Wireless video surveillance gains popularity, but it is effective?
I don’t know whether to be thrilled or appalled every time I read (or post articles) about the growing popularity of wireless video surveillance in our cities. Yes, police officers now have additional ways to catch nasty people. But the growing need for these surveillance cameras is disturbing in itself and says that we are living in an increasingly lawless, violent society. What next — walled cities with electronic moats to keep out the undesirables?
Back to the story. Buffalo, New York is one of the US cities that has installed wireless video surveillance and it appears to be quite popular even among residents. In May 2007, Buffalo issued an RFP for a municipal wireless network and security cameras. The city paid $3 million for the wireless camera network and feels it is money well spent. The scalability of the network is one of its most attractive features (which leads one to ask, what happens when there are cameras everywhere watching everything). Buffalo is not alone in its love affair with video surveillance.
Recently I interviewed Lt. Tony Crawford of the Dallas Police Department about the city’s network of wireless video surveillance cameras (read the interview here). What surprised me was this: I thought that police officers would be very excited about these cameras but that’s not the case. They were skeptical about the cameras’ ability to help, but later on, when they realized that the cameras did not unduly disrupt their set ways of policing, they dropped their opposition. The department is also sensitive to privacy concerns of residents in the areas where they have installed the cameras so that they have designed them not to pan up to the windows of apartment buildings.
Meanwhile in the UK, police say that CCTV has been a fiasco: only 3% of crimes have been solved through CCTV.
In the meantime, VideoIQ, a video surveillance company, is getting $10 million in venture capital funding.
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The City of Granbury will be deploying 15 video surveillance cameras starting in October 2008. This project will build upon the TROPOS network that the City has deployed and operates currently for public safety and public access. That network is currently undergoing an increase in deployed units from 110 to 150 to cover additional areas that have been annexed by the City since the original deployment. Installation of mobile routers in all police vehicles is also under way. These cameras are the same type units that were deployed by the Dallas PD in the CBD. The coverage will focus on the City Airport, Hike & Bike trail, Parks, and Beach area. The video will be streamed via the wireless network back to the Granbury PD and digitally stored for 60 days. Camera streams will also be available to the officers in their vehicles. Granbury currently has one camera deployed as a test unit to cover the Granbury Firefighter Memorial which had been vandalized twice prior to the camera being deployed. The focus of the surveillance system is deterrent in nature. Total cost of the hardware and deployment is $45,000 and installation work will be done by the City of Granbury IT Department.
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