West Midlands Police Service has cut the time it takes officers
to search CCTV images by 90% by using software from
Scyron.
The software enables police to view, analyse, prepare and
present CCTV, video, photographic, document and mobile phone images
as evidence in court.
The force approached security and surveillance services company
Scyron to help deal with 5,000 hours of CCTV images in its
investigation of the
Birmingham
race riots in 2005.
Andrew Townsend, detective sergeant at West Midlands Police
said, "We needed a system to manage the process and keep track of
our progress so we could know what had been viewed, how much more
had to be done, and what was to be used as evidence in court."
Scyron developed a tool to identify the actions and objects
police were interested in on videotape, reducing human interaction
to a minimum. The tool allows several police officers to work
collaboratively on the images.
Una Cooke, head of the major investigations unit at West
Midlands Police, said the software had condensed hours of CCTV
images into a few minutes that had helped secure 11 convictions
after the Birmingham riots.
She said that without the technology the case could have lasted
weeks longer and that it would have been difficult for the jury to
follow the evidence against individual defendants.
Scyron has since refined and expanded the system which is in use
by six UK police services.
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