Reader Comments 12-26-08

Blogs about video surveillance systems always attract the most responses. Today we look at a comment from Ryan Taylor, CEO, TRUSYS about last weeks blog; "Using Video for Detecting Perimeter Violations". His comments are longer than most, but seem to be well worth reading. You can find his complete comments at the bottom of the referenced blog by clicking on the comments link. He notes that the figures quoted in that blog for false positives (175 or more per week) are completely unacceptable from his point of view. He states that his company recently tested a system with a false positive rate of 1 false positive per 38 actual detections. That sounds pretty impressive to me. He also briefly discusses options for doing the ‘analytics’ in the individual cameras rather than in a central computer. He also mentions web based software rather than loading the analytics software on facility computers, noting that this allows for remote maintenance and adjustments. The more we talk about using video analytics for intrusion detection, the more it becomes obvious that this is not yet mature technology. Facilities that want to use this technological fix to replace a large guard force need to keep that in mind. This certainly appears to be an area a facility security manager should approach carefully.