QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN CHOOSING A SURVEILLANCE SOLUTION

• Is your surveillance system monitored for uptime?  What turnaround time is there for maintenance and fixes?  Do you even know if your system is down? SLA should be >95%. Is there replacement stock on hand to quickly swop out kit?
• Does it run on fibre? Or is it a wireless solution (multiple issues including interference, unstable)?
• Do you only find out that a camera is not working when you need the footage?
• Is your ANPR* solution monitored for multiple points of failure, hits/Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reads/conversion and verified Vehicles of Interest (VOI)? Is the database it queries clean and up to date?
• Is the pole fitted with a sensor to alert when an item fails? Temperature, power, movement?
• Does your system run off a world-class video management system that allows integration with any analytics program?
• Where is the feed stored? Is it in a secure data centre?
• Is regulatory compliance taken into consideration?  Privacy, POPIA, impact on ongoing investigations?
• Do you have access to a vast network of CCTV cameras, incidents logged, databases of Vehicles of Interest (VOI)?
• Do you get reports on what is working and what is being investigated? Is someone "watching the watcher"?