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Video Surveillance and Data Monitoring: The Basics

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Give me some examples of non-security applications for video surveillance.

The new era of video surveillance is comparatively airy and bright, where cameras give CSOs better pictures faster, in any light or weather; where the Internet allows us to log on from home and check in on any of our sites; where sleek technology focuses on business growth; and where it focuses on, say, four business problems at once. Video surveillance suddenly has street cred in marketing, HR, travel services, even customer relations.

Thus, when Dreams bed stores in Britain recently put its system in place, its primary function wasn't even security; it was marketing. The company is measuring foot traffic around the store. The secondary function was security. And the tertiary function was human resources, using the video for training. "That made it a pretty easy sell actually," says Darryl Marshall, an integrator who oversaw the project (which, by the way, he says was led by Dreams' IT project managers).

As digital video quality improves, training rapidly gains purchase as a prime application. Ramos uses his new system to train cashiers and other store-level associates. Captured images of employees doing something well are posted as a method of positive reinforcement, and captured images of common mistakes get tacked up too, as an awareness tool.

In retail industries, especially, marketing wants in on video surveillance. Consultant Jones is working with retailers to map store traffic to improve the flow of customers and increase safety. Others are using the visual data to watch inventory levels.

Companies are cutting travel expenses by using the infrastructure for meetings. Or using it for OSHA-like inspections of restaurants, allowing more inspections with less travel dollars spent. Genzyme's Kent uses video for quality control by monitoring production trains.

A public utility uses cameras to validate trespassing incidents. Police issue tickets and revenue increases. At the same time, costs incurred by the court system fall, because perpetrators don't challenge the visual evidence.

A hump yard, where train cars come off boats and trucks and are assembled into trains, repurposes its video surveillance. Now managers not only watch fence lines for trespassers and would-be thieves, but they manage the logistics of assembling the trains correctly and getting them, literally, on the right track—a job that used to involve several men in towers talking to each other and people on the ground as they looked out over their vast yards with binoculars.

A major transit authority watches its stations, measures footfall and traffic patterns, reconfigures stations to reduce congestion, adjusts train schedules based on the visual data, locates common loitering spots and makes them less loiterer-friendly. All of the following increase: safety, ridership and revenue.

If we go with digital systems, the CIO is going to have to be involved because of the network demands.

New video surveillance technology makes it imperative that the security team and the information systems group work closely with each other. Here are two reasons why: One, many of the new generation of video surveillance vendors are going to them, not you, to sell this stuff. "CSOs are not always driving this purchase," says David Levine, a surveillance systems integrator. Vendors target IT because there's more familiarity with technology, and probably more receptiveness to upgrading it too.

Two, trying to make video surveillance part of the IT network will obviously require heavy participation from IT. Says Levine, "If you try to deploy digital video surveillance without the full support of IT, you're done." Pathmark's Ramos underscores that: "Get IT involved; get them to help you build an ROI model; get them to help develop the best system for your needs."

It's not surprising then that Ramos and every other CSO we spoke with who had dabbled in upgrading their video surveillance claimed to have an excellent relationship with his or her CIO. At Dallas Fort-Worth Airport, Bowens managed the video surveillance upgrade from the IT department. "When I'm asked how I ended up in security," he says, "I say it invaded my world." In the case of the New York State Unified Court System, the team in charge of the surveillance project was the CIO's, not the security officers from the Department of Public Safety (although the two groups did work closely throughout).

But the CIO smartly deferred to the security team on issues he didn't know about. First, he says, the security team determined the most vulnerable locations, determined camera positions, types of cameras—stationary versus pan-tilt-zoom, indoor versus outdoor—and then did a cost impact.

What we have here with digital video surveillance is security convergence—one of the first major security purchases that not only could benefit from but absolutely requires the cooperation of the CIO and CSO.

CSOs can't do this without IT's technological expertise. Bramlitt at First Horizon was ready to cede control of managing the IT requirements—network bandwidth demands, server capacity, storage configurations, data security—to her CIO and CISO.

"We come to mutual agreements on what's adequate," she says. "There's no in-fighting. I understand their business needs; they understand my security obligations."