One of the latest of these is designed to counter some of the measures terrorists and other criminals are said to take in order to avoid detection, such as trying to change their clothing or by dissolving into crowds. The system is said to be able to track people by locking onto their faces and attaching tags to pixels on the footage. The technology is a result of collaboration from no less than 10 companies and academic institutions funded by the European Commission, and you can read more about it here.
Meanwhile, a video management system has won praise from a police force after being used as part of an analogue-to-digital CCTV upgrade in Scotland. Fife Constabulary has hailed BT Redcare’s i-Witness system as helping officers to quickly review events and giving them a better understanding of what led up to incidents. “They can be watching the incident live, whilst at the same time be able to very quickly review what’s gone before, and then they can relay that information to officers on the ground”, said Stuart Ward, CCTV officer at Fife Constabulary. To read more about the application and the managed service behind it, click here.
Big Brother takes a break
Another system first designed for police forces is now being made available to the wider industry. UK-based Scyron is offering its incident-based system which has been used in police work – for example at a known haunt for drugs dealers where it was set only to record people lingering longer than a specific time, so ‘ignoring’ innocent passers-by. Interestingly, the company is pitching its product to those concerned with civil liberties as an antidote to the ‘Big Brother’ syndrome, by being able to disregard people going about their legitimate business. Click here to find out more.
News of another IP management system – but this one access control led – at Durham Tees Valley airport. CEM’s AC200 AE (airport edition) is being installed as part of a GB pound 56 million expansion programme. Airside and landside doors will be secured using IP-enabled EtherProx card readers that connect to the airport’s exiting IT cabling infrastructure. The readers have an LCD display, keypad and an internal database for offline card validation, and feature what are described as ‘airport specific’ door modes to control passenger throughput. To find out more, click here.
Looking a little further afield, France is to triple the number of CCTV cameras on its streets by 2009. The country’s interior minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, said that CCTV was relatively undeveloped in France and that new cameras would be used in the fight against terrorism and street crime. “The latest attacks in London were prevented thanks to their video surveillance system which is ten times more developed than ours,” she told Le Monde. Plans to deploy 4ft-long spy plane ‘drones’ to help tackle the country’s growing gang violence were also unveiled. For more on the announcement and reaction to it, click here.
Finally, Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust is aiming to save GB pound 20,000 a year in IT costs with a new single sign-on for physical and logical access control. The Onesign system from Imprivata has been used to reduce the number of passwords staff need from up to 12, to one. The Trust is also planning to pilot a biometric system in the hospital’s accident & emergency department.
Remember, for the most comprehensive news and features about security – updated daily – visit www.info4security.com.
Until next time,
Ron Alalouff
Editor, Platform
