Technological Advancements in Intelligent Surveillance & Search (ISS) Create New Opportunities for Financial Organizations

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1 Technological Advancements in Intelligent Surveillance & Search (ISS) Create New Opportunities for Financial Organizations White Paper prepared by 3VR Security, Inc. January VR Security, Inc. 475 Brannan Street, Suite 430, San Francisco, CA Tel: Sales: Fax: VR and the 3VR logo are either trademarks or federally registered trademarks of 3VR Security, Inc VR Security, Inc.

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3 Executive Summary Financial institutions worldwide have made significant investments in surveillance technology in an effort to reduce fraud and other crime and quickly locate evidence to identify and help convict those who commit these acts. Fraud and forensic investigators have come to depend on digital video technology for solving cases. Because so much video is being created and stored, it can be extremely time-consuming and often, impractical, to locate relevant images when needed. The inability to refine raw video, search using specific criteria, and to collect and compare evidence across different locations, also can hinder the speed and success of investigations. These inefficiencies represent a security gap in traditional digital surveillance. Closing this gap requires that financial institutions invest in the development and deployment of new tools specifically designed to assist fraud investigators with their search activities, so they can build comprehensive and enforceable cases and ultimately, save billions in unrecoverable losses due to criminal activity. 3VR Security provides an Intelligent Surveillance and Search (ISS) platform for video content that leverages the same design concept as the Internet s similarity search engines. Using information gathered by video analytic software as well as external data sources, the ISS platform analyzes the content of what it sees a person s face, a car s license plate, the direction in which an object moves then uses this information to create and index the data into lightweight metadata files automatically. This enables users to quickly search for similar video content versus reviewing hours of raw video. The ability to capture, analyze, correlate, and search video efficiently transforms raw data into rich, searchable information that can be used to fight crime, ensure people s safety, and improve business efficiency. The enterprise architecture of the ISS Platform also significantly decreases stress on corporate data networks by reducing the amountof useless raw video content moved across the infrastructure daily. And it allows IT personnel to handle a wide variety of tasks from setting up permissions across multiple locations to conducting remote health checks on systems, drives, and cameras to performing over-the wire upgrades without physically touching each system. Executive Summary Page 1

4 The Security Gap Since the innovation of digital surveillance technology and the advent of consistent system deployment in the early to mid-1990s the cost of both storage and cameras has decreased dramatically. Naturally, security professionals, including those in the financial industry, have taken advantage of these technological cost advantages to improve security by adding more cameras and increasing storage requirements. Today, there are 30 million cameras generating more than 250 billion hours of video annually just in the United States. But so much high-quality video is being created and stored that it has become extremely timeconsuming and often, impractical, to locate relevant images when needed. Today, there are 30 million cameras generating more than 250 billion hours of video annually just in the United States. But so much high-quality video is being created and stored that it has become extremely time-consuming and often, impractical, to locate relevant images when needed. Fraud and forensic investigators have come to depend on digital video technology for solving crimes. But sifting through this evidence, location by location, camera by camera, and frame by frame, is a significant challenge. The Security Gap Page 2

5 This inefficiency, coupled by the inability to refine a search using specific criteria such as a suspect s face or a license plate number, and to collect and compare evidence across different locations, is a security gap in traditional digital surveillance that can hinder the speed and success of investigations. Fraud account fraud, credit/debit card fraud, and check fraud and other crimes are common problems throughout the global financial industry. U.S. financial institutions alone lost roughly $5 billion to fraud and $65 million to robberies in just one year. Fraud account fraud, credit/debit card fraud, and check fraud and other crimes are common problems throughout the global financial industry. U.S. financial institutions alone lost roughly $5 billion to fraud and $65 million to robberies in just one year. To become more effective in the fight against this activity, financial institutions must be able to quickly locate evidence to catch criminals. Many have made massive investments in closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, digital video recorders, storage, and alarms. The average U.S. financial institution, for example, spends approximately $16,000 per branch on surveillance equipment (usually, about 16 cameras and one DVR per branch). Given that the typical American bank today is actually a network with traditional brick-andmortar locales, stand-alone ATMs, kiosks and teller windows in supermarkets and discount retailers, more and more cameras and systems must be installed to provide adequate surveillance for the business. Of course, the addition of more CCTV equipment means more video is collected and stored. Dedicating an employee to review this video which, with traditional digital video recorders (DVRs), can mean many hours of work is impractical, especially now that most financial institutions are operating with fewer personnel due to the economic downturn. Financial institutions need an easier, less personnel-intensive way to manage not only the video collected from digital surveillance, but also the different systems and other equipment involved. For administrative, information technology (IT), and operational purposes, financial institutions particularly larger organizations need a central interface from which surveillance as well as the health of the systems for each location can be monitored and configured. They require remote monitoring and configuration capabilities for individual bank systems, but also must have the ability to manage the enterprise. In addition, it is important to have solutions that can alert operators if predetermined, suspicious activity occurs from locations across a bank s network. This empowers financial institutions to make decisions on events at various locations, while also reducing security personnel on-site and the occurrence of false alarms. And they need video of the highest quality to help authorities identify suspects accurately and to serve as strong evidence in court cases. Closing the security gap in digital surveillance requires that financial institutions invest in the development and deployment of new tools specifically designed to assist fraud investigators with their search activities, so they can find and share relevant information with others to build comprehensive and enforceable cases and ultimately, save billions in unrecoverable losses due to criminal activity. The Security Gap Page 3

6 The Power of Search Search is about connecting people to the information they need most exactly when they need it. And no industry is in greater need of effective search technology than the security industry, particularly in the area of digital surveillance. Consider the Internet: A vast amount of content exists online, but it s useless if people can t sort through it efficiently to find exactly the information they need. Internet search engines provide users with a method for quickly locating information most relevant to their searches. By organizing and categorizing Internet content with searchable metadata headers, search engines such as Google and Yahoo perform searches for similar data content and then display a list of results that link to websites where the content can be found. Of course, not all the results presented will match a search request exactly, although those that do typically help a user connect quickly with the type of information he or she seeks. Conventional digital surveillance systems provide a very limited set of options for searching stored video content. Time, motion, and transaction triggers are common search options available with most DVR technologies, although the mechanics of the retrieval still require the need for investigators to spend an excessive amount of time downloading and reviewing chunks of raw video content. However, recent advancements in ISS now deliver the ability to search for video content in a way quite similar to searching for Internet content. The Power of Search Page 4

7 The Solution Companies like 3VR Security have developed a search platform for video content that leverages the same design concept as the Internet s similarity search engines. By comparing the analytic metadata collected and categorically indexed, users can search for similar video content by comparing data versus reviewing hours of raw video. The ability to capture, analyze, correlate, and search video efficiently transforms raw data into rich information that can be quickly searched to fight crime, ensure people s safety, and improve business efficiency. By taking advantage of the information gathered with video analytic software as well as external data sources such as transaction and access control systems, ISS platforms analyze the content of what they see a person s face, a car s license plate, the direction in which an object moves then use this information to create and index the data into lightweight metadata files automatically. This event-based data is stored separately, but linked to associated, stored raw video content. By indexing and categorizing these lightweight data files, ISS platforms provide users with more practical and efficient search tools, which by nature of their design offer a dramatically faster way to locate evidence. Not only does their enterprise architecture prove more efficient for investigators, it also significantly decreases stress on corporate data networks by reducing the amount of useless raw video content that is moved across the infrastructure daily. NEW OPPORTUNITIES WITH SEARCH A standard DVR requires extensive investigator involvement and does not have the capability to identify suspicious activity without operator assistance. An ISS platform eliminates manual effort and can search video in many ways including by face, transaction ID, alarms, direction, and license plate. Operators can look for video by specific events or faces, and investigators can use these features to identify and track suspects. With extensive integration APIs, ISS platforms correlate important information from third-party systems such as transaction and access control systems to surveillance. This feature enables searching for video and/or events by transaction information such as customer transaction number, account number, and even badges. Analytic software in an ISS platform also can detect faces and moving objects and specific details about The Solution Page 5

8 them such as size, color, speed and direction. Motion surveillance can capture, index, and search based on motion and direction, and detect intrusion by motion or zone. This type of data can help banks to automatically identify potential criminal behavior and quickly identify loss. For example, conducting a facial search across several bank branches can be particularly crucial in identifying repeat criminals. If a customer complains about a transaction he or she did not conduct, video, including the face associated with the suspicious transaction number, can be found. After finding the high-quality image of the suspect s face, a facial similarity search can be conducted throughout the bank s network to identify other Event Card Teller 3, Richmond Branch 3:35:30 pm Indexed Face-enabled searches help break through multiple identities. Checking Deposit Acct# 0376 Amt $4, Event Card Trans# Teller# 832 Teller 2, Daly City Branch 2:35:39 pm Indexed Checking Withdrawl Acct# Amt $2, Event Card Trans# Teller# 52 Teller 5, San Francisco Branch 1:19:05 pm Indexed Checking Withdrawl Acct# Amt $3, Event Card Trans# Teller# 12 Entrance, Mountain View Branch 3:15:12 pm Indexed instances in which the suspect has entered a branch and potentially committed a crime thus helping investigators to build a more enforceable case. The addition of 3VR has helped banks such as Union Savings Bank of Danbury, CT to reduce fraud and lower the cost of investigation for Union Savings Bank by allowing security staff to rapidly pinpoint relevant video when investigating an incident. Previously, staff would have spent hours viewing and reviewing raw, disorganized video to gather the information they needed. With 3VR s solution, the video quality, analytics, and correlation tools allow the bank s investigations to be conducted in minutes. 3VR is a core element of how we maintain dramatically lower fraud rates than our peers Bill McNamara, Senior Vice President, Union Savings Bank Bill McNamara, Senior Vice President, Union Savings Bank explains: 3VR is a core element of how we maintain dramatically lower fraud rates than our peers. Motion detection and counting (people, objects) are also both powerful analytics that can be used for multiple applications beyond fraud and forensics investigation. Counting analytics, for instance, can help financial institutions monitor foot traffic and occupancy rates allowing them to optimize their business. If a bank notices the occupancy rate is significantly higher between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Wednes- The Solution Page 6

9 days and Fridays, it can increase staffing to enhance customer service. This is just one example of how ISS solutions have reached beyond typical security applications, which increases ROI for financial institutions. STORAGE SAVINGS ISS platforms also create cost-saving opportunities when it comes to storage. Upgrading and adding video storage can demand a significant portion of a bank s security budget. However, ISS solutions take a more sophisticated approach to storage with content-aware capabilities. Video can be stored according to customized parameters (faces, vehicles, transaction numbers, and more), improving storage efficiency and rapidly accelerating the speed and relevance of surveillance searches. Also, these capabilities put the decision to store or delete video in the hands of Typical DVR (1TB) SmartRecorder TM (1TB) 1-2 Years 1-2 Years TRANSACTION FACES & OBJECT Days Days VIDEO VIDEO the operator, empowering financial institutions to manage their video as they see fit. Due to the current regulatory environment, financial institutions may need to save certain highquality video clips for a certain period of time. With a standard DVR, this can lead to video clips degrading over time. Sophisticated surveillance platforms offer storage optimization applications that can enable long-term storage of data for multiple years without adding additional hard drives. Because of this intelligent approach, surveillance information can be archived longer with the least impact to data center resources. Closing the Security Gap: Enterprise Search Allows Information to Be Shared Easily Closing the gap in digital surveillance means investigators must be able to conduct enhanced enterprise searches, and IT personnel must have more efficient enterprise management capabilities. The enterprise architecture of ISS solutions, like those from 3VR, provides the ability to The Solution Page 7

10 perform fast, federated similarity searches across an entire network of appliances. Thus, security and investigation professionals have the ability not only to search for video content quickly and efficiently using highly refined criteria, but also to compare content from one location with video stored across one or more other locations. Enterprise Software Manage, Report, Monitor ISS solutions also enhance case management. Most traditional DVRs/NVRs (network video recorder) provide remote access to view, search and retrieve stored video. However, this peer-topeer connection often limits search options to evidence stored on the one appliance/address to which a client is connected. As a result, not only are investigators working within individual silos, many times they are also exporting and saving relative video evidence on their individual desktops. Many larger financial institutions have created shared network directories for investigators to share case evidence. But since this data is saved in a raw video format within traditional PC file folders, reviewing saved evidence from all relevant sources is impractical and time-consuming. Often, investigators discover that their colleagues are investigating the same case details, without insight into other investigators efforts. The larger the financial institution, the greater the need to arm regional fraud investigators with tools designed to help close the security gap and solve fraud-related crime. Enterprise video management platforms that provide integrated case management not only offer an easy way to create, organize and share evidence, they also give users the ability to easily compare similarities in all evidence gathered. A centrally shared and easily viewed repository for video case files is one essential tool for investigators. Enterprise management capabilities built into ISS platforms make it easy to manage and support multiple surveillance systems across the enterprise because they can present a centralized and unified view of all security operations. They also allow IT personnel at financial institutions to set up rules, users, alerts, and permissions across multiple locations; perform remote health checks on systems, drives, and cameras; easily troubleshoot, backup, and repair The Solution Page 8

11 those systems; and perform over-the-wire upgrades without physically touching each system. A robust search function, one that enables financial institutions to find data in seconds, not minutes, is one of the cornerstones of making video useful. The ability to search through hours of video quickly provides financial institutions with the tools their security teams need to build enforceable cases. Sharing Evidence Outside the Walls of Your Financial Institution Can Help Investigators Solve Cases. In addition to an industry-leading enterprise video management solution, 3VR s CrimeDex service provides a national database and network that allows investigators to collaborate across organizations and geographies to isolate and capture fraudsters and other criminals. More than 1,000 law enforcement agencies, retailers and financial institutions use CrimeDex to share in- CrimeDex Image formation and reduce crime and fraud in their communities. CrimeDex provides a searchable database with more than 14,000 profiles of known fraudsters as well as timely alerts relating to local, regional, and national crimes. Users are able to share internal evidence easily and CrimeDex provides investigators the tools for sharing case details with other CrimeDex members outside their organization. By expanding the power of internal enterprise searches and centralized case management to reach outside of your own group of investigators, the security gap in surveillance will continue to narrow. 3VR s CrimeDex services provide: Access to a national database of thousands of known criminals and fraudsters with significant details on their activities and characteristics. A broad information-sharing system bringing together hundreds of financial institutions, retail chains and law enforcement agencies all supporting the fight against fraud. A powerful communication tool that allows investigators to create visual summaries of cases to present to law enforcement and juries. Link people and cases: Investigators can identify and investigate links and track criminals across the CrimeDex network. Regional fraud updates: Receive regular CrimeDex updates on criminals and fraudsters targeting your area, and use those updates to search and monitor for related activity across your institutions. The Solution Page 9

12 Conclusion ISS platforms like those from 3VR ease the burden on IT through more effective enterprise management, make it more practical for investigators to perform multi-site, highly specific, enterprise searches for video content, and provide the necessary tools to enable security teams to comprehend the massive amount of video recorded each day by financial institutions from branches to stand-alone ATMs thus working to close a major security gap. With fraud and crime continuing to plague financial institutions, and their customers, there is no room for error and time cannot be wasted. A traditional video surveillance system is simply not enough: Financial institutions must have access to capabilities that go beyond the norm to reduce the chance of loss and increase safety. Video must be immediately searchable and digestible so financial institutions and investigators can combat fraud and other crime more effectively. By effectively capturing, analyzing, correlating and managing video with ISS platforms, financial institutions will also better ensure the safety and security of their customers and personnel, while improving customer service, reducing costs, and enhancing overall business efficiency 3VR Makes the 3VR Intelligent Surveillance & Search (ISS) Platform More than 250 billion hours of video are captured every year in the United States. The 3VR ISS Platform makes it possible to organize these vast stores of raw data into rich information that can be quickly, comprehensively mined to fight crime, protect people, and improve customer service and business efficiency. The platform applies 3VR s innovative technology breakthroughs to make capturing, analyzing, storing, correlating, and managing video surveillance easier and faster than any other method. In addition, the platform is easy to manage and maintain troubleshooting and upgrades can be handled remotely, avoiding the hassle of costly on-site service charges. Conclusion Page 10

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14 About 3VR Security, Inc. 3VR is a Silicon Valley company creating the most innovative new products, technology, and services for physical security. 3VR combines breakthroughs in video search, video analysis, and video management in the industry s first intelligent video management system. The company s flagship SmartRecorder has won nearly every industry award and has been deployed at some of the world s largest banking, retail, and government institutions to reduce costs, fight fraud and loss, and protect our country in ways that conventional systems simply can t. Founded in 2002, the company is privately held with funding from Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Buyers, VantagePoint Ventures, In-Q-Tel, and DAG Ventures. Tel: Fax: Sales: info@3vr.com Website: 3VR Security, Inc. 475 Brannan Street, Suite 430, San Francisco, CA