CCTV: I
n May 2009, the Guardian newspaper (in the UK) featured an article quoting research that concluded that the impact of CCTV on overall crime is “modest” but that it is effective in reducing vehicle crime in car parks. The previous year the Association of Chief Police Officers determined that CCTV was effective in the detection of only 3% of all crime; this could be considered a worry as most police officers (not only in the UK) will tell you that CCTV is more useful in crime detection than in crime prevention. So, it is necessary to understand what CCTV is and what its capabilities are. The reports that conclude that CCTV has limited effectiveness in preventing and detecting crime may be missing the point. In specific scenarios, such as airports, it is impossible to conceive how such a facility could even function without CCTV deployment on a very large scale. At the end of the day, the efficacy of CCTV comes down to two major issues: the cost of manpower and the limitations of staff – the human factor in aviation terminology.
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ENSURING EFFECTIVE SURVEILLANCE AT AIRPORTS
The debate about the effectiveness of CCTV continues whilst, at the same time, civil libertarians rage about the increase in social surveillance. That, however, has not reduced deployment and within the aviation industry CCTV is booming. Airports will have hundreds, if not thousands, of CCTV cameras, accompanied by sophisticated analytical software. But deployment alone does offer any guarantees and it is the way the solution is utilised and managed that is of paramount importance. Against that backdrop, Mark Medwecki asks how we can ensure the effectiveness of CCTV surveillance at airports?
§ In order that CCTV systems function as a proactive monitoring tool, they have to be configured so that they alert human operators with an alarm.
The following points may help in setting the scene:
§ CCTV cameras are ‘remote eyes’ but since there are so many of them, don’t expect a security guard to be able to monitor hundreds simultaneously; it is fairly common knowledge that after twenty minutes, people monitoring a screen ‘turn off’.
§ The monitors may look impressive but the first question that can be posed to the operator is, “What are you actually looking at?” Coherent answers are rarely forthcoming.
§ CCTV cameras connected to a recording device are always good for reviewing what happened. But using CCTV to help react to what is happening in real time is more challenging.
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§ The integration of CCTV with other alarm systems is not new but the range of situations that can be monitored and configured to produce alarms in specific circumstances has grown with technological advances. Not so many years ago alarm systems were aimed at detecting movement – think door contacts or movement detectors - and the challenge was to ensure that an alarm activation was genuine. Ultimately, alarms needed to be verified and initially this was done by sending a security guard to check. Having a CCTV camera in the area of the alarm allowed verification to be conducted remotely thus saving manpower, not to mention time.
§ Developments over the years have essentially been a refinement of this principle, and progress in IP CCTV systems allows for greater sophistication at an affordable price.
February 2013 Aviationsecurityinternational
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