Terrorism and crimes are still run rampant across the globe.
As prevention is always better than cure, noticing a potential threat becomes the top priority. Video surveillance is the best option to achieve this goal. Integrating video surveillance with the available security systems would optimize the safety of a place. New technologies have helped in making advancements in video surveillance. These developments include night-vision cameras, cameras that could withstand rain, other extreme climatic conditions, and a micro-sized camera that won’t be detected easily.
Bassel Al Fakir, Managing Director at NIT an Ingram Micro Company says that the video obtained from the surveillance is not just a video but also an important part of the evidence of any incidence. The surveillance industry could get a huge hike if artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated with the security system. The AI systems can easily boost the machine-learning process and analyze the vast amount of data that is stored by surveillance. It can be programmed to cover different angles for surveillance, motion sensing, and face detection. With the help of AI, objects such as license plates, vehicle models, or mobiles can be recognized. AI can be programmed with the set of protocols to identify a potential threat and notify the authorities about the threat in detail.
Smart Devices
Smart devices can be connected to the surveillance system with the help of the Internet of Things (IoT). The data produced during surveillance is exponential and by integrating with IoT, it ensures a secure network between mobile devices, CCTV cameras, smart-enabled vehicles, and smart home products. This would offer a secure way to collect, store, analyze, and manage the recorded data efficiently. with the help of integration, the stored video recordings can be easily retrieved when they are required. An enterprise-grade surveillance system requires functions that would enable the user to access the recordings in real-time and send alerts when an unusual event takes place.
AI can integrate with software like Zipstream to compress the size of the recordings and store them efficiently in the cloud storage. This could significantly reduce the bandwidth and storage space required over the period of a year. A user would have to choose among the different storage systems for the surveillance since there is a multitude of storage solutions available. A list of requirements should be taken into consideration before installing video surveillance such as the scale of the data output, the need to retrieve the data, the number of cameras, types of different cameras, camera resolution, and the purpose of recording the video.
This year, Moscow would upgrade their security surveillance by integrating it with AI-enabled facial recognition programs. It already has installed over 1,600,000 cameras that keep an eye the population of 12 million people. Moscow is one of the cities to have a surveillance system of such a large scale, in which, the cameras are spread across the streets and subways. In competition with Moscow, Russia’s AI development companies are second to none. Many countries have started implementing such technologies as the confidence in AI developers increases.
NtechLab, an AI startup, is one of the top contenders, that features FindFace face recognition technology. This technology won the IARPA’s Face Recognition Challenge Prize in 2017. They were used to detect threat during the World Cup the following year. It helped in uncovering property theft and preventing other crimes. The CEO Artem Kuharenko recently gave a statement in RiaNovosti interview, stating that FindFace operates as part of pilot surveillance programs in various Russian cities. Approximately 2,000 crimes were solved alone in the Tartarstan region with the help of video surveillance.
IVA Cognitive
IVA Cognitive is another contender that develops the IVA CVvideo analytics system. IVA’s CEO Alexey Tsessarsky speculated in RiaNovosti interview that the city would have to choose between a single company or a big organization consisting of all those companies. The authorities would be divided among different areas and their performance would be analyzed. Thus, as technology develops, the competition for the monopoly will increase. Tsessarsky said that Moscow authorities need a facial-recognition system in order to prevent and solve crimes. The primary goal of the authorities of Moscow is to prevent and solve crimes. A database is made with the information of the wanted lists and the history records. This would be integrated with the video surveillance and the data would be analyzed by recognizing those faces. The camera would detect the person who could be a potential threat and determine the person’s location and activity. Police would get notification whenever the right person gets captured on the camera as they upload their wanted list on the database. The system is designed to go beyond just image-matching. It is designed to perform predictive analysis to identify patterns of human behavior. The system can be programmed to identify a criminal amidst a crowd and record suspicious activities such as waving of arms or grabbing an object resembling a weapon. This would simplify the jobs of police in tracking a potential threat and avoiding dangerous situations.
Kuharenko said that the system would fundamentally be upgraded to a new level in order to search people on the wanted list, count them, and evaluate their behavior. The NtechLab CEO acknowledges that facial recognition technology is not entirely harmless. Searching a person for a photo among the open profiles of Russia’s popular VKontakte social media network would be the primary objective of FindFace. But this has empowered de-anonymization and harassment of users, which could prompt legal actions. Yet Kuharenko thinks that this technology would be used for the greater good as the benefits are incomparably more than harm.
With an increasing population and the gap between the rich and poor, criminal activities and terrorism are also on the rise. To cope up with them, video surveillance should be upgraded, which in turn, will help the law enforcement to prevent dangerous situations. Many tech companies have started investing in the market for video surveillance as they have recognized these threats. Allied Market Research has estimated that the video surveillance market will grow at an exponential rate by 2020. With the integration of AI with video surveillance, a potential threat would be easily detected and the safety of the mass population would be ensured.
