Does IP Surveillance really work?

I P Surveillance has garnered a lot of attention recently from a lot of industry segments, govt. departments, PSU banks, etc. But the question is, does it really work?

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Let's first understand the technical side of the things. IP surveillance as the name suggests, works over IP, so you can easily deploy it over your existing network cabling. So you save cabling costs. Plus, even if you expand your premises, you're going to extend your network to it, which can again be used for IP surveillance as well. Moreover, since it supports WiFi, it can even be extended to areas where you don't have network cabling, such as a warehouse. Even if there's no power outlet in a certain area, IP surveillance cameras can work over Power over Ethernet.

Ease of deployment and use are two other major attractions of the technology. We received several IP surveillance based solutions for testing in our lab and managed to deploy them without any hassles. Using them was as easy as opening a web browser and entering the IP address of the camera or recorder.

Since the communication is over IP, it can be monitored from anywhere across the world through a web browser. It can also save captured videos or images in standard digital formats, which can then be easily shared with others. The technology is definitely there, and it indeed works, provided you use it. That's where the question of policies comes in. The success or failure of any technology is governed by the strength of processes and policies that have been established to use it, whether enforced by law or otherwise.

Apparently, RBI mandates that all banks that maintain cash chests must deploy IP surveillance. This is good, provided the banks that deploy it also make use of it. For instance, a bank might record hours of surveillance video, but it won't be of any use if it's not analyzed regularly.

The other critical success factor to IP surveillance is to have a complete plan. Just setting up IP surveillance cameras won't be enough. You'll also need to define the scope of work and then dedicate resources to execute it. For instance, Delhi Police has deployed powerful IP surveillance cameras on a few major crossings across the city and plans to extend it to all major crossings before the Commonwealth Games in 2010. This is very good, as the cameras would be able to capture photos and videos of traffic violators on the spot, and attach them as proof while sending court summons. This will bring in the much-needed transparency and authenticity into the system, which till now was questionable. It will work provided there are dedicated resources to analyze videos, manage incident detection, communicate with motorists, etc.

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