Have you got what it takes to be a spy? Do you have a licence to thrill? The Firm has joined forces with Scottish surveillance event company Spymasters to offer Scottish lawyers the chance to show just how sly and slippery they can be.

Surveillance is big business. There is no doubt that we are turning into a nation of voyeurs. Our favourite television programmes are based on us watching people in uncompromising situations - or simply sharing a house with a load of total egotistical nut jobs. And then, of course, there is CCTV, which watches us as we go about our daily business. The latest figures show that in Britain there are more than 4.2 million CCTV cameras, which equates to around one camera for every 14 people. Other figures suggest that the average UK citizen going about their daily business can be photographed up to 300 times a day by CCTC cameras.
It all sounds like quite frightening stuff, but Eddie Gilmour isn’t afraid. As one of Scotland’s leading authorities on surveillance, with 15 years experience surveilling people in many high profile cases for Strathclyde Police Force, he sees the benefits of the rise of CCTV coverage.
“I personally don’t agree with the view that CCTV cameras infringe people’s privacy and civil liberties. I think that overall the population will benefit more from having cameras in place than they will suffer because of them.
“I think you have to take it back to basics and look at city centre crimes that are now prosecuted that would never have happened before without CCTV footage of the attack. When you become a victim of crime and CCTV solves that crimes for you, and the police are able to catch the perpetrator, then this changes your views on CCTV cameras.”
In 2005 Gilmour’s affinity with surveillance saw him radically shift his focus from catching criminals to using his skills in surveillance to help the corporate marketplace by launching his own business, called Spymasters.
When it launched Spymasters became Scotland’s only provider of real life surveillance espionage for team building and corporate events and has since taken staff from companies such as Royal Bank of Scotland, the Scottish Government, AEGON, Strathclyde Passenger Transport and Glasgow Housing Association through a range of team-building events.
As Gilmour explains: “Our Spymasters events aim to cover and work on a whole range of important people skills such as team building, team working, strategic thinking, planning, managing people, observation and, perhaps most importantly, communication. These are all very important skills that any company needs to ensure its staff excel at. Our events put people into surveillance-type situations and forces them in an enjoyable and challenging way to focus on these key skills and to really focus on communicating effectively with other team members.”
“The idea for Spymasters came about when I was involved in running surveillance courses for the police. It struck me that a lot of the skills we were teaching would be transferable to the corporate marketplace. I thought that there would be a lot of people out there who would like to get involved in something like this, something which they read about in the newspapers and watch on TV all the time, and that it would be beneficial to them in their work and in their workplace.”
And so Spymasters was born in Glasgow and it has now grown to employ 11 people, all of who are former surveillance experts.
In September, Gilmour launched a new internet-based event, Spyhunt, which is an against the clock interactive team event, designed to test planning, delegation, communication and time management skills in a creative learning environment. The event starts by logging on to the internet for a mission briefing. The brief outlines the scenario and objectives and provides relevant advice and clues. Teams are then required to physically take part in the mission and meet with a spy at a nearby location, utilising various gadgets and disguises contained in the spy kit provided. Team performances are measured both by time and against other teams participating.
Gilmour says: “The Spyhunt event is unique and offers companies a fun hands-on way of developing team building skills and nurturing employee attributes such as communications and delegation skills. We won’t make any budding James Bonds from the courses but we can guarantee that companies will see huge benefits in staff development, morale and team building.”

ARE YOU THE NEXT BOND?
So, do you and your colleagues want to try your hand at being a spies for the day?
The Firm has joined forces with Spymasters to hold a special Spyhunt event in Glasgow on Friday 29th February. We are looking to recruit teams of five people who think they have what it takes to be the next James (or Jennifer) Bond. If you would like to enter email richard.draycott@carnyx.com with the names of your team. We are looking to get up to 20 teams to take part, so sign up today to avoid disappointment. For more information visit www.spymasters.org.