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Security camera network system moves on
By Jiang Xuezhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-20 06:27
A network that connects security cameras in tens of thousands of
supermarkets, banks and schools under police control to a main complex is set to
be completed by the end of next year, Beijing News reported yesterday.
The new technology will help to speed up response times to emergencies, said
Ma Zhenchuan, director of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Image identification systems will be installed at places where large numbers
of people gather, such as supermarkets and marketplaces, to help to identify
suspicious looking packages.
Through the analysis of the images on a computer screen, police would also be
able to distinguish between things such as a fighting and horseplay between
friends, according to Liu Song, an official in charge of internal safety affairs
under the bureau.
He said that a possible stampede accident was avoided in October this year
when a business promotion by a shopping centre saw huge crowds ahead of its
official opening.
"After studying the information provided by the internal safety network,
police in Xicheng District instantly informed the shopping centre to start
business earlier than planned," Liu said.
More than 1,500 units, which also include petrol stations and kindergartens,
in Beijing have already been adopted into the network to improve public
security, said the report.
For example, a series of blasts were reported in an underground supermarket
affiliated to the Beijing New World Centre and Beijing Railway Station square on
July 8.
Within four hours, the police department concentrated and nabbed suspect Wei
Haibo by studying the supervision video records in the shopping centre, police
officials said.
Statistics indicated that more than 12,000 suspects have been arrested so far
this year based on images from monitor cameras installed in financial units,
police said.
Under the new network, it will only take the police department 10 minutes to
check that all the 3,000 automatic teller machines (ATM) in the city are working
correctly and not being targeted by scamsters.
(China Daily 12/20/2005 page3)
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