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A few Fridays ago the ABC television program “The Chasers War On Everything” looked at security and video surveillance systems and especially the ones that are monitored by security guards. We have all seen them a security guard sits in a monitoring booth looking bored witless and looks at the screens for any problems. Unfortunately, it can be like staring at a road continuously the operator or observer might become hypnotized and not react quickly enough or not at all. Well the chaser team proved this happens by removing the signs warning of video surveillance on the site and almost no one reacted to such thefts.

Because humans have abilities to fail in this duty of care obligation to watch the screen and identify issues that need attention, the information technology sector is coming to the rescue with computer software like facial recognition, anti theft image comparison and other sensor analysis programs.

With facial recognition a computer can compare the features of people walking through a building to a list of photos of “known suspects” and should one of these people in it database be found alert the operator to dispatch a guard to apprehend or question the person. Image comparison technology compares the view coming through the camera with a static photo in its database. It does this frame by frame and if it suddenly notices an article has been moved or is missing immediately notifies the operator.

Unfortunately, video footage seems often to be only accessed after a crime has occurred to find the perpetrator but with these new technologies coming in it will mean it could stop crimes from occurring before the perpetrator gets a chance.