Basic Safety & Security: What is ‘Intelligent Video Security’?

Basic Safety & Security: What is ‘Intelligent Video Security'? Professor Albert Einsteiger and his assistant Alida Anfang are not only smart, they are also didactically trained. In GIT SECURITY + MANAGEMENT, they regularly devote themselves to a special subject chosen from the field of security and safety. The background: security representatives carry a high degree of responsibility in companies – the protection of co-employees, know-how, and property is at stake. It is the security representatives who ultimatively decide which measures should be employed for their protection. However, safety and security have become complex requirements with a high degree of specialization. This makes it difficult to remain a specialist in all fields. Here in this series Professor Albert Einsteiger and his assistant Alida Anfang offer basic information about topics such as alarm management or access control. In the following contribution, Tim Giles from Nice Systems will explain what Intelligent Video Security is all about.

The idea of ‘Intelligent Video Security’ is to look at advanced video technology as a way of accelerating essential security processes. It recognises that technology alone doesn’t adequately address the complex and rapidly changing security environment, and that putting the right process in place is just as important as selecting appropriate technologies. The Intelligent Security concept revolves around the acceleration of five generic processes found in most modern security operations.

Detection

A challenge faced by all security operations is the need to be aware of potentially threatening situations as soon as they develop. CCTV is widely used to monitor for events of interest, but operators naturally suffer from fatigue, boredom and distraction, limiting the effectiveness of this approach. With multiple monitors to view, operators frequently face sensory overload, and may struggle to notice events that could alert them to significant threats.

In the Intelligent Security model, video analysis is used to automate the threat detection process. CCTV video is analyzed to detect specific conditions that indicate a security, safety or operational problem. Using a real-time technology to accelerate the detection process helps to alert operators immediately, dramatically improving awareness of developing situations.

Video analysis can be used to monitor those objects or events that are most valuable to a given organisation or situation, for example, industrial processes, passenger flow, customer queues or even chips or cards in a casino.

Verification

The next step in an effective security management process is to verify the situation as quickly and accurately as possible. Operators need reliable access to information that can confirm precisely what is going on. In the Intelligent Security model, operators’ understanding of the situation is enhanced by having video of the detected event and surrounding area displayed automatically when an alarm is raised, showing both instant replay and live views simultaneously.

These two pieces of highly relevant information help an operator assess the current situation and differentiate threats from nuisance alarms quickly and reliably. When events are more complex, technology can accelerate the process even further. With the right technology, operators can simply click on the image of a suspicious object or person on-screen and immediately see a video replay of how and when that object appeared in the field of view, and how it has subsequently moved or behaved.

Resolution

Whether a situation is a serious threat or just an everyday annoyance, managing it efficiently is key to running an effective security operation. Technology can be applied in three main ways to help the resolution process, through automation, structure and coordination.

The first part of this is to make sure that the right information gets to the right people. Video management systems can direct alarms to the team or individual operator that needs to know about it. The alarm can trigger the automatic display of relevant video in a format that best suits that event, or the responsibilities of an individual.

Next, security managers can pre-define task or data lists to prompt operators and help structure responses to alarms. For organisations with strict procedures to follow, a task list could hold a concise reminder of the process, or vital but hard-to-remember information, such as contact telephone numbers for critical situations. Either way, operators will know what the approved response should be and have essential data immediately available.

Investigation

Investigations can tie up valuable resources for hours. Particularly time consuming is watching video from hundreds of cameras to find information relevant to the investigation. This is a difficult task even when you know exactly what you are looking for. If you’re still searching for clues, the task can be extremely challenging. The Intelligent Security concept harnesses technology to help operators watch what’s important first, reducing the time spent watching irrelevant video.

Instead of watching everything in an arbitrary order, you start by watching video that is most likely to contain something of relevance by using video analysis to help to identify suspicious events in your video recordings, for example, movement in a target area or particular direction, or unusual or suspicious behaviour, such as loitering or running in an unexpected direction.

Advanced video systems can also detect faces in video recordings and automatically build them into a visual database, just like a photo-album. It’s then quick to review and easy to share with patrols or other field staff to help spot suspects. During an investigation, it may also be necessary to review how a particular situation was handled. Who was using the surveillance system and at what time? Did they view particular cameras or replay anything? Advanced video management tools make it easier for authorized managers to create audit reports and demonstrate accountability.

Improvement

Most organisations now have commitments to continuous improvement. Key to this is a good understanding of the current operation, trends and opportunities. Changes should address vulnerabilities without weakening existing arrangements. Resources should be applied where they will have most effect. This demands detailed, accurate information, and it needs to be available without requiring a separate, extensive data gathering exercise. Using the Intelligent Video Security model as a template helps establish tools that can directly support improvement plans with useful information, because the surveillance system is full of real examples of the challenges you are facing.

It can show you how well current operations work and help you identify opportunities for improvement. These insights are available simply by viewing video clips. Which ones should you look at? Technology accelerates this process by allowing you to search for events of interest, or report events, traffic or operations over time.

This can quickly reveal patterns and trends, and you can get more detail by viewing the associated video. For operational issues, advanced video analysis tools, such as people counting can give you a statistical basis to schedule resources, while queue detection, for example, could show when inadequate customer service impacts on safety.

Real examples from the video system can then be used to explain key issues and train staff by directly connecting with their daily experience. The Intelligent Security model helps to make reviews systematic, based on video evidence, so you can check that your improvement program is being implemented the way you intended and delivering the results you expected.