By Tim Ross
From the cost of physical components like cameras, video management systems, and storage, to service, downtime and replacement costs, surveillance systems are a continual drain on a security manager’s budget. The ideal system effectively addresses all of these costs, from fraud and theft to daily operations, providing a system that both costs less and is more effective in preventing loss. The total cost of ownership associated with a surveillance system can be broken down into three main value areas for security managers -- physical costs, operational costs, and investigative effectiveness.
Physical Costs
Surveillance systems will likely always require cameras, video management systems, and storage. There are few ways to get around this simple fact, but security managers can look at optimizing their purchases of these components to ensure that they get the most valuable possible. Systems that support converged camera installations are a good place to start -- why spend the money to replace your analogue cameras just because you want to try out IP cameras in one area?
Channel expansion provides another effective way to cut physical equipment costs. If a bank or retailer wants to add a 17th camera, with many systems they need to purchase a whole separate system just for that one camera. Channel expansion enables the addition of up to sixteen additional cameras depending on the system configuration. For those with thirty-two cameras, some companies are now offering 32-channel systems that eliminate the need for a second 16-channel box and bring a meaningful reduction in the cost of the surveillance system.
Virtualization technology, which has been a buzz word in the tech world for a couple of years is now making its way into the security world via camera virtualization. Virtualization essentially allows users to take one machine (in the tech world it’s usually a server, and in security it’s a megapixel camera) and “virtually” divide it into several. In a security application, this means that one megapixel camera could be set up to monitor four areas, but the data feeds from those areas would be kept separate and distinct as if they were coming from four different cameras. Four cameras for the price of one will eventually deliver a massive price cut on cameras for security managers.
Most organizations, security included, have to make a quantity Vs. quality decision when it comes to storage. Traditionally DVRs have handled the storage issue by arbitrarily “running” frames of video and degrading quality until the video eventually disappears from the system (usually after about thirty days). Now, companies are looking at better ways to tailor storage to the needs of the security industry. New systems allow users to choose which key frames they want to keep and for how long, and which frames can be discarded. This enables investigators to search through up to years’s worth of key events without security managers having to buy extra hard drives for storage.
Operational Costs
Once a surveillance system is installed, it can be effective in preventing loss, but it also continues to generate costs. Hard drive failures, if left undetected, can cause dangerous downtime and result in expensive emergency service calls. And sometimes, even setting up a system can be costly and time-consuming, especially if a system administrator has to manually go to each video management system within a network to set system requirements, users, roles, and permissions. Surveillance systems have recently progressed to the point where these costs are as minimal as possible. Real-time component health alerts notify managers and service organizations if a hard drive is predicted to fail, a camera has gone off line, or even if data has not been received in a specified amount of time. And enterprise management platforms enable system administrators to configure large networks centrally, and set user permissions across an enterprise to enable single sign-on.
Investigative Effectiveness
On the investigation side, there are dozens of ways that surveillance systems could be tailored to make investigators more efficient and effective. What makes a crime like check fraud so difficult to catch or prevent is that banks have little way of knowing that fraud has occurred until a customer notifies them of an unauthorized withdrawal -- this could be up to 60 days after the fact, and since fraudsters generally know about this time gap they’ve likely to have hit several more branches by this point and left town.
By changing identities and moving between branches, fraudsters can evade detection by even the most diligent of investigators. Even if the fraudster has hit other branches within the same national bank chain, it is rare that an investigator would be able to find and link the evidence they need to connect him or her to multiple cases. Oftentimes a repeat offender is caught and only booked with one charge of fraud because the other incidents have either not yet been discovered or have not been linked to the same fraudster. With only one count, the criminal serves minimal if any jail time, posts bail, and is back to work within days. If the fraudster has been smart enough to hit different bank chains, law enforcement officers have little hope of connecting the dots, or tracking down the evidence needed to charge and convict a suspect.
Though fraud poses a unique challenge to both bank fraud investigators and law enforcement agencies, various efforts are now converging to effectively combat the problem.
First, video surveillance technology has progressed to help bank fraud investigators identify and track fraudsters across branches. While surveillance systems have traditionally just recorded and stored footage -- requiring investigators to sift through hour after hour of video footage to find the event or suspect they’ve looking for new products like the 3VR system have incorporated analytical tools like facial recognition and advanced video searching capabilities into the system’s core. Using the same technology that made millions of Internet pages searchable, these systems make thousands of hours of video from geographically distributed locations searchable in minutes, drastically reducing the amount of time required for investigators to do their job. Underlying analytics like face recognition and motion analytics help investigators to find information about a specific case, link fraudsters to other cases, and ferret out links between accomplices to build cases against fraud rings.
This new breed of surveillance system is designed to streamline every aspect of the investigation process, including case management. Traditionally, investigators had to copy files to their desktop, CD, or external drive, and move back and forth between their surveillance system and their PC. When case management is built into the surveillance system, investigators can work from one system, build their case, store and archive it centrally, and easily share case data with other investigators and with law enforcement.
Way to Share Information
Then, while video surveillance has progressed, the banking and retail industries and law enforcement have increasingly sought ways to share information about fraudsters. The CrimeDex network, recently acquired by 3VR, provides a searchable online database that contains 14,000 fraud suspects and nearly 200,000 fraudulent check items representing just under US$1 billion in losses. Investigators and law enforcement officers can search the database by a number of parameters including check number, various suspect details, account number, or location.
In addition to the database, CrimeDex provides a network of over 600 financial institutions, retailers, and law enforcement agencies sharing information, and working together to fight fraud. Together, these solutions enable fraud investigators to link suspects to all of their fraud hits, build an enforceable case, share their information with other investigators to determine whether this fraudster can be linked to an even larger fraud sum, and sync up with law enforcement to ensure that the suspect is prosecuted for all of their crimes. The CrimeDex network also issues regional fraud alerts to warn banks, retailers, and law enforcement officers about fraudsters working in their area.
“Alearly there is great value in law enforcement, banks, credit unions, and retailers sharing information on fraud suspects,” says Commander James Ferraris, Portland Police Bureau Detective Division, Portland, OR, U.S.A. Ferraris was recently contacted by Jeff Rose, an investigator at the Boeing Employee Credit Union with a case that proved this point.
“Then I get assigned a check forgery or returned check case,” says Rose, “A cross reference information I have with CrimeDex to see if other law enforcement or financial institutions are working on the same case so we can get an arrest.”
In this particular case, says Rose, he received a case, ran a suspect search and came up with an exact hit. He contacted the Portland police and they confirmed that the suspect had US$90,000 in warrants. Armed with this information, Rose contacted his local police department in Seattle, U.S.A.; they did surveillance on the suspect’s house, and were waiting for her when she came home. She was indicted the same day Rose got the case.
Numerous mainstream banks and law enforcement agencies already use the CrimeDex database, and now surveillance systems have evolved to the point where this database can be used as part of an integrated approach to fraud management.
Mike Sheppard, Vice President of security at Metropolitan National Bank, says that in the past, the quick turnover of financial criminals could be attributed in part to the overpopulation of the nation’s prison system.
“It is easy for these criminals to pay their attorney fees and the bail bondsman, and get back to work,” he says. “They know what they are doing and it is hard for us to take care of our customers while being on the watch for people like that.” He says that 3VR is arming Metropolitan’s staff with the information it needs to reduce fraud.
“This takes a huge weight off their backs,” he says. “It protects their job and protects the company from having to fire an employee who cashes a stolen check.”
All of these elements working together allow security managers to derive real value from their surveillance systems -- reduced physical and operational costs, effective, efficient investigations, and proactive loss prevention all in one solution.
Tim Ross is the Co-founder of 3VR Security, Inc. (www.3vr.com).
For more information, please send your e-mails to swm@infothe.com.
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