Going shopping? 7 need-to-know facts about video surveillance

The days of balking at security cameras are over. Although we have all gotten used to being filmed by those all-seeing eyes in the corners of our supermarkets, gas stations, and department stores, there are still hidden aspects of the technology and industry of surveilling. As makers of surveillance signs, we at MySecuritySign.com gathered our customer data and spoke to the experts. Here are seven things we discovered about the business of being watched.

1. U.S. stores add a million new cameras each year

Back in 2002, watchdog researchers claimed about two million CCTV cameras were already surveilling commercial spaces in the U.S., putting us far behind Europe in terms of camera coverage. By 2008, the industry estimate had grown to six million cameras in the U.S., and today’s expert estimates put above ten million cameras in stores around the country. So in the last four years, there have been a million new cameras installed annually. That’s just the cameras; the entire surveillance industry has been growing roughly 20% per year.

And the technology is shifting. As recently as ten years ago, store surveillance meant analog cameras recording footage on tapes, which would need to be stored and maintained. Now, networked cameras employ high-definition video technology that’s stored online. Increasingly, the cameras are getting smarter and more versatile, with better picture quality and easier retrieval.

But all these improvements don’t necessarily mean the cameras are being consulted more frequently. We spoke with King Rogers, a loss prevention specialist and retail security consultant with over forty years of experience in the industry, who told us that “in practice, less than 2% of the images captured by cameras are actually used and provide the owner of the camera with any value return on an investment.”

2. Signs aren’t for thieves, they’re for customers.

Businesses have lots of reasons to post signs alerting visitors that the area they’re entering is under surveillance. It’s a courtesy to the customer to let them know their presence is being filmed as they enter a store. Retailers also hope that conspicuously posted signs, as well as highly visible cameras, will deter opportunistic crime.

Rogers tells us that signs function to assure customers, and provide legal defense for retailers. “Thieves are going to steal anyway. They don't believe in signs,” he said, stressing that the signs protect the stores from liability and allow people to shop more confidently, knowing any incident will be recorded. And customers who once objected to being filmed often take comfort from those signs, he says: “They're more accepting of surveillance, and actually have come to rely on the benefits of all those cameras, since one day it could be an incident in which they’ve been a victim.”

3. Where in the U.S. are surveillance signs most popular? Not always where you might think.

MySecuritySign.com devised an index by combining search statistics with data from over 100,000 transactions that included indoor surveillance signs, and divided that data by per capita population. According to these findings, the top five states with the most interest in surveillance signs are:

1. Washington
2. New York
3. Florida
4. California
5. Alaska

The five states with the least interest in surveillance signage are:

46. Idaho
47. Iowa
48. Indiana
49. South Dakota
50. Mississippi

The spread is pretty remarkable: according to unique purchases registered last year, Washington has four times more surveillance signs per capita than Mississippi. Of course, posting a sign doesn’t mean there’s really a surveillance camera, and vice versa. Cameras placed in stock rooms might not advertise themselves with a sign (but employees should always assume that the company is looking out for theft).

4. Facial recognition technology is on its way.

Facial recognition technology is on the rise in the U.S. (For the non-paranoid, facial recognition systems automatically identify a person from an image or video feed, matching their face with one from a database.) Right now, FRT is mostly being deployed in government and transportation contexts, and there’s still an accuracy gap that makes the technology buggy (some DMVs are asking people not to smile, as smiling faces can fool the computers).

The possibilities for using this technology in retail are alluring, and some companies are beginning to experiment with using the technology to identify members of organized shoplifting rings, which has been drastically on the rise and is a huge concern for retailers across the country. But not everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Steve Reed, the Director of Security at Sacramento’s Arden Fair Mall, says that while his team has researched the possibility, the technology isn’t refined enough yet to overcome the implicit challenges. “While we want to prevent crime and enhance prosecution, I also have to walk a fine line in our setting, not to give the appearance of Big Brother,” he explained.

5. Stores might be sharing data about you.

If you ask any retailer in America what the rising concern has been for the last decade, they’ll tell you about “ORC”, or organized retail crime. More and more of the shoplifting across the country is being traced to sophisticated crime rings that in turn create a cottage industry of reselling stolen goods through popup stores, websites, and online auctions.

But companies figured out that if the criminals are going to organize, then they should, too. Started in 2009, LERPnet allows retailers to share information on people in their stores to an unprecedented degree. Photos, video, and incident reports are pooled into shared databases, giving members the opportunity to connect criminal activity they see firsthand with acts elsewhere, and eventually catch and prosecute thieves more effectively.

Jack Trlica, editor-in-chief of Loss Prevention magazine, tells us that more stores are getting on board with LERPnet’s data sharing when their own loss prevention efforts fall short. “Retailers who sell hot products,” Trlica explains, “which is everything from apparel to supermarket items that can move easily because there’s a lot of demand, are going to have a big incentive to share information, while other segments of the industry like home furnishings might see less value in it.” And, he says, the shared information can more help those stores recognize the methods criminals in their area use, not just their faces.

6. Employees are the most prolific thieves.

While the surveillance signs around the retail floor might be there to keep you informed, it’s actually the cameras in the back room that are most effectively preventing theft. According to the most recent survey of retail security, conducted by the National Retail Federation annually, retailers lost 28.3 billion dollars’ worth of merchandise to theft, 57 % of which is attributable to employees . It can be as simple as an opportunistic grab in the stockroom, or complex operations involving internal “bad actors” working with outside agents to move large quantities of product out of the store.

But employee theft is also more effectively prevented and prosecuted with video surveillance. While in a shoplifting scenario, you need to keep cameras trained on the person without missing a beat. When it comes to internal theft, loss prevention specialists can go through archived footage with the luxury of time and consideration. “You’re able to review in detail those situations and absolutely confirm what you suspect when you review the video details,” Rogers explains, “and then you've got the evidence that you may need to have in the case of litigation.”

And it’s not just employee theft. Enrico Palazio is the vice president of the Brooklyn supermarket we surveyed, and he tells us that about 60% of the time that he’s reviewing security footage in their store, he’s looking at the back rooms and stock rooms to review employee behavior and product handling, and sometimes resolving liability issues like workers’ compensation claims.

7. It’s harder than you think to stop thieves, even with the best system in place.

Even with terabytes of video being produced every day, preventing and then proving shoplifting is an uphill battle. If you're off camera for even a few seconds, it can prevent security from being able to make a case against you in many jurisdictions.

Ivan Arguello, owner of the Brooklyn supermarket we surveyed, says his supermarket cameras are better at helping him identify repeat offenders than first-time shoplifters. “If I have a suspicion about a customer’s actions while they’re in the store, I rewind the footage and if find my suspicions were correct, I’m going to watch that person like a hawk the next time they’re here,” he explains, pointing out that they’ve caught shoplifters in the act that way.

Often, though, legislation and store policy can tie employees’ hands on how and when to approach a suspect; some states may allow you to detain somebody as soon as they conceal merchandise while other states require you to let that person get past the last point of purchase opportunity.

At Arden Fair Mall, Steve Reed is optimistic that improved technology and security protocols are making them more effective at deterring and prosecuting crime. Arden Fair recently upgraded its system to HD cameras with dramatically improved visuals. “We’re successfully prosecuting 85% of criminal incidents that occur on our property,” he says, “and we’re seldom subpoenaed since the integrity and clarity of our footage is excellent.”

King Rogers tells us that ultimately, stores are fighting for innovative dominance over thieves and crime rings. “First of all, the bad guy stays up later at night than we do,” he quipped, “and they're figuring out ways to circumvent the prevention techniques that we spent all day designing and perfecting.” Loss prevention teams have to use everything in their arsenal, and can’t always rely too heavily on just surveillance cameras to stay ahead of the curve.

Sources

• Axis Communications (2008). A smarter way to mind the store: IP surveillance. [PDF]
• National Retail Federation (2012). Retail theft decreased in 2011, according to preliminary NRSS findings. [HTML]
• Nelson, L. (2012). Instant facial recognition tech a two-edged sword. Los Angeles Times, 11/14/2012. [HTML]
• Norris, C., M. McCahill, D. Wood (2004). The growth of CCTV: a global perspective on the international diffusion of video surveillance in publicly accessible space. Surveillance & Society 2(2/3): 110-135. [PDF]
• Research and Markets (March 2012). Global CCTV market forecast to 2014 (brief). [HTML]
• Internal sales and analytics data from mysecuritysign.com
• Interviews with King Rogers, Steve Reed, Jack Trlica, Ivan Arguello and Enrico Palazio