Hi all – I’m Simon Adcock and I’m guest blogging on Tony’s blog as I’m leading the industry strand of the National Surveillance Camera Strategy. I’m the Chief Executive Officer of ATEC Security and I’m also the Chair of the CCTV section of the British Security Industry Association (BSIA).
Vision and scope
I’m sure if you’ve been reading the other blogs on the Strategy that you’ll know what the vision is behind it but I think it’s worth setting out again. This strategy aims to provide direction and leadership in the surveillance camera community to enable system operators to understand best/good practice and then demonstrate compliance with the principles of the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice and any associated guidance. This applies whether the system operator is a relevant authority under a statutory duty to have regard to the Code or is free to adopt the Code on a voluntary basis.
The scope of the vision is wide too covering all public space surveillance. At the moment only relevant authorities are required to pay due regard to the Code. I think a longer-term aspiration might be to expand that so it covers ALL surveillance cameras. In reality that might take years so it might start with all public authorities as Tony recommended in his review of the Code. This might be followed by operators monitoring large public spaces such as shopping centres and eventually bringing domestic users on board.
There’s quite a bit in there to unpick and you may well be think what does ‘industry’ refer to on the work I’m leading. Well, by industry we mean anyone or organisation involved in planning, designing, installing, commissioning and supporting surveillance cameras as well as monitoring when it’s not done by the end user i.e. the organisation itself.
Clear objectives
In terms of objectives for this strand we need to define what we mean by good and best practice. Good might mean meeting minimum standards that we set or some of the standards. Best practice might mean meeting all relevant British and International standards as well as achieving certification against the Surveillance Code of Practice.
We also need to build awareness on what this definition is and what the differences are between the two terms. Tony is likely to best placed to do this as part of a wider communications campaign but with help from partners to amplify the messages through social media and other communication channels.
We want to change buying behavior so people who buy kit of limited capability do so knowingly. This might be in the form of a buyers guide – aimed at people buying systems which setting out the specifications of good surveillance camera equipment. This might be led by the BSIA but endorsed by others such as Tony, the British Standards Institution and so on.
Lastly, it would be great to develop some training for people who buy systems so they know what to buy. This may range from short course around what to look for when buying and planning a CCTV system to longer course around planning out a system yourself with qualification at the end of it.
I hope that gives you an idea of what we are working on in this strand. Looking at the above can you spot any areas that aren’t included but should be?
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1 comment
Comment by Ian Methews posted on
Thanks Simon, for this kind of informative post. As per the concept of buying behaviour is the concern. the statistics related to the PEST factor like political, economical, social and technological factor definitely should have to get concerned for the overall strategy implementation.