Vumacams – not just tackling crime: there’s more than meets the eye

Your community, your home, your workplace, the area where your children attend school – these should be considered safe spaces. Unfortunately, in South Africa, crime is an issue and we need to be proactive and join forces in adopting strategies to address it.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) National Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Khehla Sitole emphasises that even with 193 000 police officers serving different communities, it is not enough. The gap in the market has given rise to 11 500 security firms in the past few years with an astonishing 2.36 million registered security officers. Yet, South Africa’s reputation as the most crime-ridden country is a heavy burden to live with and a big contributing problem is the inability to effectively collate efforts across sectors and local authorities. Crime and criminals are becoming more innovative. This means that, as in other countries around the world, crime-fighting initiatives should become innovative too.

Multiple cities across the globe have been using technology to assist their crime-fighting initiatives. As outlined in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation 2016, “AI-enabled public safety (CCTV) can counter some of the most common types of crime: property crime (i.e. burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson) and violent crime (i.e. murder, robbery, and aggravated assault).”

Watch the Vumacam’s Smart Camera Network in action:

Locally, this infrastructure and technology comes in the form of Vumacam. One can already see how the Vumacams are assisting security companies in Gauteng. One client, in a relatively small suburb, believes crime levels have dropped by approximately 30 percent since employing Vumacam’s Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) solution. Vumacam’s Smart Camera Network (SCN), coupled with the collaborative efforts of the security providers, their control rooms and response teams, demonstrates the effectiveness of working together towards the desired outcome.

“The benefit of a wide-area infrastructure,” explains Ricky Croock, Vumacam CEO, “is the network effect of centralised data to track broad patterns or unusual events across the public space.”

The network effect gives service providers the ability to address crime prevention in a more proactive, effective manner. “From a crime aspect – registered vehicles of interest can be tracked across the smart camera network without losing them across the islands of coverage,” says Croock.

Crook continues that, “Vumacam does not keep a record of personal and private information, nor are the cameras making use of any sort of facial recognition software. This makes it impossible to ‘track’ movements.” Vumacam does make use of LPR software which will simply pick up whether or not a licence plate passing through the network has been involved in a verified incident. Vumacam’s alert-based software sends an alert to monitoring companies who will in turn alert relevant authorities as these cars (with licence plates linked to verified incidents) make their way through the Vumacam network. As arrests are made sooner, further incidents in other neighbourhoods are prevented. Croock also indicates that the quality of footage feed could be used as forensic evidence to help convict guilty perpetrators in the future.

However, alert-based software can help the communities in more ways than fight crime. It can help Joburg evolve into a Smart City: basic services to the community, incident management, traffic congestion and emergency services can all be assisted through monitoring and alerts.

Joburg has seen its fair share of burst water pipes for instance. Many will drive or walk past a water pipe, thinking “Such a waste of water but someone will sort it out.” A burst pipe doesn’t happen every day; this will then trigger an unusual event alert and control room staff can report this to the relevant authorities. Gauteng is also famous for its sensational summertime storms, but these can wreak havoc with trees being uprooted or branches left lying across roads. Once again, this triggers an unusual event alert and this would be reported to local authorities to have the obstruction removed within minutes.

In October, 120 people lost their homes to a veld fire. The software has the ability to generate a smoke detection alert to the control rooms and local Fire Departments can be alerted as soon as smoke is detected. The list of additional benefits in scaling the efficiencies of authorities to better serve communities is vast.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, working collaboratively through a Smart Camera Network “could reduce fatalities by 8–10 per cent; accelerate emergency response times by 20–35 per cent; shave the average commute by 15–20 per cent; lower the disease burden by 8–15 per cent, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10–15 per cent, among other positive outcomes.” One can see that better seamless integration into the state across city partners such as the SAPS, JMPD, City Planning and communities across the board to collate efforts, has massive benefits.

The multiple advantages of Vumacam’s infrastructure and the software’s capabilities reach so much further than one realises. Not only an innovative solution to crime, but it is also an asset to local communities within its network and every person in it.

Read detailed responses to questions posed to Vumacam on their Help Centre https://help.vumacam.co.za/hc/en-gb

Details: vumacam.co.za