How South Africa’s boomed suburbs are collecting and storing your data
Boomed suburbs are a part of every day life for many South Africans, with thousands of motorists either living in, or travelling through these areas on a daily basis.
But few may appreciate exactly how the systems work, and what type of information is being stored.
Speaking to BusinessTech, Marcel Pienaar, risk consultant at Fidelity ADT, explained that upon entering one of these suburbs you almost always have to swipe your hand or press a button which activates a camera.
“The CCTV systems in use capture the facial profile of the person touching the button or swiping hand across,” he said. “This image can then be saved as a JPEG (image) on the NVR used for the rest of the camera.”
The NVR (or network video recorder), is a device for recording digitised IP video streams, originating either from analogue cameras connected via IP encoders and/or IP cameras where the IP video streams are created inside each camera.
This makes retrieval simple. However, its important to note that CCTV systems are network dependent, Pienaar said.
He added that, depending on the hard drive, images are generally stored for two to three weeks. They can also be stored on a cloud, depending on the software in use.
However, he cautioned that this system is not fool-proof.
A ‘gooseneck’ stand
“In the event of an incident, it is not always that easy to track individuals as it would depend on if that suspect was recorded on a national crime database,” he said.
“From a customer safety perspective, Fidelity ADT believes the best technology, due to the potential hijacking and armed robbery risks if the vehicles are stopped at a boom, is in having CCTV cameras monitoring the enclosed entrance and then connecting these directly to the guard panic.”
“If the panic is pressed, the camera footage can be opened in the CCTV control room and the operator who is in contact with the reaction officer can then instruct him as to the situation. These images can be retrieved easily for further investigation.”
Pienaar added that the structural setup of the system is important, and currently the Johannesburg City Council does not approve of having a ‘gooseneck’ stand with a camera in the middle of the road due to problems with traffic flow and the risk of accidents.
“There is a newer risk in having a gooseneck in the middle of the road in the Gauteng area – and that is the new fire engines acquired by Sandton which require a 4-metre width roadway,” he said.
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