The surveillance industry in South Africa has a bad name. There are far too many people paying far too much money for cameras and control rooms, but receiving little in return.
The normal response to allegations of poor returns from security players is, “what would happen if it was not there”. While this may be true, it does little to aid companies with limited budgets in coming to terms with and measuring the value of their surveillance solution.
Meerkat Data Management (MDM), part of Security Service Consultants, is out to change all that by offering a new hosted service designed to deliver intelligence from surveillance footage.
In short, MDM provides an off or onsite control room infrastructure in which the client’s trained users monitor cameras for specific events. When an event occurs, an alarm is raised and the occurrence categorised. Not only does this provide an immediate response to events, but creates a database the client can use to monitor and measure various aspects of their security and health and safety environments.
MDM’s Andre Fourie explains that the categories users look out for include traditional criminal activities, health and safety violations, substance abuse and so on. Not all of these require an armed response, but a database of viewed incidents can assist corporations in providing more secure and safer working facilities. These trends can be measured over any length of time to provide valuable information the company can act on, as well as adding value to the company.
Of course, when a criminal event occurs, MDM users ensure that the correct reporting process is followed, recording the event and the details thereof after sending an e-mail or SMS to alert the appropriate people. The client in question specifies who should be alerted and how to alert them.
Customised per client
Fourie adds that not only is the response to criminal activity specified by the customer, but the activities users look for can also be predetermined to assist the company in obtaining in-depth information about issues relevant to that particular business. “Each company has its own terminology and priorities and MDM is able to tailor our service to match the client’s requirements.”
The process even allows specific monitoring processes to be stipulated per camera. Managers are asked to specify what each camera observes and what activities or business processes should be happening at various times to develop the profile for the user to monitor. This will provide the user with a set of questions to ask at set intervals while looking at the camera. For example, a simplified set of questions might be:
* Is the camera operational?
* Is the gate closed?
* Is the guard at his post?
If a negative response is provided for any question, there will be further questions, leading to the user filing a report or raising an alarm. Fourie says the questions are kept as simple as possible to ensure the user is able to answer yes or no to most of them, avoiding any ambiguity. Of course, the questions asked and their complexity will be determined by what the client wants.
Since the questions are stored online, all the questions will be asked and answered in the correct order at the correct time. The system will automatically raise an alert if a camera is ignored or the questions indicate a problem.
Security as a service
MDM provides its solution as a service, meaning over the Internet. Clients can log into the MDM database over a secure connection and view their reports at any time, from any Internet browser. The hosted server is more secure than most in-house servers in the market today. In addition MDM takes care of all the technical support and development work, users simply use the latest version of the system each time they log in.
Once logged in, clients can call up whatever reports they choose. The reports are all presented in graphical format, making it easy to pick up trends and patterns. This information can then be translated into action by the relevant managers.
Users can even have the status of various cameras (or other systems that are monitored) displayed in a dashboard format to ensure they are aware of all the issues they are responsible for. Fourie adds that additional measurements of systems such as heat or electricity usage can be automatically monitored by the system.
The benefits
Fourie offers the following list of benefits of the MDM system:
* Increase the productivity of users and surveillance installations.
* Reduce shrinkage.
* Monitor the activities of newly trained employees to ensure they were properly trained.
* Turn management information into actions.
* Ensure the correct people are immediately alerted when incidents occur.
* Everyone with the appropriate authorisation can access the system from a Web browser. Different levels of access are provided for different employees.
* All incidents are date-stamped and recorded in case further action is needed.
* All comments and observations reported cannot be deleted or altered in any way at a later stage.
The system is available now from MDM. Contact Andre Fourie on +27 (0)82 491 4865 or e-mail andre@griffithsonline.co.za
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