How AI Can Enhance Security Patrol Services - The Future is Now

On-site security is all about pattern recognition. When a security guard walks patrol around a protected property, they are watching for anything out of the ordinary. They split their time between watching cameras and scanning the grounds for signs of unusual activity, and are charged with taking action to investigate and defend if anomalies are detected - whether the threat is a potential thief or kids looking for a secluded spot.

While patrol security is the ideal way to handle on-site threats, they can't be everywhere or see everything all at once. But an AI-powered camera system can. Recognizing patterns - and anomalies in patterns - is exactly what AI does best. This is why AI camera systems are ideal for enhancing the overwatch and effectiveness of your security patrol services.

AI is the security upgrade of the future, and the future is now.

Let's dive into some of the incredible and yet excellently practical ways that AI enhances patrol security for any property. 

1. AI Can Assist in Actively Defending a Property

First, AI can pair with your patrol security to provide active observation and protection of the property. AI is able to watch every camera all the time, without ever becoming distracted of fatigued. AI is not pulled away by the need to patrol and, in fact, is more effective when patrol personnel can be called upon for consultation and investigation.

What AI brings to the table is the ability to identify blips in the system - comings and goings that do not match the routine of the property.

2. Identify Unusual Activity in Observed Areas

The one thing AI does best is learning patterns and how to recognize things that don't belong. Feed the AI all your existing security footage, and it will learn the times that vehicles normally arrive, where they park, the walking paths of humans, and when people tend to move around specific areas of the property. 

If, while watching live footage, it sees activity that does not match these patterns, it can create an alert and draw the attention of patrol security to check it out.

3. Monitor Proximity to Key Protected Areas

You can also program AI security camera software to protect specific areas. Let's say there's a high-voltage utility shed near the parking lot that most people have no reason to visit. You can program the AI to raise the alarm any time a moving object - person, vehicle, or animal, approaches the protected area.

4. Alert Security Personnel to Potential Threats

When a potential threat is detected - such as a human approaching after-hours, walking in typically-unaccessed areas, or near a protected zone - a security person will be alerted to take action. They can either review the footage and say "Oh, it's just a deer", or they can respond swiftly to suspicious or dangerous human behavior.

5. Effectively Monitoring All Cameras at All Times

AIs are tireless and infinite. An AI can watch dozens of cameras, perhaps hundreds in a large facility, and never take it's "eyes" off a single screen. The AI does not need to patrol, rest, or stop for lunch, allowing it to enhance security personnel with more complete observation than any human can achieve.

It does not have the insight of a human, but can also easily ask for clarification when something is identified as unusual.

6. Provide Automated Defensive Response

With an integrated security system, your security AI may also be authorized to take certain automated defensive measures. For example, the AI may turn on lights near detected anomalous behavior before the lights themselves have been motion-triggered - which can scare off would-be miscreants. It might also activate a smart lock on an outer door if it detects an unusual presence in the parking lot - and raise the alarm if the door is ajar or unable to latch.

7. Direct Drone Observation of Suspicious Activity

If you have security drones. AIs can even direct a drone to take off and follow a suspicious entity to help security personnel find and apprehend the person. This can be particularly useful if activity is detected in under-observed areas in the landscaping and around the far sides of buildings.

Additionally, AI offers advanced security analysis by adopting.

Of course, the fun doesn't stop there. The more an AI learns about your property, the better it can provide protection and keep your patrol personnel informed. Cameras software is more advanced than most people realize, using pattern-recognition to identify and track all sorts of details that can become essential to advancing the level and informative value of your building security. Here are ways AI offers advanced security analysis:

1. Track All Human/Vehicle/Animal Activity and Create a Log

Cameras have long since been able to identify the difference between a human and a vehicle, and to track the behaviors of both - along with other common entities. Your AI might track the movements of every human on the security cameras and create a log of entries, exits, and unusual movements. It can similarly track every vehicle in the lot, where it usually parks, and if the vehicles do anything unusual. You can even train AIs to recognize things like deer or local stray cats and create a log of their movements, as well.

2. White List / Black List Facial Recognition

With the right level of detail, AIs can recognize individual faces through camera activity. It could keep a log of the movement of a specific individual or consider specific faces on a white-list (allowed on the premises/in certain areas) and a black-list (not allowed/threat). This will allow your AI to know more accurately when to alert security personnel.

For example, if an on-staff director visits their own office late at night to retrieve something, the AI will not raise the alarm. But if a previous troublemaker sets foot on the property - even during normal hours, the AI may send security over to promptly escort them away.

Fun Fact: Facial recognition software was used during COVID to identify people not wearing masks, while body recognition software was used to recognize groups that were not social distancing in high-risk areas.

3. Remember Threat Patterns and Identify in the Future

You can also train your AI to recognize certain behaviors as threats. You can use footage that contains weapons, for example, and have the AI alert security when something weapon-shaped, or humans taking an aggressive stance are detected. If there is dangerous wildlife near your property, the AI can learn the difference between the local stray cat and a bobcat or coyote on the premises.

4. Review Past Footage and Find Specific Details

Your AI will also have the ability to review past footage to learn from it or to look for specific information. For example, let's say something was stolen, but the thief moved during normal hours, and their movements did not initially raise alarms. The AI might identify and create a log for every person who entered and left the area where the item was stolen from. If the thief's vehicle is identified, the AI might be able to find the person that parked and emerged, then track them through footage throughout the building. 

Enhancing Patrol Security Personnel with AI Overwatch

We've talked a lot about what the AI can do and how they provide enhanced security functionality. Now, let's refocus on how AIs can enhance the effectiveness of your security patrol personnel in immediate threat situations.

1. Keeping Personnel Updated on Activity

Your AI will constantly be generating logs and flags regarding on-camera activity. It can then create a dashboard of information for your security personnel and send immediate alerts for anything that the Ai has been told is important. Activity near protected zones, or any movement after-hours can be immediately reviewed by security personnel. 

Your team can continue their patrols while also maintaining oversight over activity all over the property. 

2. Sharing Recorded Clips and Live Feeds of Flagged Activity

When the AI notices something unusual, it can immediately send a video clip to security personnel. The AI might not even understand what it sees, but your patrol personnel will. With each video clip, your team will then have the option to further teach the AI by marking flagged items as normal, problematic, or for later review.

3. Requesting Clarification on Unknown Activity

Sometimes, an anomaly will occur that the AI has no idea how to respond to, or whether it is a threat. An exmaple might be major storm activity where a large tree branch moves across the parking lot, but is not identifiably a person, vehicle, or animal. The AI might ask for guidance the first few times it sees a deer, or whether authorized personnel are permitted to visit after-hours. 

Patrol security will then be able to decide how to respond to these unusual events using human understanding, and provide the AI with data on how to understand the situation in the future.

3. Calling Patrol Security Humans to the Scene

Lastly, and most importantly, the AI will make it possible for human patrol personnel to arrive at a security event as quickly as possible. Even if their patrol would usually be far from the event, immediate alerts regarding unusual activity will make it possible to be on the scene before a threat fully develops. With the addition of automated lights or even security drones, your human team will be equipped to stop all manner of potential threat activity with greater swiftness and effectiveness than a human team three times the size with more patrols and more eyes on cameras. 

AI Enhanced Patrol Security: The Future of Security is Now

With an AI built into your security camera system, it can provide as many eyes as you have cameras, and flawless anomaly detection that will empower your human patrol security service to be effectively everywhere at once. With AI providing overwatch and humans to provide hands-on protection, any facility can be kept secure to a level of detail only thought possible in a world of sci-fi and spy games.

The future is now, and it's identifying faces and after-hours activity in on-premise security cameras. Enhance your security patrol service with AI overwatch.

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