Overcome These Top 5 Video Surveillance Challenges

Video surveillance is a cornerstone of efficient security operations. But video surveillance is only as effective as the way it’s employed and used.

Most organizations fail to capitalize on the benefits a successful video surveillance strategy can deliver. There are five clear challenges that are difficult to overcome.

They have very little to do with the system you have in place, and more about how you use it.

Let’s look at these top 5 video surveillance issues, and how to beat them to deliver exceptional security.

CHALLENGE 1 – INEFFECTIVE DETECTION

It’s a challenge to efficiently, and continuously monitor video surveillance streams to detect individuals and events of interest – whether known thieves, VIPs, employees, ex-employees or suppliers.

Slow or missed detection of known individuals can results in preventable crime, missed commercial opportunities, or put human safety at risk.

In retail environments, incidents resulting from incomplete perception and recognition leads to interruption in business continuity, inventory shrinkage, increased insurance and security costs.

CHALLENGE 2 – VIDEO SURVEILLANCE BLIND SPOTS

Whether physical blind spots – cameras simply don’t cover the full area of interest – or lack of dedicated resources monitoring video streams, missing the complete picture means a permeable security perimeter. Stats show that less than 24% of incidents are originally identified using video surveillance.

Blind spots are a video surveillance challenge that becomes more difficult in multi-zone, multi-location operations, and when visitor volume is highest. These are the conditions where incidents are most likely to occur.

As coordinated, multi-site theft and attacks are common, effectively covering all blind spots is key to successful video surveillance.

CHALLENGE 3 – DIFFICULTY RETRIEVING EVIDENCE

When an incident occurs, is it challenging and time consuming to find supporting video from NVRs? Are logs, and reports captured on paper? Are access control systems not integrated with video analytics?

The ability to quickly identify individuals, their journey, and evidence of their activity is critical to not only support law enforcement, but also to prevent offenders from repeating their actions at other sites within a short period of time.

46% of criminals repeat their actions at another location, many times within hours. You have to move fast.

CHALLENGE 4 – DISCONNECTED SYSTEMS

Connecting video surveillance with access control systems can dramatically increase effectiveness, but often security infrastructure is assembled from vendor-specific solutions and technology that are difficult to integrate.

When humans become the bridge between systems, it prevents consistent, real-time responsiveness. If a gas station wants to shut down pumps when a known thief arrives, it has to be done in seconds.

CHALLENGE 5 – PERCEPTION THAT FACIAL RECOGNITION IS OUT OF REACH AND IMPRECISE

Facial recognition capabilities can help detect motion, individuals, and objects. When deployed effectively, this helps to reduce blind spots and increase recognition rates, while also simplifying evidence retrieval.

In reality, surveillance camera vendors’ capabilities fall short. Without industry standards, inconsistent recognition algorithms, and the inability to easily share BOLO lists across multi-site video surveillance systems is a real challenge.

AN EFFECTIVE ANTIDOTE

Short of ripping and replacing existing systems with a single vendor’s end-to-end ecosystem ($$$), there appear to be few options to address these top 5 video surveillance challenges.

However, a simple solution exists: decouple facial recognition from existing infrastructure. By using methods that analyze existing video feeds, any camera can be upgraded with the latest facial recognition technology. Detection rates rise from 25% to well above 80%.

By centralizing this recognition, seeing all zones and sites all the time becomes simple. It also means there is a single point of integration with other systems, making automation practical.

You can learn more about how to do this by trying it yourself. Learn how you can test it in your own environment in days, with no change to existing infrastructure.