody’s record. One shop catches security on the radio, another tells nobody, a third rings the Gardaí a day later and describes it from memory. The centre has no figures of its own, so there is nothing to bring to a tenant meeting, the board or the local Garda station except a feeling that it is getting worse.
Most of it is never reported at all. Staff don’t want the aggro, don’t have the time, or don’t think anything will come of it. With no reports, the Gardaí have no reason to think the centre has a problem.
What the centre gets
- A live feed of every incident logged in the centre, with anything happening now pinned to the top.
- Push alerts to security, management and every shop when an incident is logged as live.
- A dashboard by shop, by incident type and by estimated loss, printable for the board or a tenant meeting.
- A weekly Garda brief, built from what staff logged and emailed to your Garda liaison as a private link.
- Units, tenancies and members managed by the centre, so when a unit changes hands the record stays with the right shop.
- A printable sign-up sheet for each shop with a QR code, so staff join on their own phones in a couple of minutes.
How a centre gets started
- A 30-minute walkthrough of Lookout: the feed, an alert, the dashboard and a Monday brief.
- You are issued a one-time manager code. You sign up with it, add your units and shops, and name your Garda liaison.
- Each shop gets its sign-up sheet. Staff scan the code, pick their shop and turn on alerts.
- From then on a brief is generated every Monday from whatever the centre logged that week.
The data-protection paperwork
A DPIA, a tenant data-processing agreement and a plain-English privacy notice are being prepared and reviewed, and will be provided before go-live. Lookout records what happened and what people looked like, never who they are, and ordinary incidents delete themselves after 90 days.
What Lookout records, and what it never will →What it costs
Centres pay per centre, billed annually after a 90-day trial: €195 a month up to 25 shops, €395 a month for 26 to 60 shops, and €695 a month for 61 shops and more. It can be recovered through the service charge; for a 25-shop centre that is €7.80 per shop per month.
Full pricing →Not a shopping centre?
The same system runs a town centre, a main street or a retail park, with a committee, traders’ association, chamber or BID in the centre manager’s seat.
Lookout for town centres →What Lookout does not do
- It does not store names, run facial recognition or keep a “known shoplifter” list.
- It does not report to the Gardaí on a shop’s behalf. Each shop makes its own complaint; Lookout records whether it did, and the PULSE reference.
- It does not replace 999 or 112. If anyone is in danger, ring first.
- It does not let one centre see another centre’s data.