Dear Readers
An article in the Times of India’s Delhi edition on Aug 27th caught my eye. It said that a robber had broken into a shop in Karawal Nagar in north-east Delhi at 2.40 am to steal televisions sets and was detected by a motion sensor device in the alarm system. The system had alerted the private security agency that had been remotely monitoring it. The agency in turn alerted the owner, who later told the cops that he had installed motion sensors in his shop after it had been looted multiple times. A month ago, the thieves had broken nine locks to gain entry and spirited away 43 LED TV sets as well as the DVR of the security CCTV cameras.
There are many learnings in this incident. First, CCTV in its current state mainly serves as a deterrent for the ignorant criminals. The smart ones already know how to either circumvent the system by either simply covering their faces or wearing helmets while entering the premises. The bolder ones carry away the Digital Video Recorders and cameras with impunity. They are not deterred by CCTV cameras any longer!
Second, people need to understand that CCTV is not the panacea for mitigating all security risks. While it is a useful tool in your arsenal, it’s limitations and proper usage must be fully understood before deploying it universally in homes and businesses with the objective of stopping crime from happening. In this case CCTV did not prevent this shop from being looted multiple times. After being burgled many times the shopkeeper probably realised that he needed a good burglar alarm more than CCTV. For detecting and catching burglars we must learn to use monitored burglar alarms, as they are specifically engineered solely for this purpose. A combination of a burglar alarm and CCTV can be really good as the CCTV recording can provide admissible evidence in court later on.
The adoption of Intruder Alarms has been slow in India. While banks, jewellers and some international store chains have been using them for some years, homeowners have been slow to adopt them, and many of those who have installed them, enjoy their home automation capabilities, which some of these alarm systems have, more than the intrusion detection and other security functions.
I think that the time for these devices has come, people will start seeing their true security value very soon as private monitoring and response services also begin to pick up momentum. We may see newer control devices entering the market with integrated Intrusion Control Panels and CCTV Recorders. These devices may also have the intelligence to cross check an intrusion signal from a sensor with the CCTV feed or even a motion detected alarm raised by the video algorithm. An alarm raised by a fire sensor may automatically get verified by the analysed video feed from the same area before a central station is notified. All the signalling could well be over wireless 4G LTE high speed networks, where live video feeds could get streamed to mobile devices of the alarm owner, the monitoring station and the responders simultaneously in almost real time!
Some exciting times are ahead for businesses dealing in Intrusion Detection Systems!
Till we meet next month, stay safe and keep others safe.
G B Singh
Group Editor
Email: gbsingh@1stasset.org
Follow me on @EditorGB
Connect with me on Linkedin.com/in/gbsingh9
