November 5th, 2019 | Updated on November 19th, 2019
As 5G is introduced, the internet of things (IoT) is now focusing on surveillance technology like CCTV. By 2020, it is expected that 70% of CCTV cameras will communicate using IoT.
This news was announced by Stephanie Baghdassarian, the Senior Exploration Chief of Gartner. In urban areas, utilising IoT for CCTV means that artificial intelligence (AI) is able to automatically pick up on suspicious behaviour and send a report to the police.
For small businesses looking to protect themselves, this new technology could vastly improve security.
1. Autonomous Spotting Of Suspicious Behaviour
Cameras are currently only used for recording video, leaving it up to human beings to assess the footage.
By utilising IoT and AI, it would be possible for a computer to analyse the video and flag any actions which are out of the ordinary.
Think DSC asserts that business security takes a lot of time and energy, so allowing for computers to do the work can save time and more efficiently detect a threat.
2. Facial Recognition
The other emerging technology in the field of CCTV is facial recognition. By running every face through a security system, cameras will be able to alert the police if they ever spot a wanted person.
Facial recognition is already used by Facebook, who can immediately detect a face, and ‘tag’ the person in the photo.
No human is involved, with AI instantly able to identify a face with a high degree of accuracy. A perhaps more valuable use of the technology would be as security for small businesses.
3. Identifying Characteristics From Scenes
Say a business identifies a suspicious man in a red sweater loitering outside their establishment. As it stands, most companies would have to sit and watch potentially hours of CCTV footage, keeping an eye out for this person.
Once IoT is fully implemented, they could search for the identifying characteristic of ‘man with red sweater’ and the CCTV would automatically pull up only the video of scenes where someone matches this description.
This saves resources, helping the company to very quickly assess a situation.CCTV is relatively outdated technology that needs to be rapidly updated by integrating IoT and AI.
This will allow small businesses to protect themselves by automatically flagging up suspicious behaviour, as well as identifying someone based on their face or a given description.
With this technology, businesses will be more secure than ever before.
