Category Archives: Surveillance

Businesses invest in IT, cops invest in ET (evidence technology)

The consumerization of IT is an oft-quoted trend in IT circles: how dramatic changes in employee digital behaviour are transforming how businesses manage their digital content.

It turns out the same behavior changes in criminals are transforming the legal system. As an example, a collection of digital evidence overwhelmingly convinced jurors in the recent Rutgers suicide case.

Sure, fingerprints and DNA remain central to fighting crime. But the tide is shifting, and digital evidence is more and more often the make-the-case content for investigators and prosecutors. Continue reading »

Benchmark Magazine recommends BriefCam Video Synopsis as a digital coping tool

Benchmark Magazine reviewed BriefCam’s VS Forensics product, a breakthrough innovation in video evidence analysis. The product received high marks – an 84% overall rating, and a Benchmark recommendation.

In the process they made an interesting observation: the move to digital video surveillance is extremely disruptive, yet organization are adopting it in droves. This puts stress on law enforcement organizations that they must find a way to overcome. Continue reading »

Video Synopsis finds needles in surveillance haystacks – in minutes

Cops work hard.

If there was a “Top Ten Hardest Working Careers” list, I’m sure law enforcement would be at or near the top.

But while having a strong work ethic is admirable, sometimes it’s not enough. Continue reading »

The Fourth Wave of Video Surveillance

There have been four Waves of Surveillance technology:

The First Wave of Surveillance was having security guards make the rounds.

The Second Wave of Surveillance was the CCTV live feed. The security guard could watch from his perch in the lobby. Continue reading »

Surveillance storage for the long haul

Suiker Unie had a problem.

Their bioethanol plant in Anklam, Germany is required by law to monitor the facility entrance with surveillance cameras.

The problem wasn’t setting up the cameras and the recording system. It was having to keep the video for three years. Continue reading »

Undercover IT depends on digital content

I had the privilege of spending time with a Tech Ops team inside a major metropolitan police department this week. It opened my eyes to technology’s role in fighting crime.

Digital content is critical to two major areas of law enforcement: before a suspect is caught, and after a crime is committed. Continue reading »

Surveillance compression is good, but not good enough

Compression is a powerful productivity tool for surveillance. Reduce the complexity or resolution of something and you make it shorter, smaller, faster, easier to store and easier to send. But there’s a price to pay.

The more you compress, the more you degrade, and the more likely that you will miss something. And that is just the opposite of what surveillance by definition is all about. Continue reading »

Beware of “disposable” storage for surveillance archives

Using hard disk drives to archive Surveillance data is dangerous: store something you may need decades later on storage media designed for 3-5 years of life. Sure, they cost less per TB than optical disc technology, but the downside risk is much worse. Continue reading »

« Older Posts