Video surveillance has come a long way since its inception. With clearer video quality and smart video analytics, surveillance has reached a level of security that can outsmart the most skilled intruders. Taking the step into smart video analytics can offer tremendous benefits, so what is the payoff for your organization?
Smart video analytics are already in use by many government agencies in public places. The NSA, Homeland Security, and the U.S. military use them to identify incidents, faces, suspicious items, vandalism, and more. For example, in a busy airport security officials have their hands full. While most threats are detected long before the culprit makes it through a TSA checkpoint, smart video analytics can offer an additional layer of security for those that manage to slip past. With the ability to identify a suspiciously abandoned bag in an airport and alert officials to it, analytics can identify the person that left it behind through facial recognition, search crowds for a specific face, identify someone who is on the watch list, and detect when an object has been stolen or removed. With consumers voicing concerns about the speed of facial recognition, manufacturers have been focusing on improving the software over the past five years, with recognition speeds dramatically increasing by altering the number of recognition points on each face to shorten the time it takes to form a facial profile without sacrificing accuracy. The FBI, as well as local and state police departments in half of the U.S., are also expanding their databases with driver license photos being cross-checked with surveillance images to spot potential fugitives or missing persons.
In other public platforms, analytics can assist security personnel with identifying people who are loitering, tampering with cameras, or crossing over lines/fences they should not. It is able to get an accurate headcount of individuals in view, detect motion and intrusion, count the number of vehicles in view at an intersection, and read license plates on passing vehicles. Similar to facial recognition, it can search for a specific car or license plate and alert officials when a suspected stolen vehicle is detected by one of the cameras.
Providing a summary of all faces, incidents, and suspicious objects, security personnel can clearly see that slip and fall incidents are a problem in one area, or that theft is a problem in another. City officials can see if traffic congestion is increasing at one intersection and how patterns change throughout the day and week. Law enforcement can track down vehicles that are stolen, or identify an abducted individual in a crowd. And private businesses can see if motion has been detected in a secured area, if there have been any changes in employee habits, or if a terminated employee that should no longer be in the building has managed to get past any access control systems in place.
With security personnel being overwhelmed as criminals become smarter, smart video analytics provide them with an advantage and keep them a step ahead of any incident. Keeping pace with the ever-changing security industry, smart video analytics are able to put a "brain" behind standard surveillance.