NW Systems Group - Experts & Thought Leaders

Four out of every ten (41%) of England-based medium and large-sized businesses, which are running CCTV systems, have already deployed facial recognition analytics in their systems, in order to capture human faces and compare images to human face databases, with a view to identifying matches for access control, event security or for public safety purposes. Facial recognition analytics One in six (16%) of CCTV system owners admitted to having access to this capability on their system, but not yet going live with it. Over a third of CCTV system owners (36%) in businesses, with over 50 employees, had already deployed some event or behavioural recognition analytics. Examples given include spotting loitering or highlighting abandoned bags (bags with no person in close proximity). A further 22% believed that they had this capability in their systems, but had not yet turned it on. ANPR and video motion detection technology Just over a third (34%) of CCTV system owners questioned had already deployed ANPR Just over a third (34%) of CCTV system owners questioned had already deployed Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, to capture number plates at perimeter barriers, for example, and the same number of system owners (34%) had deployed Video Motion Detection (VMD), to help reduce their system’s video storage requirements, by only recording when motion is detected, in front of a camera. One in five (20%) business owners claimed to have access to ANPR analytics in their systems, but have not yet turned it on. A further 27% claimed to have Video Motion Detection (VMD) capability in their systems, which they have not yet activated. Objection Detection or Object Classification  Exactly a third (33.33%) of CCTV system owners in England claimed to have deployed object tracking technology, which is a relatively new capability that enables security teams to track individuals, from camera to camera, through a large site in ‘Auto Track’ mode. Nearly a third (32%) of business owners had deployed Objection Detection or Object Classification, in order to help the video security system distinguish between humans, vehicles, animals, swaying trees, shadows, rain, luggage, water, roads, and etc. 23% of these business owners confirmed that they had this capability in their systems, but had not yet activated it. Deploying Directional Detection analytics Only marginally less (31.6%) CCTV system owners claimed to have already deployed Directional Detection analytics, so as to detect which direction an object or a person is moving over a line. A further 28% of business owners claimed to have this capability at their disposal, but not to have turned it on as of now. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) analytics heavily used to read the identification numbers on parcels and other goods in transit has been deployed by 31% of England’s businesses, as per NW Security’s recent business survey. A further 35% of CCTV system owners claimed that they already had this capability in their systems, but had not yet put it to work. Business intelligence-led video analytics Business intelligence-led video analytics was not far behind, in terms of adoption by businesses in England Business intelligence-led video analytics was not far behind, in terms of adoption by businesses in England. For example, heat mapping, which is commonly used to detect crowds forming before events or analyse the busiest areas of a shop, has already been deployed by 28% of CCTV system owners. Nearly another quarter (23%) claimed to have this capability at their disposal, but had not yet configured it or made it live. 28% of CCTV system owners had turned on people counting analytics on their systems. NW Security discovered that some of these people had adopted this capability, in order to monitor room capacity levels, owing to COVID-19 safety reasons. Nearly as many, 26% of businesses in England, thought they had people counting analytics available in their system but had not yet made it live. Facial detection and traffic monitoring analytics Over a quarter (27%) of CCTV system owners recorded that they were using facial detection analytics and a further quarter (25%) of businesses had deployed traffic monitoring analytics in their systems. While 22% of CCTV system owners recorded making crowd density analytics live on their systems. Even higher numbers (24%) of businesses in England have confirmed that they had access to crowd density measurement analytics, but had not yet deployed it. Video analytics at the edge We have been surprised by the level of adoption, of even fairly sophisticated video analytics, across CCTV system owners" Frank Crouwel, the Managing Director of NW Security, commented “We have been surprised by the level of adoption, of even fairly sophisticated video analytics, across CCTV system owners. That said, more and more camera vendors are offering analytics at the edge. Many video analytics types are present in over half of existing systems and 7 different types of analytics have already seen over 30% adoption, across our total base of over 152 CCTV system owners of medium and large-sized businesses across England.” Josh Woodhouse, Lead Analyst at Novaira Insights, a UK-based video surveillance market research company and publisher of the ‘World Market for Video Surveillance Hardware and Software’ market report earlier in the year, stated “Basic features like motion detection and virtual tripwire have been embedded in most cameras for many years. However, it is an ongoing trend, where more analytics workload can be achieved at the edge.” Cameras with advanced analytics Josh Woodhouse adds, “An increasing number of new cameras sold feature more advanced analytics like event or behaviour recognition. It is estimated that 43% of all professional grade network security cameras, shipped in the world in 2020, featured these more advanced analytics. This is forecast to nearly double to 81% by 2025, leading to cameras having the functionality for advanced analytics, such as object detection or facial recognition, as standard capabilities.”  

NW Security launches its 36 page Management Report entitled ‘Preparing for the Next Generation of CCTV Systems’. The report brings together all results and analysis based on England-wide market research it conducted of medium and large sized firms running CCTV systems. The Report reveals that England is poised to become an early and rapid adopter of Cloud CCTV. It explores why 58 per cent of all firms captured in its survey of CCTV system users, are planning to migrate their existing CCTV systems into the cloud by September 2021. Cloud migration plans Amongst private sector more than two thirds (71 per cent) of CCTV users were actively considering migrating their video systems into the cloud. One of the key reasons for the strong appetite for ‘Cloud CCTV’ migration, the NW Security Report finds, is that although the UK was late to moving to network video from traditional analogue-based CCTV because of its widespread adoption of CCTV more than 25 years ago; the CCTV to network video tipping point has finally been breached across all sectors. NW Security’s report also plots the increase in demand for Cloud CCTV Sixty one per cent of England-based medium and large businesses now have network video monitoring systems rather than traditional analogue-based CCTV systems, the study found. NW Security’s report also plots the increase in demand for Cloud CCTV as part of the wider acceleration of cloud migration plans in response to COVID-19. Corporate IT applications COVID-19 has created a rapid increase in demand for access to corporate IT applications and Management Information systems remotely, as so many of us spent most of our working week operating away from the traditional workplace. Cloud CCTV demand fits with wider cloud migration plans which have been accelerated in response to COVID-19. Forty two per cent of all medium and large-sized businesses admitted that their ‘cloud migration plans are being accelerated in 2020/21 because of COVID-19’. A further 34 per cent increased budgets to put more IT services and applications into the cloud following the outbreak of the pandemic. Three quarters (76 per cent) of all firms which completed NW Security’s online survey confirmed that they had accelerated cloud migration plans as a result of the pandemic. More surprising findings Perhaps one of the more surprising findings of this study was the fact that a third (33 per cent) of all businesses’ CCTV systems captured in NW Security’s study were still run by in-house Security or Facilities Management departments. Many IT managers are being forced to take a deeper interest (in their organisations’ CCTV systems)" However, now that more CCTV systems are networked than not, and Cloud CCTV migration is being actively considered by over half of organisations this year, NW Security believes IT departments will end up in charge of much more than the quarter (27 per cent) of video monitoring systems within the next couple of years. As Frank Crouwel, Managing Director of NW Security commented in the Report: “Many IT managers are being forced to take a deeper interest (in their organisations’ CCTV systems) now that the technology and security installer partner capability is available to upgrade and improve CCTV systems - potentially moving them up into the cloud and exploring AI-driven video analytics capabilities which will come as standard in the next generation of CCTV systems.” Professional security expertise Surprisingly, only 10 per cent of systems are supported by an external CCTV/network video specialist installer, NW Security’s study found. Yet with so much new technology coming in so quickly; and the pressure to migrate video monitoring into the cloud growing, deeper partnerships with external experts with combined pools of IT networking, cloud migration and professional security expertise are likely to gain ground, the report finds. Frank Crouwel, confirms first-hand experience of this partnership approach: “We are seeing more businesses looking for help from expert partners for improvement and optimisation of CCTV systems to ensure they are getting optimal value from their existing systems.” NW Security believes that the CCTV market is undergoing fundamental change and plans to investigate the implications of that change in a second study that it will run later this year.

Globally renowned IP video surveillance integrator, NW Security (NW Systems Group) has signed a partnership agreement with the major unified, intelligent security-as-a-service solutions provider, Arcules. Arcules VSaaS platform The Arcules Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) platform provides organisations with an underlying cloud infrastructure, which offers features such as compatibility between sites, low video latency, data encryption, redundancy, streamlined maintenance, automatic firmware updates and easy onboarding, all built on the Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud offers several major advantages for those exploring the option of migrating their CCTV system into the Cloud. Firstly, Google has invested in building its own data centres around Europe which can ensure new data privacy requirements under EU Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are met, while simultaneously minimising data latency to a few microseconds, something that is crucial in live monitoring of CCTV for example. Google Cloud Google Cloud also offers considerable strength in harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) Google Cloud also offers considerable strength in harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT). This capability can help users match CCTV camera data with data from other connected sensors to add richness to users’ understanding of incidents. This, in turn, helps firms to become more proactive and predictive in their security operations. It also makes it easier to extract business intelligence which can be put to work to find efficiencies and improve profitability for businesses. Fully open platform with support for IP cameras Arcules offers a fully open platform including support for over 3,000 IP camera models available in the market. This enables customers to migrate their existing surveillance cameras to an Arcules Cloud account without the need to buy new cameras. Arcules, which was spun out of Milestone Systems three years ago, also benefits from tight integration with the Video Management Software (VMS) solutions company. This allows Milestone XProtect customers to make smaller remote sites live quickly and with minimal IT resources and downtime using the award-winning Arcules-XProtect Hybrid VMS Solution. Arcules remains a Canon Group company together with both Milestone and Axis. Migration of CCTV systems into the cloud Frank Crouwel, Managing Director of NW Security (NW Systems Group), commented “We are right on the cusp of an acceleration in the migration of CCTV systems into the cloud. Over two thirds (71 per cent) of England-based medium and large-sized firms in the private sector and 43 per cent of public sector organisations we surveyed in September 20201, are planning to migrate CCTV systems into the cloud within the next 12 months.” It’s important to have well developed services for helping firms to migrate CCTV into the cloud" Frank adds, “It’s important to have well developed services for helping firms to migrate CCTV into the cloud. Arcules now offers the right combination of highly secure, yet open and flexible cloud CCTV platform with easy onboarding paths for customers. We are very pleased to be Arcules’ first integrator partner for the United Kingdom.” Open and flexible cloud CCTV platform Michael Hyglid, Sales Director EMEA at Arcules, said “NW Security is set to be a key partner for us in the United Kingdom. Unusually, it has a broad base of customers who prefer to buy equipment direct, often via its specialist IP CCTV online store - Network webcams. NW Security then helps many of these companies to integrate and configure this equipment, so it works optimally.” He adds, “They also understand that some customers are likely to favour buying surveillance capabilities via OPEX rather than incurring considerable CAPEX, which is where Arcules has a lot to offer. I’ve also been impressed by their knowledge of other cloud providers.” ‘Cloud first’ platform Michael further stated, “They understood right away that we are not just a software solution that’s been ported into the cloud but are a 100 per cent ‘cloud first’ platform built on leading cloud tools and principles. They also understand where we are today and the strength of our technology roadmap.”