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Systematic management of CCTV information

Ask most managers of CCTV schemes if they have enough cameras, and they will typically reply that more cameras would always be useful to improve coverage, but it involves costs and the money is not available.

But even where operations do get additional cameras, they are restricted by the fact that many of these cameras are not displayed on monitors due to camera/monitor ratios, or are insufficiently watched as there are too few operators. Any operation therefore is going to be limited in how much it can see and how far it can extend. Criminals are well aware of these limitations and adapt their strategies to try and counter the CCTV coverage and work out its weaknesses. For example, they arrive on the scene with faces masked and make it as difficult as possible to identify them. Faced with system limitations, management need to look at ways to ensure that they can get the relevant information that would help them, and the best way to leverage existing video data.

There is a need to extend the CCTV system coverage as far as possible around the site, but as indicated, this increases costs and is often restricted by private property issues. This highlights a real need for cooperation between CCTV systems, where video footage from surrounding systems can be reviewed, and even systems designed to overlap so coverage is extended to a 'virtual network' extending over multiple city blocks or streets of an industrial area. This does not mean that people are allowing others to access their system content directly, but rather that managers of CCTV schemes are prepared to cooperate in the retrieval and sharing of data that will assist the community of users in the identification or detection of criminals. This involves obtaining or examining video from surrounding areas, and systematically tracking the origin and movement of criminals back from the incident site, and forward in pursuing the escape route and possible identifiers.

This systematic review of CCTV footage can be vital in solving crimes and resulting in an identification of perpetrators. The most noticeable examples have been the immediate reaction of police in the UK to terrorism incidents such as the London tube bombings, and the more historical Brixton bomber where police retrieved massive amounts of video material. The success of these operations has been well publicised. While terrorism would lead to calls for such action, it has generally not been taken for lesser offences and the commitment of police to go through such video is certainly not as strong for normal criminal activities. However, given South Africa's crime rate and the impact on the country and people, it could well be argued that there is a need to combine resources and pursue criminals as actively as possible. This means that there has to be a systematic organisation of CCTV and video material and ease of retrieval and sharing. I remember visiting one operation where there were stacks of tapes with no labelling which were the historical records of about eight years of incidents committed or suspect behaviours. The chance of any meaningful retrieval of information from these was likely to be almost nil, and with the passing of time was going to get progressively less likely.

Casinos are one of the few sites where systematic assembly of a suspect's entire movements over an evening may be put together. This has been the case, even with VCR-based material that must be systematically collected from potentially hundreds of tapes. The advantages are that the person's arrival, movement, contacts, exchanges, and transactions can all be monitored. In some cases this can lead to entirely new suspects, and a far deeper understanding of how criminal activities are planned and implemented. This approach takes a major commitment in terms of time and data collection effort, but potentially delivers one of the most beneficial outcomes of CCTV usage. Small details in CCTV footage often provide important breakthroughs. For instance, in the case of the Brixton bomber, information provided about a bag the bomber was carrying allowed police to obtain a small but significant piece of evidence from a shop near the scene which allowed a more in-depth description to be obtained on the person carrying the bag, and ultimately to match this description against other video from subsequent bombings. However, in order to conduct such a systematic review of sources and video material, the material must be available, it must be accessible, and there must be the manpower to do it.

A more professional approach to active analysis seems to be emerging in some quarters and CCTV Image magazine (February, 2008) has recently reported on the development of a specialised CCTV video analysis unit (VIIDO) in the UK Metropolitan Police. This represents a systematic attempt to get the most out of available CCTV material. Two key points stand out in the CCTV Image write up, including the objective of:

* "Evidence from CCTV cameras to be handled in a systematic way, by specialist officers who are trained and motivated to use video effectively, to maximise the chances of suspects being identified and crimes solved" (p. 27).

* "Video evidence is treated in much the same way as fingerprint evidence: it is gathered and processed with the help of specialist officers; it is stored systematically; it is used proactively and it is kept available to be used in investigations months and years down the line" (p. 27).

The comments made by personnel involved in the project include the fact that it involves re-educating police to the real value of CCTV; that CCTV video is frequently under-utilised; that many aspects available in current video evidence are not addressed; and a more systematic approach to all video is needed. By addressing these issues, the approach by VIIDO has reportedly led to significantly more positive identifications so far with the expectation of improving this further.

It is patently obvious that success in crime fighting in South Africa is severely limited based on levels of apprehension of criminals and conviction rates, despite the best efforts of a police force that is under immense pressure and limited in resources. With involvement in such a scheme or schemes in communities and industrial areas, the changes of criminal identification and apprehension should improve significantly. There are, however, a number of conditions that will need to be met to facilitate this kind of approach:

* Information storage needs to be carefully thought through and the capacity for extended storage needs to be available on the systems.

* High speed searching of the video needs to be built into the systems.

* Video needs to be exchanged with ease across different operations through common use of codecs or exportable formats.

* There needs to be some integration possibilities of automated features such as facial recognition.

* Companies need to think about an organised and systematic approach to dealing with coding and classifying information, and ensure this happens.

There is also a need to look at the legal implications of such access to and sharing of information. Ideally this should be a police led intervention but private involvement in trying to deal with South African crime is becoming increasingly necessary. However, CCTV managers may need to organise their own forum, agreement, and code of practice unless the kind of intervention such as Viido is implemented in South Africa.

Dr Craig Donald is a human factors specialist in security and CCTV. He is a director of Leaderware, which provides instruments for the selection of CCTV operators, X-ray screeners and other security personnel in major operations around the world. He also runs CCTV Surveillance Skills and Body Language, and Advanced Surveillance Body Language courses for CCTV operators, supervisors and managers internationally, and consults on CCTV management. He can be contacted on +27 (0)11 787 7811 or craig.donald@leaderware.com

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