If you manage the security of a residential community in the UK, you may want to review the efficacy of your CCTV systems.
Recently, the Bank of England warned Britain’s economy could plunge into recession before the end of 2022 with inflation hitting 10%. Crime rises in recessions according to research conducted over a 76-year period, with analysis revealing that economic downturns lead to increases in burglary, robbery and suicide.
Research shows that crime is more prevalent in larger towns and cities, especially in the neighbourhoods with the highest levels of income deprivation and unemployment.
More than 267,000 burglaries were reported in 2021.
Now one could argue if a residential estate is blanketed with CCTV, it should act a deterrent for bad actors. However, this view might not be correct as traditional CCTV systems have innate weaknesses.
What restricts CCTV surveillance?
To start with, most installed CCTV equipment is dated and may not be working effectively or working at all. Combined with insufficient staff to monitor video footage on a 24/7 basis from multiple sites across dispersed locations, the unknown health status of the security system and cameras and limited budgets for upgrades and maintenance, security agencies face a myriad of challenges.
Also, as the recorded security footage resides on locally installed recording equipment, it can be accessed by unauthorised personnel. Anti-social behaviour can also lead to criminal damage or theft of the security equipment. Security agencies will face GDPR prosecution if recorded footage is incorrectly obtained, viewed by unauthorised personnel, or falls into the wrong hands.
Traditional CCTV systems record continuous footage on a 24×7 basis, creating an enormous amount of data, which must be purged every 30 days based on the storage capacity of the recording device to ensure that the last 30-days’ footage is available for review.
This article was originally published on Cloudview’s website. Read the original blogpost here.