Alarm installations could lose credibility – so argues an update report by the Police Scientific Development Branch at the Home Office.
Alarm installations could lose credibility and ‘become even less effective against crime’ unless false alarm calls are tackled. So argues an update report by the Police Scientific Development Branch at the Home Office. The report, Crime Reduction Through Technology: Two Years On, by Chris Yeoman, suggests that PSDB commissions research from some police forces on the reasons for false alarms. The report calls on the government and industry bodies such as NACOSS to work together on raising installer performance and reliability of alarm equipment and installation management. Spelling out how false alarms drain police time, the report says: ‘There are over 1.1 million registered commercial alarm installations in the UK. The likelihood is for these to increase. There is overwhelming evidence of the need to tackle the problem of false alarms. In 1999, for example the police service recorded 871,519 false calls (1.03 false activations per installation), compared to 85,079 genuine alarms of which 4,868 resulted in 6,240 persons being arrested.’ The St Albans-based PSDB suggests an ‘Improving Alarms Initiative’ to promote good alarm technology. Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a positive step in alarm monitoring, the report adds. A sensor system compatible with alarm systems using RFID, alongside more conventional sensor technologies such as passive infrared and microwave, could provide an integrated intelligent alarm detection system with a potential low false alarm rate. The report says: ‘Tagged property would be continuously monitored by the system and the alarm would only trigger when unauthorised movement occurs.’ The PSDB recommends research into electronic tagging to combat theft. The report points out that biometrics, used in high-security government and military applications for years, are becoming more affordable. The PSDB proposes research into biometrics as a way of monitoring unauthorised movement of property by ‘buddy’ linked attributes between the protected item and authorised personnel. The report names health insurance and welfare as two possible applications, by preventing fraud.
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Other topics
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In schools and hospitals, the report says, ‘large numbers of access points and many isolated areas are difficult to control without effective access control and monitoring systems’. ‘Security in hospitals, like many other institutions, competes with all other operating costs and may not always be a high priority, however any measures taken to reduce the ‘fear of crime’ must be seen to be effective. Ineffective measures undermine staff perception of safety.’ The PSDB proposes development of a low-cost CCTV image capture and storage system for hospitals, and research into use of electronic tagging to protect drugs, staff and equipment in hospitals. Security technology can sometimes save schools money compared to the long-term cost cost of not reducing crime, the report says. A national safer schools initiative, that would let schools bid with their local education authority and the police for security measures, is suggested. The PSDB proposes pilot projects in schools and hospitals ‘to demonstrate an integrated application of technologies such as access control, CCTV, alarms and property tagging’.
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The document says: ‘Future security and alarm systems must provide intelligent and useable data that enables the police service to assess and verify the status of installed systems’ and asks how will police accept commercial alarm calls and handle the incoming data, ‘which inevitably will be in a digital format’.
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The £5.5m Chipping of Goods Initiative – trials to see how property crime can be reduced through the retail supply chain using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) – is on schedule, the report says. The Home Office received more than 130 bids for funding; up to ten projects will run until the end of 2002. ‘Chipping systems are also expected to provide evidence, which is admissible in a court of law, to help convict those responsible for ‘fencing’ and the selling-on of stolen merchandise.’
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As for digital recording of CCTV, the report admits the technology is affordable but says: ‘The apparent ease with which digital images might be manipulated has obvious implications for their use as evidence. The lack of accepted procedures, standards and audit trails as the migration to digital recording takes place is largely uncoordinated and is giving rise to concerns not only about evidential value.’ Digital imaging and its supporting standards are still evolving, and the PSDB can begin to address the issues over the next two years, the report says.
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On rural crime, the report admits that CCTV and alarm remote monitoring needs proper network communications. The report calls for research into whether RFID technology can provide an answer to monitoring rural property, and for methods of providing long-range data transmission for the verification of alarms from monitoring equipment.
