Page 20 - Security Today, April 2018

The New Reality Examining whether good enough will actually do the job
BTy Andy Newbom
echnology marches ever for- ward, lockstep with ‘Moore’s Law.’ However, the influx of technological change affects different industries in differ-
ent ways. Some industries try to balance on the bleeding edge, seeking out competitive advantage and greater profits. Other indus- tries find that good enough beats best if good enough gets the job done just fine. Until the job changes.
Then, what is “good enough” changes into something new. The corrections/deten- tion industry is undergoing this change. For decades, the constraints on security and surveillance in correctional facilities was es- sentially how many camera feeds can you fit into one screen and how many people does it take to watch all of the feeds. Based partly on technological constraints (analog CCTV, low resolution, fixed cameras and high cost) and partly on “how it’s always been done” video surveillance was primarily a human scale endeavor.
Those days are ending. Video surveillance technology is leaping forward with real time frames per second (15 to 30 fps), HD resolu- tions, auto-follow cameras, motion detection and tracking, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) based machine learning, among many other intriguing technologies. This technological tidal wave is multiplied by increasing federal and state regulatory requirements impacting surveillance coverage, retention times, video analysis and even legal challenges.
Technology x Regulations = New Realities
The challenges of security and surveillance in the correctional industry are daunting. In- stead of dozens of simple fixed cameras that can easily be monitored by a crew of security guards, correctional facilities now have many hundreds, or thousands, of high resolution, motion detecting, automated cameras and drones feeding millions of frames per minute. Those millions of frames must not only be re- corded and analyzed, they also have to be re- tained for a year or more with zero frame loss.
These rapidly changing technologies com- bined with the weight of the regulatory envi- ronment are presenting not only new challeng- es, but more importantly new opportunities. These opportunities bring an entirely new level of intelligence, service and safety to security and surveillance in corrections facilities.
“Good enough” video surveillance is no
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longer enough. Implementing an intelligent video surveillance system that meets regu- latory requirements as well as delivers ad- vanced functionality for today and builds in scalability and improvement for the future is critical. What is needed is an intelligently de- signed and implemented system that solves problems efficiently and effectively, while leaving room for growth and improvements, and an empowered and well trained staff is essential to successfully take advantage of the tremendous opportunities an intelligent surveillance system delivers.
Here are four keys to successfully imple- menting intelligent surveillance in the new security reality.
Human Analytics
Assume that all of your video surveillance will move to human analyzable levels (20-plus fps, HD resolution and full spectrum audio).
Humans are amazing pattern-recognition machines and are remarkably good at dis- cerning patterns from complex visual and auditory input. They have the ability to recognize a large array of different types of patterns and then transform these “recursive probabilistic fractals” into concrete, action- able steps based on what they learn.
As video surveillance in correctional facilities moves from watching for major events, towards ensuring security and safety, the requirements for human analyzable video surveillance is driving a massive movement
towards higher frame rates (20-plus fps), and HD or higher resolutions. To fully take advantage of human analytics in video sur- veillance requires that the incoming video is tuned to human movement and perception.
“It is no longer good enough to see that someone is walking down the hallway carry- ing something,” said a security professional in a large correctional facility. “Real security demands that we can quickly identify who is walking and what they are carrying. Wheth- er it is happening right now, or during last week’s cafeteria service. We need to know, not just see.”
That’s just one of many reasons why the demands of video surveillance are exploding. Challenges. The challenges of humans analyzing video surveillance are higher frame rates, resolutions and camera counts result in exponential growth in storage and analysis requirements, human security officers cannot watch all the video streams equally and more than 90 percent of all surveillance video is
never watched or analyzed.
Opportunities. There are multiple op-
portunities, however, which include using motion detection, alerts and AI/machine learning to augment staff to respond more quickly and effectively, technology and sys- tem design to get maximum video quality and data while keeping requirements within reason and more staff to monitor, analyze and investigate with video surveillance can improve safety and job satisfaction.
CORRECTIONS SECURITY
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