Digital Video Surveillance Best Practices

To kick the session off, Ray Cooke of IBM Global Technology Services reviewed the realities and requirements of video surveillance and what people can expect. What is the tradeoff, for example, between image resolution and quality within the video and the amount of storage or bandwidth required to deliver it?

Three Video-Surveillance Case Studies

Case Study 1: Jubilee Park and Community Center Corp. is a nonprofit organization driving community redevelopment activities at Jubilee Park, a high-crime community in South Dallas. Firetide wireless mesh and Sony cameras have been installed at intersections throughout the community and are controlled by the Dallas Police Department, providing police with the capability to monitor activity in real time.

"Jubilee Park is an excellent example of what I like to call Muni 2.0," Dillon said. "This is a community group reaching out and extending and expending real dollars to build real solutions on a real time table that gives real results, and from that you get the organic growth effect of saying there can be other projects that show that this public-private collaboration can work."

The deployment sits considerably outside a separate network of cameras in downtown Dallas and sets up a model for how this might be taken out to other communities and grow in Dallas.

Case Study 2: Detective Chris Jensen talked about how the Phoenix Police Department was actually able to capture a serial killer using covert digital video surveillance. Detectives and technicians suited up to look like utility workers to install the infrastructure. "They will work an area and in some cases drive the bad guys to areas they think are secret and private where they can have their communications and record that," Dillon reported. The system is also portable and may be moved around.

The group reviewed different kinds of surveillance across three categories:

1. Overt uses big camera pods clearly identified with police badges or some other authority or presence. It says, "Hey, we're here, we see you."
2. Covert is used when you don't want perpetrators to know the camera is there. "You want them to behave openly and naturally, and you want them to pick it all up and take it back to the DA and prosecute," Dillon.
3. Transactional is used tactically; for example, at a department store, where cameras are sitting in the ceiling. Security personnel may or may not be monitoring them or have any intelligence on the back end, and the footage may or may not be stored. "But situationally and tactically, when somebody needs to go see that video, they walk over to it and view it," Dillon said.

Case Study 3: Dillon reported as well on the Broadband-Wireless and Transportation Roundtable, chaired by Thera Bradshaw, former chief information officer for the Los Angeles Information Technology Agency. Francisco Leyva with the Tucson (AZ) Department of Transportation spoke about video cameras used in his city's ambulances, enabling real-time telemedicine. Doctors are able to see the patient in the back of the ambulance and, through this, they've been able to have remarkable savings.

Leyva referred to "frequent fliers" - people who claim to be sick and are looking for a bed to sleep in for the night. Tucson has been able to cut down on this use of the hospital resources because the doctors and nurses can look on camera and see that it's a frequent flier. An assessment is made that there's nothing wrong with the patient, and he is removed from the ambulance.

In other cases where there is trauma, doctors and nurses are able to deliver a