Feature Surveillance Camera Procurement Read more online at www.securitymattersmagazine.com
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manufacturer removed all default
passwords from its security products,
forcing customers to create their own in
order to keep their data safe and prevent
unintended (and unwanted) access?
Surprisingly, obvious and insecure
default passwords (‘12345’ or ‘Admin’)
are still being used by some camera
providers. This can be a sign that the
manufacturer isn’t taking its cyber
security responsibilities seriously.
All firmware in the cameras and
recorders should be securely encrypted
to combat unwanted criminal analysis.
Ensure that the camera provider is
offering solutions that protect against
video tampering, altering, spoofing and
snooping. The camera manufacturer
ought to be working together with a
leading provider of certificates and
technology for detecting and analysing
cyber attacks. This then offers a highly
secure and robust protection layer for
embedded surveillance products.
Looking to the future
Last, but not least, it’s important for
buyers to keep one eye on times hence
and look to ensure that their cameras
are future-proofed. There are incredible
technological developments happening
in the industry at the moment. It’s vital
that the next type of security camera in
which solution buyers invest has the
ability to be adapted to different
business needs as they emerge.
That being so, buyers should be
looking for security cameras that have
built-in Artificial Intelligence (AI)
capabilities based on powerful and
reliable camera hardware that’s capable
of running several different AI
applications at the same time. These
types of intelligent camera applications
will be the basis for the next generation
of AI-driven systems for business.
Rather than relying on security
cameras for evidence when matters have
already gone awry, we will increasingly
be able to use AI in a proactive way to
prevent incidents. That could be
monitoring and alerting when Health
and Safety guidelines are being breached
or spotting and flagging patterns of
suspicious behaviour before incidents
occur. There are opportunities for
applications in several of the key vertical
sectors, among them transportation, city
surveillance, logistics, healthcare,
manufacturing and retail, etc.
To take full advantage of the AI era,
cameras need to combine on-board
processing power with high quality
images, allowing analytics to run at the
edge of the network – rather than on the
server – and speed response times,
reducing costs by minimising server
requirements and network load.
Buyers should also be looking for
camera manufacturers that provide open
camera systems with their own Software
Development Kit. This means that any
developers can build their own apps to
run on the cameras, enabling innovation
and specialist applications to be
developed rapidly and energise a built-for-
purpose security system.
Purchasing a security camera system
isn’t just about the price tag. Build
quality and reliability, ease of set-up and
maintenance, the cyber security
approach and future-proof flexibility of
the system should all be taken into
account. When all of these elements are
considered, it’s possible to purchase a
security camera solution that will offer
true value across its entire lifetime. •
Mike Burton is Regional Sales
Manager (i-PRO Security) for the UK
and Ireland at Panasonic
(business.panasonic.co.uk/security-solutions/)
To take full advantage of the AI era,
cameras need to combine on-board
processing power with high quality
images, allowing analytics to run at
the edge of the network
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