Page 24 - Campus Security & Life Safety, March/April 2019

artificial intelligence
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campuslifesecurity.com | March/April 2019
“Why is it that our most vulnerable Ttargets are the least secured?”
he modern day university and college campus offers its students a vast array of educational, research, and entertainment options in which to participate. From basketball games inside packed, raucous stadiums, to nuclear and medical research facilities, to lounges, caf-
eterias and tree-lined public squares for everyone to enjoy, the vari- ability of college life is what makes the idea of a campus so exciting. That same variability invites just as many concerns for security and safety stakeholders. The key question to answer for all campus secu- rity administrators is: How to create safe and secure environments while maintaining the sense of freedom and access that all students, visitors, and staff members enjoy?
The good news: Your campus is already equipped with the sensors needed to not only respond to incidents faster, but to proactively pre- vent them. All this, while not becoming a 1984-inspired police state.
Deep Learning-Powered AI Applications
In recent years, tremendous advancements in computing power have made possible ground-breaking physical security solutions powered by artificial intelligence (AI). When combining cutting-edge soft-
ware, like video analytics, with the proliferation of high quality and affordable cameras of all kinds, the sensor of choice for campus secu- rity professionals is clear: cameras. Cameras of all types, from fixed to PTZ to mobile cameras, augment human resources dedicated to cam- pus security and make them more efficient, intelligent and effective.
There are many ways to upgrade a campus’ physical safety (HID cards, various IoT apps, physical barriers) but in most cases security teams are still left responding to incidents. The exciting future of cam- pus security, made possible by AI, is in preventing incidents. Campus security stakeholders can deploy intelligent, real-time, on-premises security solutions powered by deep learning AI and video analytics, today, that integrate with their current surveillance infrastructure.
Why Deep Learning AI? Why Now?
Recently, at a well-known university, a student was assaulted after the perpetrator gained entrance to a dorm’s common room during the middle of the night. This is an all-too-common type of incident that could have been prevented, not just responded to quicker. Imagine that the assailant was a known threat to the victim, or a local person with history of sexual crimes, or even a recently fired employee or vendor.
With an AI-powered video analytics solution in place, security and campus police can simply upload pictures of a potential assailants face to a Blocklist and, from that moment on, whenever he is detected on any camera, security would immediately be alerted and the assailant