The Era of Searchable Surveillance Has Come

The proliferation of security cameras, analytics and digital video recording devices has lead to the dilemma of data overload.

Security professionals are tasked with protecting critical assets, but for decades they have been forced to struggle with grainy video, reduced manpower and financial resources, and technology shortcomings that have kept them in an unfavorable position of reactive threat assessment.
The idea that installing more surveillance cameras provides more security is not a panacea. What if that video data cannot be searched in a useful way? The proliferation of security cameras, analytics and digital video recording devices has lead to the dilemma of data overload: numerous hours and security personnel are required to troll through raw video in the hope of pinpointing the exact time of a security violation. This is hardly conducive to rapid investigation and resolution.

By Stephen Russell

At present, security systems are inefficient, lack integration and are not scalable to meet the needs of large or geographically dispersed organizations.  The challenge is heightened by the rapid convergence of physical and IT security systems.  Existing reactive alarm systems and raw video review are insufficient for overcoming the wide and diverse range of threats facing companies and government organizations, leaving them vulnerable to security breaches. 

SHIFTING THE SECURITY PARADIGM

With the advent of Intelligent Video Management Systems (IVMS), however, security personnel are finally being empowered to take a more proactive role in preempting incidents and rapidly resolving investigations.  New IVMS advances can convert the unstructured video content captured by surveillance systems into a powerful base of structured information -- a central source of security information that can be readily accessed, analyzed and used to meet today’s security needs.

For example, a truly effective video surveillance system must satisfy 10 critical functionalities:

• Real-time Search: Capable of providing comprehensive search using any analytic across every video feed instantaneously.
• Face Capture: Able to identify individuals and automatically log individuals’s presence.
• Watchlist Management: Able to track individuals into various groups of authorized and unauthorized individuals.
• Suspect Alerts: Able to proactively identify individual threats and send alerts without an operator watching.
• Object and Behavior Analytics: Able to detect suspicious activity without an operator watching motion or objects.
• Integrated Digital Recording: Able to record as well as provide analytic functionality.
• Multiple Analytics: Support a range of facial biometrics and analytics to handle the range of threats faced.
• Open Analytic Platform: Capable of easily expanding to new analytics as they develop, as well as integrating with new and existing systems.
• Unified Monitoring Console: Capable of displaying all analytical and monitoring information on a unified display.
• Scalable Intelligence: Capable of managing analytic intelligence across every video feed and scalable to thousands of cameras.

The new generation of IVMS integrates all these critical functionalities, in turn enabling security organizations to address the central security issues with which they have been chartered:

• Proactive monitoring for increased situational analysis.
• Accelerated investigations.
• Enterprise management and integration.
• Increased staff productivity.

PROACTIVE MONITORING FOR INCREASED SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

An IVMS platform puts security professionals in control of their security environment through a single screen that delivers relevant video data managed and made useable by sophisticated analytics -- allowing them to quickly assess and respond to security threats or events.  Using exception-based rules, IVMS detects real-time events and responds with actions specified by the security manager, highlighting the information on a full security event dashboard and maximizing the manager’s situational awareness.

ACCELERATED INVESTIGATIONS

IVMS combines high-end record and store capabilities with multiple advanced analytics in a single, searchable, scalable system that is as easy to deploy as a DVR.  By unifying metadata and indexing all activity -- thousands of hours of video -- in a searchable surveillance database, IVMS enables security officers to instantly ‘Google’ even the largest distributed archives for people, objects and behaviors, receiving search results in seconds.  As a result, they gain the ability to dramatically increase the success of their investigations.

ENTERPRISE-WIDE INTEGRATION

In the past, a technology upgrade meant either tearing out the existing system or installing new technologies without any hope of integration.  IVMS, however, makes the most of an enterprise’s existing equipment and IT infrastructure investments, allowing new technologies to be layered on top of the platform as necessary without compromising integration or functionality.

An integrated database means data can be shared across silos and geographic locations.  This is a very useful feature for security managers, as policies can be centrally published along with watch lists and alerts.  That way, even if a staff member is unaware of a particular policy or alert, the system will be -- greatly reducing the potential for human error.

INCREASED STAFF PRODUCTIVITY

Security professionals have been forced to do more with less, namely, solving more investigations with fewer resources.  This becomes much easier to do with an IVMS platform.  Companies save hundreds of hours of investigation time and get regional consolidation of security operations.  Also, security officers can be more strategic with tools that make them more proactive and effective.

EFFECTIVENESS IN REAL WORLD ENVIRONMENTS

The Talbott Hotel in Chicago, the United States, is a real-world example of how IVMS can be successfully used to thwart offenders and solve investigations.

Not too long ago, a guest at the Talbott Hotel realized her room had been burglarized.  By the time police arrived, hotel personnel had located high quality images and clips of the thief from several angles and cameras.  The hotel had installed an IVMS only three weeks earlier, and it provided the critical video information to police that enabled them to quickly catch the criminal.

While it is not unusual for hotels to use security cameras, it is unusual for video to be instrumental in preventing loss and expediting investigations -- simply because of the volume of video produced by a network of security cameras.  A mere 10 cameras, running 24/7, produce 1680 hours of video to wade through each week.  Most hotels have many more than 10 cameras, making it extremely difficult and time-consuming to locate necessary video information when a security event takes place.  In such an environment, it is evident what a powerful, positive impact an IVMS solution can have on the success of security operations.

INTEGRATED ANALYTIC SUITE

Some modern IVMS solutions also feature the unprecedented integration of sophisticated biometrics, object and motion analytics.  Traditionally, biometric capabilities have been sold as bolt-on analytics that are expensive, complicated to use, not scalable, and not easily integrated into the existing surveillance network.  However, the new generation of IVMS can combine:

• Videorecord and store functionality; 
• Biometric face recognition; and
• Motion analytics that enable motion detection, perimeter control, restricted area control, abandoned/removed object detection, and motion direction detection.

With such integration, enterprises can add a new analytic capability to an existing system with the flip of a switch.  They can deploy a range of analytics to suit the location of their cameras and their individual security needs, such as turning on facial recognition for entrance and exit cameras, activating object and motion analysis for perimeter defense, and being aware of abandoned and removed objects in key areas.

Searchable, highly-integrated solutions -- such as the latest IVMS platforms -- make it possible for organizations to take proactive measures to detect and preempt threats, pinpoint security events, and conduct faster and more comprehensive investigations.

Stephen Russell is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of 3VR Security, Inc. (www.3VR.com).

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