In a fascinating article, Peter Houlis talks us through the role of CCTV in the counter-terror agenda and asks whether the current legacy system, which dates back to the 1990s, can possibly cope..

The speedy identification and arrest of the July 7 London Bombers would suggest to the rest of us that our current CCTV systems are effective but Mr Houlis asks if the incident might well have been avoided altogether if the CCTV cameras had been better sited.

In a recent post about the number of CCTV cameras in the UK, it became clear that no one actually knows exactly how many there are because their deployment has been carried out piecemeal.  Figures have been quoted ranging between 4.2 million in 2002 and 1.85 million in the most recent research carried out for the Association of Chief Police Officers but neither of these studies actually counted the cameras or noted where they were.  They took a model and extrapolated from it.

Mr Houlis quoted the work of the Home Office and the CCTV User Group who have drawn up some operational documents to improve the design of future systems as well as improving the training of the operators.

Initially, it’s vital to provide answers to the following questions:

is the system designed to deter, prevent, detect or prosecute?
is it proactive, reactive – or both?
is the system continually manned or unmanned, and used only after an incident is reported to provide post-incident information?
what’s the system’s scope (ie prevention and detection of crime, public safety, etc)… it should be noted that this is a requirement under the Data Protection Act
what are the areas to be covered, and what degree of coverage is required?

BS EN 50132-7:1996 entitled ‘Alarm Systems: CCTV Surveillance Systems for Use in Security Applications – Part 7: Application Guidelines’ describes fully the steps needed to produce an ‘operational requirement’ document.

Whether the cameras are to be anti-crime or anti-terrorist, it seems only common sense to suggest that future systems on city buildings should have cameras that are set up to monitor both the building and the surrounding area and plans include integration of many systems to ensure that their footage is available immediately to those authorities who require it.

However, one of the most crucial areas that needs to be addressed is the viewing of the actual footage. Mr Houlis quoted "A report by video analytics developer iOmniscient advises that, watching only two monitors, after ten minutes an operator misses 45% of data and after 22 minutes... 95% of data, making event-driven intelligence one of the most compelling reasons to adopt network video surveillance."

Network video cameras featuring automated software like intelligent video which detects motion and audio, along with built in video analytics can be used as alarm triggers to activate recording or flat relevant sections of the recording can make reviewing the footage more efficient and less likely for error.

In the meantime, the police in many London boroughs are asking local businesses to give them details of their CCTV systems so they can be collated into a database to be called upon when necessary.

As Mr Houlis says, the most important thing is to be organised and prepared for such any eventuality so having the most up to date intelligence to make an informed decision is vital... but having such sophisticated equipment watching over us could also bring up criticisms of Big Brother.