NW Systems Group - Experts & Thought Leaders

Four out of every ten (41%) of England-based medium and large-sized businesses, which are running CCTV systems, have already deployed facial recognition analytics in their systems, in order to capture human faces and compare images to human face databases, with a view to identifying matches for access control, event security or for public safety purposes. Facial recognition analytics One in six (16%) of CCTV system owners admitted to having access to this capability on their system, but not yet going live with it. Over a third of CCTV system owners (36%) in businesses, with over 50 employees, had already deployed some event or behavioral recognition analytics. Examples given include spotting loitering or highlighting abandoned bags (bags with no person in close proximity). A further 22% believed that they had this capability in their systems, but had not yet turned it on. ANPR and video motion detection technology Just over a third (34%) of CCTV system owners questioned had already deployed ANPR Just over a third (34%) of CCTV system owners questioned had already deployed Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, to capture number plates at perimeter barriers, for example, and the same number of system owners (34%) had deployed Video Motion Detection (VMD), to help reduce their system’s video storage requirements, by only recording when motion is detected, in front of a camera. One in five (20%) business owners claimed to have access to ANPR analytics in their systems, but have not yet turned it on. A further 27% claimed to have Video Motion Detection (VMD) capability in their systems, which they have not yet activated. Objection Detection or Object Classification  Exactly a third (33.33%) of CCTV system owners in England claimed to have deployed object tracking technology, which is a relatively new capability that enables security teams to track individuals, from camera to camera, through a large site in ‘Auto Track’ mode. Nearly a third (32%) of business owners had deployed Objection Detection or Object Classification, in order to help the video security system distinguish between humans, vehicles, animals, swaying trees, shadows, rain, luggage, water, roads, and etc. 23% of these business owners confirmed that they had this capability in their systems, but had not yet activated it. Deploying Directional Detection analytics Only marginally less (31.6%) CCTV system owners claimed to have already deployed Directional Detection analytics, so as to detect which direction an object or a person is moving over a line. A further 28% of business owners claimed to have this capability at their disposal, but not to have turned it on as of now. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) analytics heavily used to read the identification numbers on parcels and other goods in transit has been deployed by 31% of England’s businesses, as per NW Security’s recent business survey. A further 35% of CCTV system owners claimed that they already had this capability in their systems, but had not yet put it to work. Business intelligence-led video analytics Business intelligence-led video analytics was not far behind, in terms of adoption by businesses in England Business intelligence-led video analytics was not far behind, in terms of adoption by businesses in England. For example, heat mapping, which is commonly used to detect crowds forming before events or analyze the busiest areas of a shop, has already been deployed by 28% of CCTV system owners. Nearly another quarter (23%) claimed to have this capability at their disposal, but had not yet configured it or made it live. 28% of CCTV system owners had turned on people counting analytics on their systems. NW Security discovered that some of these people had adopted this capability, in order to monitor room capacity levels, owing to COVID-19 safety reasons. Nearly as many, 26% of businesses in England, thought they had people counting analytics available in their system but had not yet made it live. Facial detection and traffic monitoring analytics Over a quarter (27%) of CCTV system owners recorded that they were using facial detection analytics and a further quarter (25%) of businesses had deployed traffic monitoring analytics in their systems. While 22% of CCTV system owners recorded making crowd density analytics live on their systems. Even higher numbers (24%) of businesses in England have confirmed that they had access to crowd density measurement analytics, but had not yet deployed it. Video analytics at the edge We have been surprised by the level of adoption, of even fairly sophisticated video analytics, across CCTV system owners" Frank Crouwel, the Managing Director of NW Security, commented “We have been surprised by the level of adoption, of even fairly sophisticated video analytics, across CCTV system owners. That said, more and more camera vendors are offering analytics at the edge. Many video analytics types are present in over half of existing systems and 7 different types of analytics have already seen over 30% adoption, across our total base of over 152 CCTV system owners of medium and large-sized businesses across England.” Josh Woodhouse, Lead Analyst at Novaira Insights, a UK-based video surveillance market research company and publisher of the ‘World Market for Video Surveillance Hardware and Software’ market report earlier in the year, stated “Basic features like motion detection and virtual tripwire have been embedded in most cameras for many years. However, it is an ongoing trend, where more analytics workload can be achieved at the edge.” Cameras with advanced analytics Josh Woodhouse adds, “An increasing number of new cameras sold feature more advanced analytics like event or behavior recognition. It is estimated that 43% of all professional grade network security cameras, shipped in the world in 2020, featured these more advanced analytics. This is forecast to nearly double to 81% by 2025, leading to cameras having the functionality for advanced analytics, such as object detection or facial recognition, as standard capabilities.”  

Globally renowned IP video surveillance integrator, NW Security (NW Systems Group) has signed a partnership agreement with the major unified, intelligent security-as-a-service solutions provider, Arcules. Arcules VSaaS platform The Arcules Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) platform provides organizations with an underlying cloud infrastructure, which offers features such as compatibility between sites, low video latency, data encryption, redundancy, streamlined maintenance, automatic firmware updates and easy onboarding, all built on the Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud offers several major advantages for those exploring the option of migrating their CCTV system into the Cloud. Firstly, Google has invested in building its own data centers around Europe which can ensure new data privacy requirements under EU Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are met, while simultaneously minimizing data latency to a few microseconds, something that is crucial in live monitoring of CCTV for example. Google Cloud Google Cloud also offers considerable strength in harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) Google Cloud also offers considerable strength in harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT). This capability can help users match CCTV camera data with data from other connected sensors to add richness to users’ understanding of incidents. This, in turn, helps firms to become more proactive and predictive in their security operations. It also makes it easier to extract business intelligence which can be put to work to find efficiencies and improve profitability for businesses. Fully open platform with support for IP cameras Arcules offers a fully open platform including support for over 3,000 IP camera models available in the market. This enables customers to migrate their existing surveillance cameras to an Arcules Cloud account without the need to buy new cameras. Arcules, which was spun out of Milestone Systems three years ago, also benefits from tight integration with the Video Management Software (VMS) solutions company. This allows Milestone XProtect customers to make smaller remote sites live quickly and with minimal IT resources and downtime using the award-winning Arcules-XProtect Hybrid VMS Solution. Arcules remains a Canon Group company together with both Milestone and Axis. Migration of CCTV systems into the cloud Frank Crouwel, Managing Director of NW Security (NW Systems Group), commented “We are right on the cusp of an acceleration in the migration of CCTV systems into the cloud. Over two thirds (71 per cent) of England-based medium and large-sized firms in the private sector and 43 per cent of public sector organizations we surveyed in September 20201, are planning to migrate CCTV systems into the cloud within the next 12 months.” It’s important to have well developed services for helping firms to migrate CCTV into the cloud" Frank adds, “It’s important to have well developed services for helping firms to migrate CCTV into the cloud. Arcules now offers the right combination of highly secure, yet open and flexible cloud CCTV platform with easy onboarding paths for customers. We are very pleased to be Arcules’ first integrator partner for the United Kingdom.” Open and flexible cloud CCTV platform Michael Hyglid, Sales Director EMEA at Arcules, said “NW Security is set to be a key partner for us in the United Kingdom. Unusually, it has a broad base of customers who prefer to buy equipment direct, often via its specialist IP CCTV online store - Network webcams. NW Security then helps many of these companies to integrate and configure this equipment, so it works optimally.” He adds, “They also understand that some customers are likely to favor buying surveillance capabilities via OPEX rather than incurring considerable CAPEX, which is where Arcules has a lot to offer. I’ve also been impressed by their knowledge of other cloud providers.” ‘Cloud first’ platform Michael further stated, “They understood right away that we are not just a software solution that’s been ported into the cloud but are a 100 per cent ‘cloud first’ platform built on leading cloud tools and principles. They also understand where we are today and the strength of our technology roadmap.”

A new England-wide study by IP video integrator NW Security completed in September, found that 97 percent of medium and large-sized businesses wanted to make significant improvements to their existing CCTV systems. Over a third (36 percent) of firms captured in this study wanted their CCTV systems to be integrated better with other security-related systems such as access control, fire, and intruder alarm systems. Faster access to key CCTV data Nearly one in five medium and large-sized firms (19 percent), wanted their CCTV systems to find and retrieve footage of incidents easier and quicker. This group expressed dissatisfaction that it was taking too long to find video following known security incidents. Battle to reduce false positives Almost one in ten firms (8 percent) wanted to dramatically reduce the number of false positives that their CCTV systems were flagging - admitting that false alarms were consuming too much of their time. False event triggers used to be a much bigger problem than it is today. NW Security thinks its good news that 92 percent of CCTV system managers are happy with the accuracy of event triggers as a result of analytics improvements and better configuration of systems. Frank Crouwel, Managing Director of NW Security explained, “False positives used to be a massive problem in first-generation video analytics software, but it should be possible now to deploy and tune next-generation video analytics tools to reduce false positives dramatically.” Upgrade to intelligent video analytics Connected with this comment, a further 8 percent of firms captured by NW Security’s market study wanted their CCTV systems to be upgraded to add intelligent video analytics to better support post-event decision-making. GDPR compliance demand 5 percent felt their video systems need to have GDPR compliance and over one in 10 (12 percent) want to improve resilience and back-up systems 5 percent were concerned that their video systems needed to have GDPR compliance baked into it, to ensure compliance in the way video surveillance data is collected, stored, accessed and processed. And over one in 10 (12 percent) wanted to improve resilience and back-up systems around surveillance recordings. Real operational requirements NW Security queried why so many firms wanted full system-level integration between intruder and fire alarm systems with CCTV. It believes some of this demand tends to come without considering the real relevance for an individual company’s security needs. Businesses must work out the real operational requirements (ORs) of each and every camera they have installed. Then they must base modifications and integrations on what is really needed in security terms. Unsynchronized software and firmware updates Frank Crouwel at NW Security explained, “Integration should be driven by a genuine Operational Requirement, not just by the desire to integrate cutting edge technologies for the sake of it. If you’re not careful, you can end up with a system which is over-specified and underperforming.” “The other factor at work here is vendor hype. Marketing materials from vendors endlessly promote the twin mantras of innovation and integration.” “However, the reality on the ground is that getting systems to work well together is still difficult work. It can still be challenging to maintain systems over the long term due to often unsynchronised software and firmware updates.” User training requirement Highlighting the importance of user training when new video management systems (VMS) are deployedNW Security attributes the fact that one in every five firms were struggling to access relevant video recordings following incidents, to the need for more comprehensive user training. NW Security highlights the importance of user training when new video management systems (VMS) are being deployed or when new staff is joining. Configuration change “VMSs search capabilities today are generally very good at helping the user locate relevant video sequences today. But operatives need to know how to use the on-screen tools to the fullest.” “It’s also worth looking at how much ‘empty data’ you are collecting. It’s easy enough to set up a recording on relevant event triggers using detection analytics for example, so that only relevant activity is collected. This configuration change alone often reduces the amount of data captured by over 50 percent,” Frank Crouwel added. Optimizing CCTV systems Frank Crouwel of NW Security, summarized, “Although the expectation of systems is rising rapidly, our findings show the need to get back to basics: investing in user training so that all your security team can put VMS’ increased functionality to work, and configuring cameras in line with defined Operational Requirements, both remain important but often neglected areas for optimizing CCTV systems.”