What’s Its Use?

Stakeholders usually carry a personal agenda – what the heart of the matter really is.

Is it theft, surveillance of a crime gang, or historical archiving to confirm that an officer did not attack an inmate as the lawsuit contends?

These are very important questions; so let’s make a schedule of important aspects of what your particular case might need from digital surveillance and recording.

Here’s the list I would recommend.What is the video for?

• Image capture
  
  
• Passive surveillance
  
  
• Active surveillance – for suspicious activity
  
  
• Identity matching
  
  
• Behavior analysis / Video signature
  
  
• Forensic analysis

Image capture is fairly straightforward and would be used to gather evidence such as shoplifting. While the video may show the person leaving a distribution center, it is the actual process of theft, such as putting it in a pocket or overcoat or physically carrying it out, that’s important.

The image capture device is usually sufficient, with a full-length video rarely important.  It’s the wide view and usually short activity that’s most important.

Passive surveillance issued in parking garages for surveillance – available but only used at certain times and if someone happens to capture an incident.

This is similar to most surveillance systems but becomes less passive when employed in a situation such as a subway.

For example, the subways in Philadelphia during the 1980’s had a sophisticated camera system including many hundreds of cameras throughout the subway stations.

This was due to an assailant raping and severely beating a woman who ended up with brain damage.

The surveillance system was used on an active basis and was able to capture many acts which would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Active surveillance is used for suspicious activity. It is a crime prevention method rather than simply affixing cameras and hoping that the honest people will stay honest.

Identity matching is the use of cameras in a facial recognition situation using advanced software in today’s marketplace.

However, casinos have used identity matching in their video surveillance since the 1970’s.

When I was involved in the casino industry, the use of binoculars, advanced CCTV cameras, and recording mechanisms would zoom-in from every angle to a player with suspicious activity or those who were playing in a conspiracy to outwit the casino.

The identities would be matched through facial recognition, markings, dress, or with the accomplices, and then matched to a crime database that was available through the Casino Crime Commission.

Alert posters were hanging in front of the surveillance personnel who worked separately but in tandem with the Casino Control Commission and the enforcement officers.

My own personal experience is watching a woman nicknamed “Mrs. Wong” (since no other alias or full recognition could be found) win approximately $225,000 from the Golden Nugget in the 1980’s.

From a period of approximately 7:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Mrs. Wong won at the blackjack table one-on-one every time.

The casino did everything in its power to attempt to identify this person through national crime information and other databases.

They did not succeed.

Behavior analysis and video signatures are a new software mechanism by which certain algorithms are learned by the system software to remember activities that are acceptable, analyze any differential, and alarm those activities which are not in its memory.

It’s kind of like teaching a dog what is the normal thing to do over a period of time. But, if someone would act in a peculiar manner, say walking the wrong direction or walking across instead of along side, the dog would bark.

Think of your digital software system as a barking dog.

Forensic analysis is the last use.

Obviously, forensic analysis has taken great strides as we all saw with the subway bombings of London. Digital data retrieval in forensic applications is powerful.

The importance of forensic analysis, historical archiving, and registering the digital data in a uniform and highly available manner is much more important today than it has ever been due to the ubiquitous use of CCTV cameras.

The London subway system, of which many stakeholders take part, include over 9,000 CCTV cameras on systems that use dedicated networks that can take over surveillance from multiple points throughout the perimeter of London and transfer images back and forth through sophisticated ATM (Asynchronous Transmission Mode) networks installed in the late 1990’s.