V
KEVIN WATERHOUSE, MANAGING
KEVIN WATERHOUSE,
DIRECTOR
AT VCA TECHNOLOGY
MANAGING DIRECTOR AT
VCA TECHNOLOGY
Video analytics and Artificial Intelligence
are making their mark in a range of
different industries and security is
undoubtedly one of them. As businesses
rely less and less on vigilance staff,
video surveillance has become a
crucial business tool for security teams,
enabling them to not only analyse
footage retrospectively to identify
criminals, but also significantly improve
protection through live monitoring.
With the labour shortage affecting UK
Monitoring Centres and crime rates on
the rise, businesses have no choice but
to turn to technology to support their
overstretched teams and effectively
prevent security incidents. When
coupled with AI and Deep Learning,
video surveillance is able to deliver vital
information, empowering companies
to enhance security and make better
business decisions.
Here are five key video surveillance
trends we see emerging in 2020:
Surveillance cameras:
more than just security
Video Analytics have become a
standard requirement in many security
applications. However, as technologies
such as Deep Learning and AI become
more mainstream, video analytics will
Kevin Waterhouse, Managing Director
at VCA Technology
www.intelligentciso.com
|
Issue 22
FEATURE
help video surveillance stretch far
beyond its original remit. We should
expect to see an increasing number of
companies utilising their surveillance
cameras not just for security, but
also through video analytics and the
metadata they produce, to obtain
intelligent insight which can be used as
a core business tool.
False alarms in video surveillance
will decline due to increased
adoption of video analytics
One of the biggest challenges
continually faced by businesses when
it comes to security is the vast number
of false alarms raised by surveillance
systems, which is driving complacency
in the industry and increasing risk –
some monitoring stations can experience
several thousand false alarms from the
monitored CCTV systems each night.
With crime rates on the rise, 2020 will
see businesses increasingly adopting
video analytics within their current
systems, enhanced with AI and Deep
Learning, to exponentially improve
accuracy and detection rates.
Surveillance cameras will no
longer be a mere insurance
tick box exercise
The majority of businesses set up
security cameras for either insurance
purposes, as a mere tick box exercise,
without deriving any real advantage or
insight from the technology. While this
equipment represents a cost, companies
are happy to pay it in return for peace
of mind – yet criminals know that by
covering their faces and wearing bland
clothing, the likelihood of CCTV images
identifying them is remote. However, with
the increasing adoption of video analytics,
we expect to see more conversations
surrounding gaining a bigger ROI from
security spend; while a traditional
surveillance system represents little or no
deterrent for criminals, as the footage it
collects is hardly ever monitored in real
time and is often just recording a crime
rather than preventing it. Choosing a
modern system with analytic capabilities
generates efficiencies by creating
real-time alerts before the intruder has
breached the perimeter. This enables
Video surveillance
has become a
crucial business tool
for security teams.
security staff to take a proactive and
preventative approach.
AI and Machine Learning
(ML) will complement the
human workforce
For several years, there has been an
array of headlines reporting that ML
will replace humans but this couldn’t
be further from the truth. Although ML
has advanced at breakneck speed, AI
still requires humans to work alongside
it to make decisions. When it comes
to video surveillance, human workers
have a limited attention span and
research suggests that they suffer from
fatigue after only 18 minutes, leading
to anomalous events being missed. As
operators gain confidence with AI-driven
analytic systems, they can adopt a
more proactive response by reacting to
potential threats based on AI-generated
alerts, thereby reducing fatigue and
screen blindness.
Businesses will now be able to rely
on the technology’s consistently
impeccable performance. AI relieves
the human workforce of long hours of
tedious video monitoring, only requiring
their intervention to determine how to
handle an incident once this has been
proactively identified. Working together,
AI and humans will help companies
improve detection rates, reduce
false alarms and secure business
efficiencies. This year, we will see the
perception of AI change from a threat to
humans to a complementary force and
irreplaceable ally.
Fast and accurate event search
facilities will become essential
Tens of thousands of security
installations in the UK have very limited
post-event search capabilities and rely
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