On the first day of IFSEC, with stands awash with the latest CCTV goodies, you might think that the industry is immune to such negative press but already, after only two appointments with major manufacturers, I get the impression it’s not.
Although the national media has moved on to other things, the criticism from the head of the Met’s Viido unit has had a stinging effect. “Only 3 per cent of crimes were solved by CCTV” read the headlines after Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville addressed a security conference.
We in the industry know that CCTV has solved countless crimes – and who’s to say how many it’s prevented as a deterrent?
But every few weeks the national media will be dredging up some similar criticism no matter how good or bad the CCTV is.
After all, the “surveillance society threat” is the only issue that unites both the Guardian and the Daily Mail – the two nationals that are usually at each other’s throats.
The national media only needs the slightest criticism to rehash this anti-CCTV campaign – ironically, often in the face of their own readers who are naturally in favour of anything that helps make society safer.
If anyone read the original Guardian report, Neville went on to say that CCTV was helping police in 15-20 per cent of street robberies where his Viido scheme is working and images were being collated from across London.
Did we see that statistic reported anywhere else?
In the national media only the criticisms are reported. I thought the report was more a condemnation of the police than the CCTV industry.
Quote from the Guardian story: “Often they (police) do not want to find CCTV images ‘because it’s hard work’. Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.”
A great attitude there from our police force, don’t you think?
However the industry is working hard to do all it can to make evidence gathering easier.
The BSIA is mounting a robust defence of the industry and CCTV section chair Pauline Norstrom has appeared on radio shows to answer criticisms which – and I agree wholeheartedly with her – were “blown out of all proportion”.
One went along these lines … a caller said CCTV “didn’t work” because when property was damaged, although there was an identifiable CCTV image, the culprit was let eventually off.
How can that possibly be a criticism of CCTV? More one of the judicial system.
But the industry is not taking this lying down and has a continual quest to make image retrieval easier for users.
At my first appointment on day one of IFSEC Dedicated Micros announced its new video technologies which include colour coding and timelines to make evidence retrieval much less of a chore.
Hopefully, with system like this, the police will show a more positive attitude towards technology that can only help them in their crime fight.
