Northgate teams with Kinesense to improve police video analysis

Using the latest technology, Northgate and Kinesense can help police to get more actionable intelligence out of video footage. Video content analytics (VCA) technology allows investigators to save up to 95 per cent of the time normally spent sifting through CCTV footage to find key events, which the software finds automatically.

With video evidence used every day to prosecute and convict criminals, this cutting-edge visual technology enables the automatic detection of events in video, saving forces time watching and sifting through hours of video for key events, as well as saving money.

In the UK it is estimated that CCTV is used in more than 75 per cent of major investigations and in more than 64 per cent of all cases. However, the time and effort required to retrieve, view, analyse and report on video footage as evidence is a huge drain on resources. A recent survey by Kinesense on the use of CCTV in volume or petty crime incidents identified workload as the greatest challenge faced by CCTV/imaging departments, closely followed by getting video into a viewable format.

This new solution provides forces with a cost-effective way to use their department’s resources, especially with increasing strain on budgets. It provides quick and accurate video searches, for example by simply searching for specific information, such as people entering a building or finding a red car.

Kinesense and Northgate will integrate Kinesense’s solution within Northgate’s Police Services Framework GEM3 – which includes an evolution of its well-established Socrates forensic case management product to include digital asset management capability.

GEM3 also underpins the exciting Athena project, a new and innovative joint initiative between the Athena Management Organisation (AMO) and Northgate Public Services. Athena is helping to provide forces with the latest innovative IT project, set to provide joined-up technology for all police forces across the UK. It will bring forces together, connecting information, aligning processes and sharing costs.

Sarah Doyle, Kinesense’s managing director, explained: “Our solutions have helped many UK and international police forces to save time by getting CCTV into a viewable format, enabling investigators to automatically search it and enabling easy report making.

“Often the rich information generated from video is not shared or accessible. By partnering with Northgate, video data can be merged with other sources of information and will be accessible for greater collaboration.”

Ian Blackhurst, Northgate’s executive director, Solutions, said: “We are delighted to be working with Kinesense to provide this invaluable technology to police forces across the country. Our joint innovative solutions will help to make CCTV surveillance faster and more efficient and in turn to help deploy police resources where they are most needed.”

Northgate Executive Director Joe Bradley added: “Our link with Kinesense is a key part of our plans to expand Northgate in the Republic of Ireland and highlights our commitment to take hi-tech Irish companies into the international markets.”

Kinesense’s video content analytics solution is currently used by nine UK forces, a well as having a presence in the US, Canada, North Africa, Northern Europe and South America.

Kinesense is also involved in the launch of the P-REACT, 1.9 million euro research project funded by the European Commission under the FP7 (Seventh Framework Programme).

The project will look to solve issues surrounding petty crime and will develop a low-cost cloud-based surveillance platform with intelligent semantic and video analytics. It is already attracting interest from police and law enforcement agencies in several EU member states, as well as security operators and small business owners.

Partners in the project include research institutes and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the Republic of Ireland, the UK, Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain.

www.northgate-ispublicservices.com

www.kinesensevca.com