Oregon OLCC: Security Camera System Requirements for Cannabis Farms and Dispensaries

(1) A licensee must have cameras that continuously record, 24 hours a day, in all areas with marijuana items on the licensed premises.

(2) A licensee must:

(a) Use cameras that record at a minimum resolution of 1280 x 720 px;

(b) Keep all surveillance recordings for a minimum of 40 (updated to 90 or more, if requested) calendar days and in a format approved by the Commission that can be easily accessed for viewing and easily reproduced;

(c) Have a surveillance system that has the capability to produce a still photograph from any camera image;

(d) Have the date and time embedded on all surveillance recordings without significantly obscuring the picture;

(e) Archive video recordings in a format that ensures authentication of the recording as a legitimately-captured video and guarantees that no alterations of the recorded image has taken place;

(f) Keep surveillance recordings for periods exceeding 30 days upon request of the Commission and make video surveillance records and recordings available immediately upon request to the Commission for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the Act and these rules;

NEW RULE:

(d) Keep all surveillance recordings for a minimum of 90 calendar days and in a format approved by the Commission that can be easily accessed for viewing and easily reproduced, and upon request of the Commission, keep surveillance recordings for periods exceeding 90 days.

NEW RULE 12/28/2016:

Location of back up recordings. Keeping back up recordings on-site is no longer an option at all (OAR 845-025-1450(4) has been removed). Back up video must be made in real time and kept off of the licensed premises. Applicants are permitted to submit a waiver request, but it is highly unlikely it will be approved given that the rules still only require that back up recordings be kept of the surveillance room or area.

How to Comply with the Oregon Recording Regulations:

Oregon requires that you have at least 720P (1280 x 720 px) resolution cameras. This means that you have to pick HD cameras. All of our cameras are HD.

How to Comply with the Oregon Storage Regulations:

Like most states, the storage requirements are the hard part. You originally were only required to store 40 days of footage, but now that is 90 days. We cover storage requirements pretty in depth on the main Cannabis regulations page.

How to comply with the real-time backup requirement

Like many other states on this list, Oregon, has passed a regulation that doesn't reflect actual conditions on the ground. A 1080P camera requires about 5 MBps in upload speed, which is about the average upload speed for most people in the United States : meaning most people can't upload one camera to the cloud in full 3MP or 4MP resolution. Since most of our cannabis customers actually record in 3 or 4MP and have 30-60 cameras, this can be a major issue - you can't buy a internet connection speed that is fast enough to upload that much data. Because of these data limitations, high quality cameras don't tend to have cloud features.

We've seen inspectors rule two different ways of interpreting this rule.

1. "Off-site" means not in the same room. We've heard Oregon cannabis farms that get approved that connect a NAS for backup purposes, if that NAS is different part of the building.

2. "Off-site" means not in the same building. Here's how you comply with the law, when an inspector interprets the law this way: buy a Dropcam and put it in your storage room. Dropcam is made by Google and is a camera that is meant for watching pets or checking on the baby sitter. Although it is a bit light on resolution, security features, infrared, and won't let you watch multiple cameras at once, it does provide a really cheap convenient way for you to record video offsite - because it stores the video in the cloud. The law only requires that you have off site surveillance footage footage in that one room (we think because the state was worried that someone might break in and steal the recorder). Dropcams typically record in 720P (which is your minimum recording resolution), but can record up to 1080P - like all cloud cameras the resolution is based on your internet speed. Going with a completely separate cloud-based consumer-level camera is probably your only option.

Another reason that there could be such variance in the way that inspectors interpret the law could have to do with rural high speed internet adoption rates. Most urban centers have an upload speed fast enough to allow a Dropcam to upload the video, but rural locations (where you often find farms) have significantly slower internet speeds. Many rural locations don't even have one high speed internet option; the variance in interpretation may be due to whether your location have a high speed internet connection availible... or they may just be different rules by different inspectors.

*We're not lawyers and laws do change. We try our best to keep this page updated with changes to the law, but you should always do you own research or hire your own lawyer to guarantee compliance with the law.