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Special Supplement: Securing the Campus
A Multi-Pronged Plan
7/1/2007
YES: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
That news is good for the better-surveilled campuses, the makers of video surveillance equipment, and video-related tech companies such as Mate, which specializes in video analytics: “advanced intelligent video surveillance content analysis and transmission.” That means the company’s software routines “look” at the video images and “recognize” objects, motion, and background. They can detect when protected items are being removed, or when people are moving in unauthorized directions (e.g., up a restricted staircase) or at unusual speeds. Mate’s standard system turns regular surveillance cameras into intelligent sensors that can detect abnormalities around the perimeter of an area, and transmit warnings to security personnel. In addition, Cortex, its management system, makes it relatively easy for one operator to check hundreds of remote sites, manage each camera, and handle all live video alarms. The company also offers Access Watch, a product that detects “tailgating”—the practice of unauthorized individuals following authorized individuals through a control point.
John Szczygiel, Mate’s president, is confident that video analytics will continue to evolve; although, he concedes, “Schools are inherently an open environment, or would like to be. So you can’t establish a perimeter that easily.” Because campuses are geographical areas with people constantly entering and leaving, security is not merely a matter of detecting an individual, he explains. It’s the individual’s activity that must be detected and analyzed; hence, the need for “intelligent” camera systems. Szczygiel also points to the need to better assess student or campus member/visitor “personality” flags: “Schools have an ever-changing population that loves to explore and test boundaries,” he says. Culling merely unusual activity from dangerous behavior is a very real challenge.
Bernard Gollotti, VP of public safety at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, has deployed Mate products as well as others, to help keep his campus safe. His staff also has implemented the Intellex digital video management system. “I want to know if there’s a behavioral change in individuals walking around the [campus] streets,” he says. With the Intellex tools, he also can use motion detection technology to record movements in unused corridors or restricted areas.
Gollotti also has deployed Drakontas PDAs for his security officers; the handheld devices can transmit vital video and data almost instantaneously. Just recently, he reports, when an officer noticed an individual loitering suspiciously around several bicycles, he was able to pull up photos from a previous video, identify the suspect, and make an arrest then and there.
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