Facial recognition systems - Expert commentary

Multi-modal biometrics refers to a technology that combines a number of biometrics working together as a multifactor solution Global terrorism is on the rise. For many years, the West felt immune to these incidents, often asserting that these were problems felt only in countries with heated conflicts, such as Syria, Iraq, Israel and Nigeria. However, recent terror attacks have taken place in both Europe and the United States: Belgium, France (Paris and Nice), Orlando, various...

The field of artificial intelligence known as machine learning or cognitive computing has in recent years become highly popular The field of artificial intelligence known as machine learning or cognitive computing has in recent years become highly popular. The meteoric rise of “deep learning” technology over the past several years has been truly dramatic in many industries. Industry giants from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM and many others have been pouring mass...

A force of 85,000 police and military will patrol the Olympic grounds and environs to provide security A week before the Rio Olympics were slated to begin, Brazil fired the private security firm assigned to hire personnel to screen people entering the various Olympic venues located around Rio De Janeiro. The security plan called for 3,400 screeners. The security firm had only found 500. What happened? Today, prospective security officers must undergo background checks that do...

Part 7 of our healthcare series Integrators can sell a breadth of possible equipment into the healthcare market One appeal of the healthcare market for North Carolina Sound, an integrator covering central North Carolina, is the breadth of possible equipment they can sell into the healthcare market, including access control and video, of course, but also other technologies, such as audio-video systems in a dining room. North Carolina Sound has also installed sound masking in s...

Part 3 of our Security in Healthcare series Megapixel and higher-definition cameras are meeting the security and surveillance needs of a variety of hospital and healthcare facilities Video is a major component of most hospital and healthcare security systems. Among the big video trends are greater integration of video with other systems, and increased use of higher-megapixel cameras and 180-degree and 360-degree-view cameras to monitor larger areas. Variety of video...

It is more complicated to search through video compared to text-based data Since the launch of Google’s search engine in 1998, Internet search has grown and expanded from desktops to mobile devices, generating over 3.5 billion searches of text, images and videos per day. One likely reason for this popularity is the search engine’s ability to immediately produce relevant results based on search criteria. The security industry, in contrast, has not always taken adv...

 Part 1 of our Security in Healthcare series Hospitals have a continuous need for security, to update their systems,and to make repairs The healthcare vertical provides plenty of opportunities for security integrator companies. A single large hospital system can supply a dependable ongoing source of revenue to integrator companies, says David Alessandrini, Vice President, Pasek Corp., an integrator. Hospitals have a continuous need for security, to update their...

H.265 compression continued to be a popular topic from exhibitors on the second day of IFSEC Video beyond security, compression, HD over analogue and integration were on the lips of several exhibitors at IFSEC International 2016. Strangely for a security exhibition, there were plenty of exhibitors talking about non-security applications on the second day of IFSEC International in London. For Axis Communications, Atul Rajput, Regional Director for Northern Europe, said th...

H.265 compression, apps and the inherent security of security systems were some of the themes to be gleaned on the first day of IFSEC International. Almost every video exhibitor I saw on day one of the show mentioned that many of their products use H.265 compression in these days of high definition, bandwidth-hungry cameras. Over at Vivotek’s stand, for example, Emilio Sanchez, project consultant, spoke of the company’s H.265 Smart Stream compression algorithm. He said this saves an...

Though primarily developed for consumer electronic devices, the advantages ofH.265 compression technology make it ideal for the world of physical security Ever since digital video systems were introduced the race was on to develop compression technologies to reduce runaway bandwidth and storage consumption. We’ve watched the industry roll out MJPEG, MPEG and H.264 advanced compression standards in direct response to each innovation. With adoption of HDTV and 4K solutions...

The report says almost 50% of the public transport organisations are willingto broaden the type of video analytics used A detailed survey of public transport operators shows a growing demand for networked/IP systems and video analytics to help cope with the requirements of large surveillance systems. The report, Video Surveillance in Public Transport, published by the international public transport association UITP and Axis Communications, is based on 74 respondents across 30...

Nationally from 2012 - 2015, there has been a decrease in the money spent on theinstallation, monitoring and maintenance of CCTV compared to the period 2009-2012 The UK has often been referred to as the world’s most watched country in terms of the scale of CCTV surveillance. But a new report claims that UK local authorities have reduced spending on the installation, maintenance and monitoring of public space CCTV systems, while the number of cameras being used is also do...

What effect will the attacks in Brussels have on aviation security? Screenings inpre-security airport areas have been uncommon, but may become standard practice Will the Brussels airport attack herald a new era of aviation security? Like the bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport in 2011, the Brussels attack took place “landside”, meaning that security precautions would have been low-key and limited to spot checks and the general watchfulness of police office...

Accurately confirming a person’s identity is one key to improving security forour workplaces, communities, and our nation Perhaps I’m sensitised to the term, but it seems to me that I’m hearing the word “identity” a lot lately.   Identity comes up in current news stories about Syrian refugees, for example. Candidates for the U.S. presidency debate how long it should take to confirm the identity of immigrants before allowing them to ent...

Temperature, dusty and dirty conditions, along with limited access to networkingmakes remote location video surveillance extremely challenging Properly conducting video surveillance for any organisation comes with several challenges. Not the least of which is how to architect a system that finds the right balance between quality, cost and bandwidth impact. This becomes even more challenging in non-traditional, demanding environments that are uncontrolled or highly dispersed, w...

Important biometric capabilities include multispectral imaging, superior liveness detection, and tamper resistance Technology developments are enabling a range of new functionality for biometrics in the security market. Early biometrics solutions had poor performance (high failures during enrolment or acquisition that meant significant percentages of users could not use biometrics), says Phil Scarfo, VP worldwide marketing, biometrics, HID Global. Early solutions were not able...

As the world faces new threats and challenges at the end of 2015, the security market looks more and more attractive for companies and employees around the world. Digital technology increasingly is replacing a traditional physical security approach, upgrading old-school analogue alarms and CCTV. Attractive security projects From AxxonSoft’s point of view, security projects seem very attractive because they normally can bring up to 30% profit for a standard security system installation....

IDIS was a new name in the security market in 2015, and we asked the company to comment on interesting trends in the market at year-end. Here is that discussion.    SourceSecurity.com: How did the economy affect the industry in 2015? Keith Drummond, Senior Director of Sales and Marketing, IDIS America: The surveillance market had been quite resilient as it relates to the overall economy over the 15 years I have been in the industry, and 2015 has been no different. It s...

VIIDOS were established to deal with thehuge increase in surveillance dataavailable to investigators We need CCTV footage to reveal the true story of what happened before, during, and after a crime. We need to put those forensic images before the court in a manner that has integrity and obeys the rules, codes and legislation that have evolved in this rapidly changing digital era. To do that successfully, we must consider all the contributing elements of a CCTV i...

Customers are seeking systems integration as a solution rather than a component The migration of access control systems from conventional technology to IP has had a positive impact on TDSi’s sales for IP equipment.  Increasing demand for biometric and face recognition applications has also paved the way for better and improved access control systems. According to John Davies, Managing Director of access control company TDSi, the state of any given market depends on...

In casino surveillance, there must be an understanding of the behaviour of thieves and cheats. In particular, casinos must understand how the behaviour of a casino adversary differs from that of a legitimate guest. The end result of the understanding is that only threatening or fraudulent behaviour is challenged, leaving other guests free to simply enjoy their visits to the casino. Responding to behaviour anomalies requires understanding that comes from analytics capabilities...

see bigger image Figure 5: Providing correct and useful results requires intersection of user intentions, VCA interpretation, and results provided by VCA tool The term Video Content Analysis (VCA) is often used to describe sophisticated video analytics technologies designed to assist analysts in classifying or detecting events of interest in videos. These events may include the appearance of a particular object, class of objects, or action. VCA technology employs a comple...

Employees are the front line of defence — as well as the most economical defence — against shrinkage losses The financial cost of retail shrinkage is huge. The latest Annual Shrink Report issued by Dr. Richard Hollinger and Dr. Read Hayes at the University of Florida puts the total at $36 billion annually. Shrinkage has several causes: customers shoplifting , employee theft, supplier fraud and administrative errors. Frequent inventories and accounting audits coun...

Kevin Brownell, principal physical security consultant at PTS Consulting Group, considers convergence of IT networks and physical security. He argues that current best practice shows that they no longer need to be separate disciplines and reassures installers that their diversity has been exaggerated. Brownell describes experiences of working with IT managers who no longer see networked CCTV and access control as ‘black arts’ and are buying into the idea of IP security as an integr...

Anything that can incite a crowd surge is a security threat in a sports arena Security at sports stadiums is making headlines across several countries during a week when UBM announced that Protection & Management 2015 (which includes the IFSEC International trade fair) will feature Karren Brady (Baroness Brady), a career soccer executive, as one of its inspirational keynote speakers. As I type, inquests are being held into the deaths of some of the 96 people who were kill...

Improvements in the technology have lowered – but not eliminated – concerns about false alarms False alarms have plagued the video analytics market since the beginning. Improvements in the technology have lowered – but not eliminated – concerns about false alarms. Companies providing video analytics systems say the question isn’t whether false alarms can be eliminated, but rather how they can be managed. “We’re still very far away fro...

Intelligent searches of video archives provide investigators faster access to any needed video clip That video analytics can be immensely useful in forensics is relatively less known. However, forensic search capabilities offered by some modern video analytics solutions can not only save investigators significant amounts of time but also help them find results more accurately. These solutions leverage facial recognition and advanced object tracking, demographic analytics, lice...

Of the many benefits offered by new and advanced IP video surveillance cameras, the ability to easily customise these devices with third party apps has the potential to change the landscape in video surveillance system design and implementation. By providing the ability to customise individual cameras with the specific functionality desired for every specific camera location, camera apps not only increase functionality where needed, they deliver tremendous savings on a system-wide...

More attention needs to be placed on the development of readers that can accommodate Wireless and Wi-Fi technology Many of the changes in the access control market are happening at the “edge” – at the reader level. Access control advances that continue to become more widespread include wireless and PoE-enabled access control hardware such as wireless locks and PoE door controllers, which both reduce installation costs. Other trends are related to mobility; on...