US a leader in leveraging video monitoring for a safe ‘return-to-work’

NEW YORK—U.S. firms are avidly re-purposing their existing video monitoring systems to support the ‘COVID Safe’ return to offices and workplaces across North America, according to a multi-country survey of organizations running video monitoring systems conducted by Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) provider Ava Security.

Half (50 percent) of the 100 IT, Facilities Management (FM), Operations or Security managers queried during March 2021 were already leveraging their video monitoring systems to help manage social distancing requirements in their buildings. A further 44 percent were planning to use their video systems for this purpose within the next 12 months.

An even higher percentage (59 percent) were already using their existing video systems to help provide temperature level checks, and a further 32 percent planned to enable temperature checking via their video security systems within a year.

Another half (50 percent) of respondents to the same survey said they were already using their video monitoring systems to trace all people movements in, out and around their workplaces to protect both staff and visitors alike from the danger of infection. A further 40 percent plan to configure their systems to do this within the next 12 months.

A slightly higher percentage (52 percent) had already deployed their video systems for monitoring meeting room occupancy levels and people density levels in breakout areas; while 41 percent said they were likely to add this capability to their video systems over the next 12 months.

More than half (53 percent) of U.S. firms had already deployed facial recognition analytics into entrance area cameras to enable contact-less access control; while a further 32 percent were planning to complete this work within the next 12 months as more staff return to the office.

Mask Detection analytics is also being widely deployed in U.S. workplaces: 45 percent had already deployed video analytics software now available for alerting control room staff when staff and visitors are inside a building but not wearing a mask. A further 45 percent planned to deploy mask detection analytics within the next 12 months.

U.S. firms led other countries in the study in terms of using their video systems to support the creation of COVID Safe Workplaces for their staff.

Accelerated Adoption of Video Analytics

License Plate Recognition (LPR) analytics has already been deployed in 43 percent of U.S. firms’ workplaces, according to the same study. More interestingly, a further 43 percent of these firms indicated that they expect to have deployed LPR at their workplaces within the next 12 months.

Ava Security plans to investigate further to see if the increase in remote management of workplaces during the pandemic has led directly to increasing deployment of LPR and other analytics capabilities.

As other smart analytics capabilities become commercially available, demand is also picking up. In many cases, video analytics adoption looks set to double within the next 12 months.

For example, audio or noise analytics (i.e., gunshot, breaking glass, screaming, etc.) has already been deployed in 40 percent of U.S. video monitoring systems in use. A further 42 percent of firms said they expected to deploy noise analytics within the next 12 months.

Objection detection, identification and classification including color matching is also experiencing a surge in demand. This demand is possibly related to the improvement in accuracy of next-generation cameras with this sort of analytics built in. Today, 40 percent of U.S. firms with video systems have this analytics capability available to them. However, more interestingly, 48 percent more U.S. firms plan to put objection detection and identification analytics into their systems within the next 12 months.

Workplace Technologies

U.S. firms are also ahead in terms of adoption of other workplace technologies to reduce transmission risks.

Over four out of every five (83 percent) U.S. firms were ‘net’ likely (i.e., ‘Very likely to’ or ‘Likely to’) to increase the ‘remote monitoring of assets, processes, and people on our work premises’ over the next 12 months as the focus of the Work From Home (WFH) revolution of 2020 evolves into the ‘Hybrid Working’ evolution in which many more of us come into the office only for significant corporate events .

As the reality sets in for managers that many more of their staff will be working from home for at least a portion of their working week, the focus on cybersecurity as well as physical security increases. In the U.S., 84 percent of respondents said they were ‘very likely to’ or ‘likely to’ place a ‘larger focus on cybersecurity for all devices and applications that are networked.’

Nine out of 10 (92 percent) U.S. firm respondents were ‘net’ likely to ‘Increase the use of cameras & Internet of Things sensors to manage our business,' the Ava Security study found.

The biggest challenge of supporting all these changes appears to be paying off for them, as more than three quarters (77 percent) of U.S. firms predicted a ‘Reduction of operational budgets available for maintenance, facilities management, or/and physical security’ over the next 12 months.

Cloud Boost

For many U.S. firms, increased migration of IT services into the cloud appears to be one clear answer to the budget squeeze: 86 percent of firms in this study predicted an increase in the migration of IT services into the cloud over the next 12 months.

Nearly as many U.S. firms (84 percent) seemed to predict savings would be made by reducing the size of the main offices and supplementing these with the ‘Increasing use of co-working spaces for specific purposes,’ including brainstorming, sales presentations and larger team meetings.

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