News & CCTV industry information
Is the UK falling behind on CCTV standards?
CCTV IN FOCUS once again takes to the international stage; Operations Director Andy Hays was invited to be a keynote speaker on CCTV at
The 1st International Summit on Tourism Safety & Security held on the 14th - 15th june 2010 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Attended by senior government and police officials from USA, South Africa, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and many of the Asian Pacific countries,
the event again highlighted the need for standards regarding planning, installation and life time management of CCTV, delegates expressed concerns
that the CCTV industry is lead by the installer who is driven by profit, with the needs of the customer coming a poor second.
Today’s CCTV cameras are certainly capable, however as we have seen it is not just the technology built into them that is important to their
ultimate success, critical is how they are set up and maintained. The last thing anybody want’s is a major incident adjacent to a camera which is
not recording good quality images or not even operational.
The latter is common place in Asia-Pacific countries, this raises the question of standards, which none of the countries attending appeared to
have.
It is very easy to make the mistake of seeing the installation of a security system as a purely technical problem, simply the challenge of
connecting and powering up a series of devices so that an image from a camera appears on a screen, which is then recorded by a VCR or DVR. The
system must work to this extent, of course, but there is more to a well-designed system. The key test is, are the images fit for the purpose?
Are both the live and the recorded images of adequate quality, frequency, and content to address fully the risks identified in the operational
requirement, against a formal definition of adequate images (using a Rotakin test).
This is not an issue of hardware competence, but of understanding that the output of the system is the image, and that a system's image quality
in all its aspects should be the basis of acceptance testing against the operational requirement. “Badly configured systems can pass a cursory
acceptance test, yet fail to operate adequately in the longer term”
As a direct result of the summit, CCTV IN FOCUS have been invited to participate in discussions on how to construct and roll out standards for
CCTV systems in a number of countries, this would include public and private areas, along with government and military properties, the aim to create
a framework for ensuring that installations are fit for purpose and will be independently tested on commissioning resulting in benchmarking systems
for future auditing, to ensure system capability is maintained to the standard required throughout the life of the system.
This begs the question here in the UK we are supposed to operate to standards, but yet time after time, the images produced are of no evidential
quality, we have bodies that should inspect the workmanship of installers and if you belong to that body, you must work to standards, yet we visit
sites all the time that have been installed to a bodies guidelines, to find the very basics are missing and the system set-up is completely
wrong.
Will the rest of the world learn from the mistakes made here? Yes we think it will, and if we are not careful, we will be left behind, when it
comes to standards and implementation.
CCTV image audit pays off at English Heritage
CCTV IN FOCUS was pleased to have been of assistance to English Heritage. We were asked to audit the CCTV image capability of one of English Heritage’s
flagship sites after EH National Security Adviser Mr Jon Livesey became concerned about area coverage and image quality.
A full independent test of the CCTV system was commissioned. Our audit team conducted a full image and area coverage test of the site in question,
the results of which were compiled into a comprehensive report. This was presented to Jon and his colleagues, highlighting numerous faults and omissions.
The reports findings were shown to a nationally renowned installer responsible for CCTV maintenance at the site, who has agreed to correct the faults
and omissions with immediate effect. Indeed, to their credit they have drafted in extra staff to undertake the work and have said that all the work will
be undertaken free of charge.
As a result, English Heritage will end up with a much more secure site.
Andy Hays, Operations Director at CCTV IN FOCUS, said “We were pleased to have assisted English Heritage in ensuring that the CCTV system meets their
needs. In this case, as in many others, the audit highlighted that; nationally renowned installers are not meeting their own standards. Unfortunately
English Heritage are not alone, time and time again our teams visit sites with new and old CCTV systems and find that the installation does not meet the
clients requirements”
Appointment of CCTV regulator
Good news for the CCTV industry? It could be excellent news for CCTV users and the criminal justice system who invariable are the
end users of CCTV images. Policing minister David Hanson said.
"The changes are aimed at ensuring that those involved across the CCTV industry, whether from the public or the private sector,
can be actively involved in the development and implementation of national standards on the installation and use of CCTV,"
We at CCTV IN FOCUS will do all we can to support this initiative in the hope we can see better regulation governing installation
and maintaining of systems. Far too often large sums of Public and Private Money are spent on CCTV to produce poor images. A situation
that is totally avoidable if appropriate commissioning and ongoing auditing is undertaken. We wish Mr. Andrew Rennison the newly appointed
regulator all the best in playing a leading role in identifying and helping meet the needs of both users and the public."
Short listed for Security Excellence Award
We were all delighted at company HQ when we were told
that Operations Director Andy Hays had been short listed as a finalist at this year's Security Excellence Awards 2009
for Consultant of the Year.
Andy was very pleased, stating "Its been great for the whole team, to get recognition for all the hard work that's been done over the last year. We have helped several local authorities and other clients with planning installations, that has resulted in significant savings."
Secured By Design accreditation awarded
ACPO on their Secured By Design website for the very first time, have had to put
up CCTV as a category. CCTV IN FOCUS, the independent CCTV testing company, has
become the first consultancy based organisation to be accredited by Secured By Design.
No other company working in the CCTV field has so far achieved recognition of their
services to the exacting standards required by ACPO.
From right to left, Managing Director Adrian Archer, Operations Director Andy Hays, Patrick Cogan BA MSc Secured By Design Development Officer and Company Secretary Colin Archer receiving their registration documents.
Unite seminar Cochin India
Andy Hays, Operators Director of CCTV IN FOCUS was recently invited by TechVision
to speak at the Unite seminar which took place on 26 July at The Gateway Hotel,
Cochin, India. The objective of the seminar was to address the importance of the
private and public sectors working together to combat terrorism.
The 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai has at least served one purpose in that it has opened the eyes of the Indian people to the reality that terrorism can strike anyone, any place and anytime. Whilst it is a fact that government agencies are responsible for containing terrorism, given the magnitude of terrorist activity, government itself cannot be expected to handle the menace on its own. A large number of possible targets are owned by private companies.
The seminar was attended by over 300 delegates including, Shri Oommen Chandy, the leader of the opposition party in Kerala, Rear Admiral HCS Biset, Chief of Staff Southern Naval Command and Shri Jacob Punnose, DGP, Kerala.
CCTV IN FOCUS and Techvision are combining their extensive knowledge and expertises to provide advice to end users, on what systems and processes need to be in place to detect and deter terrorism and how these should be planned and tested.
