Survey: Video Surveillance Systems Are Getting Better, but Challenges Remain
According to the CS 2019 Video Surveillance Survey, campus protection pros are more satisfied with their camera coverage and quality, but maintenance and integration still pose problems.
Maintenance and integration continue to be thorns in the sides of campus protection professionals whose organizations have security cameras. Photo: Adobe Stock
Compared to three years ago when CS conducted the 2016 Video Surveillance Survey, 8% more survey participants now say the coverage of their video surveillance technologies is excellent or good. Now, 62% rate their coverage as good or excellent (46% and 16%, respectively). In 2016, 54% rated their coverage as good or excellent (44% and 10%, respectively).
Seven out of 10 respondents rate their system quality as good (46%) or excellent (24%) — check out the chart here. That’s 10% more than in 2016.
Despite this progress, across all three sectors, video surveillance downtime or data loss is a challenge, with two out of three respondents rating the significance of its impact as big (25%) or moderate (42%).
Additionally, maintenance and integration continue to be thorns in the sides of campus protection professionals whose organizations have security cameras. In fact, maintenance is even more of an issue now than in 2016, with more than one in four rating this issue as extremely challenging or very challenging (6% and 20%, respectively) — check out the chart here. That’s a 3% increase compared to three years ago.
Institutions of higher education are experiencing the most maintenance issues, with 34% rating it as extremely challenging or very challenging (compared to 23% for K-12 respondents and 19% for healthcare respondents).
More than a third of our survey takers say video integration with other public safety/security systems is extremely challenging (14%) or very challenging (20%). Once again, colleges are experiencing the most issues with this type of integration: 20% rate this problem as extremely challenging and 22% rate it as very challenging.
Across the board, old cameras are also posing issues, with one in four rating this problem as extremely challenging or very challenging.
View the results of the 2019 Video Surveillance Survey.
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About the Author
Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief
Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.
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