What Is Intelligent Video Analytics?

Intelligent video analytics (IVA) is the latest advancement in cutting-edge security surveillance and threat detection, incorporating artificial intelligence (AI).

IVA isn’t a passive method of recording but actively looks for and flags possible problems or concerns, providing a transformative level of functionality that outperforms all conventional security systems.

This means cameras, CCTV towers, and other devices have the technology to sort, organise, and evaluate data as it is captured, improving every aspect of risk mitigation, responsiveness, and alertness.

Although IVA sounds technical, the real-world applications are relatively simple from a workplace or business perspective.

Surveillance systems work as they always have but incorporate powerful analytical capabilities. This means anything unusual, such as loitering, repeat visits, or indications of aggression, is flagged instantly – often before an incident or event progresses into a real-time issue.

Intelligent Video Analytics: A Snapshot

• Smart analytics relies on AI integrations, evaluating and recording all the data collected by surveillance cameras and CCTV in real-time and cross-checking that data against parameters, norms, and usual activity patterns.
• The advantages are compelling. IVA provides businesses and organisations with vastly superior functionality, such as pre-emptive incident detection, missing object tracking, ongoing analysis of suspicious behaviour, and immediate identification of anomalies.
• AI-powered video analytics works continuously and autonomously and is configured to each specific setting or environment. This means you control what your surveillance looks for, how it responds, and under what circumstances an alert is generated and transmitted to security teams, site managers, and the emergency services.

Intelligent Video Analytics (IVA) Explained

IVA combines AI-enabled analytics with high-performance surveillance systems. In short, this means video captures are analysed in real-time, so should anything go wrong or pose a concern, it is identified swiftly rather than retrospectively from recordings.

There are numerous applications, which we’ll explore, but IVA can track, monitor, follow and appraise any object, person, activity pattern or vehicle at any point in time, whether you’d like to:

• Analyse behaviours and eliminate aggression and anti-social behaviour
• Monitor high-value items to prevent thefts
• Improve perimeter security and proactively address any movements that indicate an intent to trespass

The key differentiating factor between existing CCTV solutions and IVA is the ability to understand data and patterns and preempt security challenges before they happen, whether using facial recognition to identify banned or black-listed individuals, scanning number plates on approaching vehicles, or flagging when an item has been covertly dropped or concealed on your premises.

By identifying and following suspicious objects, vehicles or people and knowing when something has been moved, isn’t where it should be, or is present without a reasonable justification, security teams can be more reactive, more targeted, and directly address problematic behaviour before it escalates.

Stand-Out Features Within an Intelligent Video Analytics System

We’ve touched on some of the highest-demand features within IVA while noting that the capabilities you are most interested in will naturally vary depending on the nature, size, and risk profile of your organisation or setting.

Below, we’ve summarised some of the features that have widespread applications in modern environments:

• Behavioural Analytics: AI-backed algorithms learn, evaluate and analyse. Initial programming can set parameters for alerts to be raised, while ongoing systems become more and more adept at spotting bottlenecks and crowding, unauthorised visitors or any behaviours or movements that constitute a possible threat.
• Facial Recognition: Used within automated access controls, to detect banned individuals, track repeat visits, or monitor the movements of suspicious visitors, facial recognition maps features, shapes and characteristics to avoid the potential for criminal activity to be missed due to attempts to conceal an individual’s identity.
• Object Detection: Tracking objects, from vehicles to inventory, equipment to people, enables IVA to either monitor specific objects continuously or identify when an object is somewhere it shouldn’t be, is missing from its usual place, or is being deployed or relocated by an unapproved or unknown person.

Immediate notifications support these features, depending on the rules or trigger points you have set. Anything that requires attention, investigation, or a critical response initiates a rapid alert, sent to the nominated security teams as appropriate.

Sectors and Industries Adopting Intelligent Video Analytics

IVA has core applications within industries and environments exposed to higher levels of risk.

These include transport stations and airports, event venues and stadiums, and public or high-attendance festivals where conventional security approaches cannot oversee the entirety of a large site and one with dense visitor numbers in real-time.

Although IVA is now a leading public safety asset for these spaces, the technology is increasingly being found in commercial and industrial sectors where its benefits and applications are becoming more widely known.

These include retail settings, where IVA is used to prevent thefts and extended queuing, but also to inform marketing, improve store layouts, and track footfall numbers as a form of business intelligence based on authentic customer data and movements.

IVA is also being introduced in high-risk settings like highway work teams or traffic management and enforcement.

Agencies can, for instance, use IVA to detect incidents, collisions, accidents, stopped vehicles, and near misses, track dangerous driving behaviours and illegal manoeuvres, and identify areas where congestion contributes to elevated safety concerns.

Likewise, in industrial settings like construction sites, loading bays and warehouses, IVA can monitor all processes, ensure safety policies and PPE rules are being complied with, and alert supervisors when anything that could constitute a near miss, malfunction or safety issue arises.

Factors to Consider When Integrating Intelligent Video Analytics Into Your Security Approach

Like most new and emerging technologies, it is essential that IVA is introduced and utilised to its full capacity without impacting the privacy of your workforce, creating challenges around data protection, and without overspending on unnecessarily complex systems.

During a security consultation, we’ll happily advise on the following as some of the common points of concern that arise:

• Protecting Privacy: IVA must be used responsibly, ethically, and transparently, ensuring that any people whose data is likely to be collected and analysed are aware of this and the purpose it serves. Organisations also need to ensure that data protection policies and protocols are fully adhered to, to safeguard sensitive data from misuse.
• Cost-Efficiencies: Most businesses and organisations have existing security systems, networks, CCTV cameras and legacy hardware. The ideal is to integrate new IVA technology into current infrastructure where possible, while noting that a professional and strategic approach is often key to ensuring this is streamlined, well-managed, and overcomes challenges around compatibility.
• Bias in AI Analytics: AI is undoubtedly a powerful asset, but one that is trained on vast data sets alongside ongoing deep learning capabilities. Customisable programming and parameters can be essential to ensuring IVA has no ingrained bias and that the technology is monitored and subject to proper oversight to address any potential outcomes or biases that could lead to discrimination.
• Allocating Sufficient Resources: Powering always-on analytical devices requires significant infrastructure. The right set-up should be adapted to the size, scale and complexity of the site or premise, ensuring that IVA can perform to expectations and scale as required.

Data is a fundamental aspect of the way IVA and any AI application works. Rather than integrating IVA and leaving it to run, organisations should oversee its functionality to ensure they are aware of issues and can continually refine the models to solve challenges around false alarms or inaccurate threat detection.

Staying Up to Speed With Advancements in AI-Enabled Security Surveillance

IVA is readily available and is anticipated to evolve further in the years ahead as AI capacity and applications increase and computing capacity and compatibility improve.

We expect that the functionality available through behavioural analytics, often pre-empting and identifying risk factors, accelerated tension, or suspicious activity, will become further augmented, introducing more advanced predictive analytics.

This relies on cross-checking data with previous data banks and new data sets, alongside information-sharing between devices and systems. The outcomes reposition surveillance as a proactive asset that can accurately anticipate threats rather than react when an incident has already occurred or is underway.

Further evolutions in deep learning will also affect AI algorithms, and the way in which they improve their understanding of the environment, real risk factors, and indications that something outside of the norm is not a cause for alarm.

In everyday terms, the result will be that AI becomes better at interpreting complex scenes and human behaviour. IVA will, therefore, gain an enhanced understanding of, for example, movements or patterns that are moderately unusual but that do not pose a risk.

Upscaling Security Surveillance With Intelligent Video Analytics

Clearway’s AI specialists and security consultants are on hand to help you learn more about IVA, integrate this functionality with your existing security set-up, or introduce real-time analytics into your site or premise.

IVA is a ready-made solution, whether your priority is health and safety and workforce compliance, deterring and preventing criminal behaviour, or adhering to best practice standards and regulations around public safety.

Please contact the Clearway Labs team to learn more or to schedule a convenient time to consult with our accomplished advisers to ensure your security is future-ready.