City gets 'crime-detecting' CCTV

By Dan Whitworth Newsbeat technology reporter

Anti-social behaviour has become a familiar site in some towns and cities across the country.
Now there's a new weapon in the fight against it called Smart CCTV.

Portsmouth City Council is the first, and so far only, local authority in the UK to try out the new system.

It's a computer programme that has been integrated into the city's existing network of 152 cameras and has been programmed to spot unusual behaviour in places and at times when it's not expected.

For example, a speeding car being driven around an empty car park could be a joy rider or someone running through a deserted shopping precinct late at night might be a vandal.
When those and similar scenarios are 'spotted' by the software, using special parameters from programmers, an alarm is sounded which alerts CCTV operators to that particular camera.

Ray says Smart CCTV takes some of the strain off human operatorsThey then make a decision about whether or not to call the police.

Ray Stead runs the CCTV operation for Portsmouth City Council.

He said: "With the total number of CCTV cameras that we have, 152, the operators cannot see all of those cameras or monitor them live.

So this software programme will actually help the operators become more effective."

It's already been used in parts of seven cities across America, in places like New York and Washington DC, where the feedback has been positive.

Nick Hewitson helped design the version Portsmouth City Council is using.

He said: "It filters out all the rubbish video that you don't want and lets you see the stuff that you do want.

"So you're using human beings for doing what they do well, making subjective decisions on incomplete data.

"And using computers to do what they do well, process tonnes and tonnes of boring data."
But not everyone in Portsmouth is as convinced by the new system as Ray Stead and Nick Hewitson.

Similia thinks the system is too much of an invasion of privacySamilia Narcho, 19, told Newsbeat: "They are lurking a bit too much into people's business. It's a bit unfair on people who aren't doing anything wrong.

"It's a bit too much invasion of privacy. Big Brother going a bit too far."

But 18-year-old Chris isn't worried about being watched. He said: "It doesn't really bother me because I'm not doing anything wrong, so I've got nothing to worry about."

Berry, who's 24, and 21-year-old Becky Pearson have different opinions on the new CCTV system.

Berry said: "I think it's pretty good because there are a lot of idiots in Portsmouth and they need to be kept under wraps."

Becky added: "I can see why people think it's a bit too much, with people being too watched."
The Smart CCTV technology is on trial in Portsmouth but if it proves successful, other UK cities could set up similar systems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7775000/7775188.stm

Portsmouth leads UK by installing video analytics for city centre security

A market-leading CCTV system, based on behaviour-recognition software and state-of-the-art intelligent cameras, has been installed by Portsmouth City Council, to increase the effectiveness of the camera monitoring.

Perceptrak™, supplied by Smart CCTV Ltd of Havant, has been set up to watch quiet areas such as car parks, stairwells or corridors in buildings and streets at nighttime. Perceptrak™ uses the latest software to analyse images using up to 18 pre-defined criteria such as ‘converging people’, ‘fast car’ and so on. When it sees something untoward happening, the system sends an alert to the control room. This allows the security officer to make a human decision on whether to monitor the scene and make an appropriate response. It also ensures that many more scenes are being watched than is normally possible, hence helping to make Portsmouth city a safer and more trouble-free zone.

Ray Stead, CCTV manager at Portsmouth City Council, who decided to install Perceptrak™ for the City, said: “Following a successful trial period in 2006, we decided to install the system on a more permanent basis to prove proof of concept after improvements had been made to the software and because of the quantifiable benefits to the control room outcomes.”

Nick Hewitson, managing director of Smart CCTV, added: "We believe that this is the first fully installed example of video analytics being used in a city centre control room in the UK. As a local company we are very pleased to be working with Portsmouth City by providing leading edge technology to make their CCTV control room one of the most effective in the UK."

In the area covered by the Portsmouth City Council control rooms, there are 142 cameras with live monitoring, and the CCTV operators watch over 24 monitors simultaneously. Perceptrak™ is run in the background looking at some of those cameras that are not displayed to the operators until an alarm sounds.