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One step the government is initiating to decrease attacks and incidents in the West Bank is stationing surveillance cameras in hazardous points in Jerusalem and the west bank.
Nitzan Ganani, CEO, Hikvision, spoke to I-HLS on the much needed technology and what it requires.
Ganani says that to the best of his knowledge, it has not yet been decided where to place the cameras. From his experience, he says, first you characterize the technology needed for the cameras and then determine what specific type of camera will best answer the conditions in the field. I think it will be high resolution and low lightening cameras, he said.
Ganani thinks that thousands of cameras are needed to address the problem, but only several hundreds will be deployed, depending on the security concept – for instance whether the security services choose to watch over all the roads in real-time or just central junctions.
How much will it cost? According to Ganani, the price depends on the number of cameras, their technology and type of communications.
Will stationing more cameras really help prevent a terror attack in real time?
“That also depends on the security concept. We need to remember that the other side is also thinking about and learning from our actions and adapts itself to the circumstances. The attacks could change their attack method according to the methods we deploy in the field, – like if the cameras dont give coverage to the sides of the road, maybe they will prefer attacking from this blindspot. Ganani estimates that placing more cameras will lead to faster response times from security services deployed in the field. If the technology allows to see a larger percentage of the routes and to detect an attack in real-time, then response will surely be faster, although that will not necessarily prevent the damage. Of course the cameras will be connected to a control center that activates the response. However, he thinks, this will not prevent the attack altogether.
Will the cameras be efficient both day and night?
“Certainly, there are no limitations. The trick is to work with cameras with low levels of lighting and high resolutions, in order to recreate as many details as possible, such license plate numbers. You could, of course, combine cameras with analytics technology to recognize, say, a person standing suspiciously on the side of the road, and alert the control center. It could also recognize specific license plate numbers, or people hanging around the area too much, too often. Again, it depends on the security concept. Video Analytics will help increase the likelihood of detecting an attack in advance, and it is part of the cost and investment. Those are obviously much costlier cameras.“
Doesnt stationing so many cameras stir a debate on privacy issues?
According to the expert, legislation has been made on this matter. There are instructions on how to act when these two interests – privacy and security – clash. However, this is not an issue to be relevant in this case, but rather to more peaceful areas, security wise. Where there are so many security problem, the privacy factor becomes less relevant, in order to save human lives.
