As per New York State law, a Security Guard is a person (other than an active police officer) employed in New York State to principally perform one or more of the following duties, and the person is not performing the functions of a private investigator as defined in Section 71 of Article 7 of the General Business Law:
- protection of persons and/or property from harm, theft, and/or unlawful activity;
- deterrence, observation, detection, and/or reporting unlawful or unauthorized activity;
- street patrol service;
- response to, but not installation or service of, a security system alarm.