Interviews

CCTV forensics

by Mark Rowe

It’s not enough to install – and in the correct places – CCTV; you need to know what to do with the footage you gather.

For one thing, as Dave Spreadborough pointed out to Professional Security, often the real end user of the CCTV – someone investigating a crime or other incident – is using footage from cameras that were fitted for a different purpose. As Dave and Professional Security were sitting in a cafe at the Forensics Europe Expo, running beside the Counter Terror Expo in London in May, we offered the example of a camera above a coffee shop counter; there to check on a cash till. The video, however, may be wanted for a bag theft, well across the cafe floor, but captured in the camera’s field. That may require pushing the limits of the system, because, in practice, as Dave said, ‘you can’t put a HD camera in every corner, to get evidential-level footage’.

Briefly about Dave Spreadborough; he’s a former Cheshire Police man and a return Security TWENTY speaker last year. The video analyst is a trainer at AMPED Software, which offers forensic video software.

Motion blur

Besides, the CCTV may not have been installed correctly. Or, the system never had a proper operational requirement; or, the camera is not suited to the environment, such as the changing lighting at a doorway; or, there’s some problem with the infra-red lighting. But probably the biggest factor, in Dave’s experience, is motion blur, because of the shutter setting; probably because the installer left it at default setting. This cropped up during his talk to day two (pictured; an audience-eye view) of the Forensics Europe Expo; that you don’t get a snapshot of a thing moving at high speed. Say you want to read the number plate of a passing car. Software can correct that – can stabilise the image. That’s the purpose of forensic video analysis, that Dave has spoken about to the ST series of events; it’s to remove doubt in an image, to make it readable, whether a vehicle number, or who kicked someone. Hence, as Dave said, the importance of setting up a camera, to get good images rather than blurry ones.

For the full article, see page 72 of the June 2017 print issue of Professional Security magazine. You can read past issues of the magazine on the ‘magazine‘ part of the website.

Related News

  • Interviews

    Head in the cloud

    by Mark Rowe

    GDPR is coming and is set to have a huge impact on UK businesses, writes Paul Blore, Managing Director, Netmetix; a cloud…

  • Interviews

    Neurodiversity in cyber

    by Mark Rowe

    Neurodiversity is a word you hear more and more – particularly in cybersecurity spheres, and it is estimated that around 15 per…

  • Interviews

    Data protection advantage

    by Mark Rowe

    By remaining unprepared for changes to European data protection rules, businesses could be missing out on significant competitive advantage, it’s claimed. In…

Newsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay on top of security news and events.

© 2024 Professional Security Magazine. All rights reserved.

Website by MSEC Marketing