CCTV is undergoing one of the biggest transformations in its history.
For decades, video surveillance was fundamentally about recording. Cameras captured footage, and when an incident occurred, someone went back through the recordings to establish what happened.
AI CCTV systems are changing that model.
Artificial intelligence and video analytics can increasingly help identify events within footage, allowing security teams to focus their attention on activity that may actually require intervention.
What is AI CCTV?
AI CCTV combines video surveillance with technologies such as machine learning and intelligent video analytics.
Depending on the system and application, this could include detecting people or vehicles, identifying unusual movement, filtering events or helping operators search footage more efficiently.
Facial recognition takes this further by analysing facial images and potentially comparing them against other images.
But increased capability also brings increased responsibility.
The Information Commissioner’s Office highlights the potentially intrusive nature of facial recognition and says organisations considering FRT need to establish a lawful basis and consider whether its use is necessary and proportionate.
AI should help people make better decisions
One of the most compelling uses of AI within security isn’t necessarily removing people from the process.
It’s helping them deal with more information, more effectively.
A traditional CCTV system might present an operator with dozens of simultaneous camera feeds.
An intelligent system can potentially help surface the events that actually require attention.
That changes the role of CCTV from passive recording towards intelligent security management.
But capability shouldn’t automatically mean deployment
As an industry, we should also be prepared to challenge the assumption that every available AI capability needs to be used.
The ICO describes surveillance as a supporting tool that needs to be lawful, necessary and proportionate rather than a universal solution to security problems.
This is particularly important as facial recognition and biometric technologies develop.
Good security system design therefore starts with the risk and desired outcome – not with the technology.
At Spectrum, we see intelligent video as an exciting part of the future of physical security.
But the smartest security system won’t necessarily be the one using the most AI.
It will be the one using technology appropriately to give people better information, faster – and enable better decisions.
