Page 8 - Security Today, July/August 2021

4 Steps to Ready Get your customer onboard with smart city applications
By Jason Bonoan
The term “smart city” has created a buzz in the past few years. More than that, the smart city concept is changing the way the world’s metropolitan areas operate. New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle have integrated a variety of intelligent sen- sors to improve city operations. They are joined by other major cities worldwide—London, Singapore, Montreal and Amsterdam are leading examples.
Smart city applications are leveraging cutting-edge technologies for a multitude of nuanced purposes. They are bringing together previously disparate solutions—such as surveillance cameras, traf- fic sensors, and people counting analytics—to collect information that enhances proactive incident detection and real-time response. Devices enhanced with artificial intelligence are now working in conjunction with IoT devices to positively affect sectors like traffic management (detecting stalled cars, wrong-way driver and decreas- ing congestion), healthcare (enabling remote patient monitoring and targeted health intervention) and businesses (creating more efficient operations and automating data filing).
While these smart applications improve the urban experience, they are also create specific challenges. They require greater data aggregation, faster data analysis and lengthier data retention pe- riods. Deploying cameras with artificial intelligence that collect personally identifiable information, such as facial images for recog- nition, also raises concerns about data privacy and cybersecurity. Integrators must be prepared to navigate these issues with end us- ers and city stakeholders when designing solutions for smart city platforms. Here are some practices integrators can implement to prepare customers for smart city applications.
CUSTOMER EDUCATION ON STORAGE
Before a customer considers installing intelligent cameras with advanced video analytics, integrators need to help the user un- derstand how these AI-enabled cameras affect storage capacity and performance.
The daily data volume generated by video surveillance cam- eras worldwide is estimated to reach 3,500 petabytes by 2023. Add to that data generated by biometric-based access control so- lutions, traffic management devices, and more—smart cities are looking at a massive influx in data collection. This rapid growth increases the demands on storage solutions. In order to keep up with massive data collection and metadata analysis, storage solu- tions must be reliable, durable and efficient enough to keep up with mixed workloads. It is therefore crucial that customers up- date existing storage strategies.
Rather than primarily relying on cloud computing, integrators need to inform their customers about the benefits of embracing IT 4.0 and adopting an edge-to-cloud storage architecture. This configuration leverages an edge tier approach that utilizes AI- enabled NVRs to filter and process data on-site nearby where the sensors first collected the data.
As a result, initial data analysis occurs first at the edge for
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JULY/AUGUST 2021 | SECURITY TODAY
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“In order to keep up with massive data collection and metadata analysis, storage solutions must be reliable, durable and efficient enough to keep up with mixed workloads. It is therefore crucial that customers update existing storage strategies.”
immediate insights and then in back-end environments for fur- ther deep learning analysis for in-depth reporting. This modern strategy improves data flow from edge to cloud for enhanced data processing and management.
DATA PRIVACY AND CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS
Compromised data is an increasing concern for national security advisors. According to the Wall Street Journal, “as cities continue to implement more smart technology, experts fear that current se- curity is inadequate, leaving the cities vulnerable to cyberattacks.”
This sentiment is reflected in the recent congressional amend- ment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which bars government agencies from buying telecommunications or video surveillance equipment from specific manufacturers with proven vulnerabilities. These regulations, including the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), will re- quire all outside contractors to provide “adequate security” mea- sures for defense information.
For integrators, one of the most important laws to be mindful of is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has proven the most significant data privacy legislation in decades. In effect, GDPR holds service providers primarily responsible and accountable for securing data—while data is in transit and at rest, which is when data can be exposed to cyber vulnerabilities and even breached.
Though implemented primarily in Europe, many regulations
SMART CITIES