Demand for professional video surveillance cameras has been growing quickly and is forecast to continue growing in 2018. It is estimated that less than 10 million surveillance cameras were shipped globally in 2006, which grew to over 100 million in 2016, and is forecast to make over 130 million during 2018.
Despite this increase in demand, the average price of cameras and other video surveillance equipment will continue to fall quickly. As a result, IHS Markit forecasts that in terms of US dollar revenues the world market for video surveillance equipment will grow at an annual rate of less than 6% in 2018.
It will be challenging for vendors to continue to grow revenues and margins, but there will be opportunities for well-placed vendors. For example, both the South East Asian and Indian markets are forecast to grow at higher than average rates. There is also great potential for the next generation of products powered by technologies like deep learning and cloud computing.
So, what will be the big stories during 2018? Deep learning, GDPR compliance and drone detection technologies are just some of the trends discussed in this eighth annual trends IHS white paper. The following articles are designed to provide some guidance on the top trends for 2018 in the video surveillance industry.
Josh Woodhouse
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
In 2018 there will be an increase in the wider discussion about privacy and how the video surveillance industry protects the data it gathers. Much of this will stem from the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will become law across EU member states (including the UK) in May 2018. However, the effects of GDPR and compliance will also have far reaching implications outside the video surveillance industry.
GDPR will replace each EU member state’s own version of data protection law and is likely to increase public awareness about the rights ordinary citizens have regarding their own personal data protection. With a wide ranging scope covering many industries, GDPR also has specific coverage for video surveillance data.
GDPR sets out principles for video surveillance data collection, use limitation, security safeguards, individual participation and accountability. Some of the clauses which will apply to video surveillance installations include:
Public authorities must appoint a data protection officer, an individual who will be responsible for data protection. Private organizations which manage public space video surveillance may also need to appoint a data protection officer.
Privacy impact assessments (a type of risk assessment) will be required relating to the storing of data from public spaces and some other areas.
In publically accessible spaces individuals will have the right to request a copy of their data – in the case of video surveillance this means providing a copy of video footage.
For installations in the EU if there are data breaches, the systems manager is legally obliged to notify the authorities within 72 hours of discovery. Failure to do this can result in sizeable fines (up to €20m or 4% of turnover). It may be deemed there has been a high risk of impact on the rights and freedoms of individuals whose data is contained in a breach. If there were not sufficient precautions to protect the data (for example in video footage – encryption or anonymization of individuals) individuals may have case for civil damages.
Although without test cases post-GDPR, it is difficult to predict the outcome of these cases. Concerned parties should watch this space with interest.
What can be said with certainty is that if unprepared, the requirement in GDPR for organizations to respond to requests for copies of video surveillance data featuring them could overwhelm those organizations. If an organization’s surveillance system covers publically accessible areas they may be required to provide a copy of any video footage featuring an individual to them on request. If their system is not optimized for this, this is likely to pose a high administrative workload in validating and processing these requests. Video footage featuring multiple individuals would need to be redacted to protect the anonymity of other individuals. At present many US police forces are engaged in a large number of freedom of information requests from the public for body worn camera footage. Image redaction is consuming large amounts of resource and budget. For some organizations GDPR could have a similar affect. Technology to automate and assist with the redaction workload such as automatic identity masking, video analytics are available. Going forward solutions like this are expected to be utilized by organizations which may be prone to high numbers of GDPR data requests.
Perhaps most interestingly in GDPR is the discussion surrounding data breaches. Video surveillance has already had numerous high profile examples of hacking due to vulnerabilities exploited in several products. GDPR outlines real potential consequences for future data breaches. Risk assessments may lead organizations to place a higher value on the features of surveillance systems which allow for mitigating data breaches such as tools for detection/ reporting and additional steps to protect data in case of its unlawful extraction (e.g., encryption). For smaller organizations, if there is going to be additional compliance work for GDPR, it may spur them to use a security-as-a-service provider (not necessarily cloud based VSaaS) whom they pay to manage their system and all corresponding data compliance.
For the surveillance industry the timing of GDPR is particularly interesting. It comes at a time when several EU country markets (in the light of increased terrorism threats) have expanded their video surveillance coverage in public spaces, and even increased the use of police body worn cameras. GDPR is seen by many as long overdue legislation from the EU to protect citizen’s privacy in the light of all the technological advances of the past 20 years. In many European countries (Germany being a regularly cited example) citizens have long been cautious of greater collection of their personal data. GDPR provides citizens with clearly defined rights to keep organizations from open ended data collection with the minimal consideration of privacy. If unprepared, organizations found to be in breach of GDPR may find themselves subject to large fines from the authorities or perhaps more damaging, potential wide scale legal action from affected citizens.
IHS Analyses
The A to I of Video Surveillance Terminology By – Jon Cropley
Big Differences between the Chinese Market and the Rest of the World By – Jon Cropley
Video Surveillance Fault Tolerance By – Josh Woodhouse
Forensic Video Analytics as a Service By – Josh Woodhouse
The Evolution of Deep Learning in Video Surveillance By – Monica Wang
