Details of the British Standards draft for public comment on remote monitoring of detector-activated CCTV.
The scope of the briefing’s discussions were introduced by Catherine Park, BSIA Communications Manager ‘ the recently published British Standards Institution draft for public comment on remote monitoring of detector-activated CCTV (to be BS 8418).
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Remotely-monitored detector-activated CCTV is an alternative to continual live monitoring of images. In this case, when a detector on a site is activated, images are displayed at a remote video-receiving centre (RVRC) and the operator can take appropriate action. The RVRC could be tens or hundreds of miles away from the actual site. This system offers all kinds of benefits ‘ it can help to optimise use of resources; minimise false alarms because an operator can check if there is actually an intruder before raising the alarm; even warn an intruder verbally. However, such systems can’t achieve their full potential if no standards exist to specify installation and operation requirements, and they could fall into disrepute if specific problems develop as a result of the lack of proper guidance/specifications. BS 8418 will seek to ensure that these pitfalls are avoided.
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Una Riley, formerly BSIA CCTV Section Chairman and currently Marketing Chairman of the Committee, spoke about the importance of standards for CCTV.
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Standards are extremely important not only to ensure that equipment is operated effectively and professionally, but also to deal with ever-growing concerns about privacy issues and related legislation. One of the challenges relating to CCTV is the fast-developing nature of the technology. Standards need to keep pace, otherwise public, police, users, insurers will not have confidence in the product. Development of CCTV standards to date has certainly not kept pace with the technology ‘ there has been a particular problem with European standards, with at least five years being the typical gestation period of any standard to date.
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Fast-tracking of CCTV standards began when Una was chairman, with this standard on detector-activated CCTV being seen as top-priority because of interest from insurers and the Police. The fast-track process was helped because of a new type of British Standard document, the Publicly Available Specification. This takes into account that there is a need to get a guidance document out into the public arena, but which is also in place to achieve the kind of feedback that enables the production of a fully-fledged standard. So this document was able to be developed from a BSIA code of practice to a PAS (PAS 38).
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Adam Wiseberg, BSIA CCTV Section provided more detail on the need for the standard, its history and content.
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He began by talking about Unique Reference Numbers (URNs). Police will only respond to a report of an incident from a CCTV control room if they have awarded that system a URN, which means that they believe the system meets their quality requirements and therefore will not result in them being called out without good reason. The whole question of issuing of URNs has been problematic; there have been difficulties gaining URNs, different police forces have different policies. Although the potential for detector-activated CCTV is considerable, it is understandable that the Police might be particularly concerned about call-outs in relation to this type of system ie it does not involve ongoing surveillance, it requires the interface between CCTV systems and RVRCs to be operating effectively and potentially problems could arise either with the system or at the RVRC.
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There have been some studies undertaken on this subject by the police, most notably West Midlands who undertook a pilot scheme. In fact, the resulting West Midlands code-of-practice was used in the development of PAS 38. The situation has been further complicated by the fact that in the Association of Chief Police Officers latest Security Systems Policy (2000) there was little specific reference to CCTV or CCTV standards. It was felt by participants at the press briefing that a need had developed for more industry representation specifically about CCTV, and that dialogue on this subject was now improving. It was hoped that conformity to the new British Standard, when published, would be seen by ACPO and police forces around the country as an important factor in awarding URNs.
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Apart from the police, Adam also highlighted the importance to insurers of the existence of a nationally-recognised standard. Insurers need to know how they should specify systems. It also needs to be borne in mind that the situation regarding manned security is changing dramatically. The pool of available security officers is likely to diminish as a result of the requirements of industry regulation. Costs and activities associated with regulation are also likely to cause the number of companies in the sector to diminish, those remaining will concentrate on more sophisticated activities. Both end-users and security companies will have to think more about the most effective way of combining technology with manpower, and this standard will help with this process.
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Adam went over the history of the standard, covering the development from a BSIA code of practice to PAS 38. The BSIA code was developed by a cross-section of manufacturers, installers, operators and remote monitoring centres. When it moved on to be developed as a PAS, the consultation process took place via BSI technical committee GW/1/10 with comments required from organisations such as the Association of Security Consultants, Electrical Contractors Association, Home Office Crime Prevention Centre, Loss Prevention Council, NACOSS, SSAIB, the Post Office, The Security Facilities Executive, the National Training Organisation for the Secure Environment (SITO) and four co-opted CCTV experts. Now we have moved into the next consultation phase, as organisations and individuals are asked to comment on the BSI draft for public comment. It is important that organisations do comment via the appropriate channels as this is the only way in which they can be involved in the process. It is hoped that the full British Standard will be published in about six months although this will be very dependent on the type and volume of comments received. This will mean that a full British Standard will have emerged after two years, somewhat different from the usual five (at best).
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There was some discussion about criticisms that had arisen early in the process about levels of consultation. Adam highlighted the fact that consultation processes had followed the normal and correct procedures ‘ by the time the actual British Standard is published very extensive consultation will have taken place at a number of stages. Comments by some organisations in the media seemed to reflect general anxieties about the impact of the standard as well as some specific press approaches. A number of companies who were quoted as not having been consulted had actually had the opportunity to comment at an early stage. However, the BSIA did note these comments and involved interested parties in further development work ‘ feedback on the standard has been overwhelmingly positive.
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On the system side the standard covers areas such as detector and camera positioning and configuration, lighting of the camera’s field of view, incorporation of tamper detection. On the RVRC side areas covered include records and event logging, security of the RVRC; storage of images; incident response times; personnel screening. The standard only discusses in detail areas that are not dealt with by other standards, otherwise it refers to the relevant standards eg BS 4737 Intruder Alarm Systems, BS 5979 Code of Practice for remote centres receiving signals from security systems, BS 7958 Code of Practice for security screening of personnel employed in a security environment.
