Security Services is replacing aging technology on campus with new safety equipment and technology that is more effective, easier to update and cheaper to operate.
The campus's nearly 20-year-old network of security cameras has been replaced with high-resolution cameras integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) technology that makes it easier to see issues in real time.
Imagine sitting in front of a bank of monitors connected to all of the cameras across campus and trying to catch everything happening in every busy scene. Now imagine those monitors are blank and only pop up a live visual feed when something out of the ordinary is happening. How much more activity would you notice?
"Study after study shows that a single operator can basically only look at two cameras," explains Peter Davison, director of Security Services. "Now, the dispatcher sitting at the console is no longer looking at 300 images at a time. This has allowed them to concentrate on just the certain things that pop up."
AI comes to Mount Royal
The iCetana technology is also known as black screen monitoring and Mount Royal is the first to adopt it anywhere in Canada. Using AI, and over a 14-day period, the system 'learns' and recognizes normal activity as movement patterns across campus.
It learns what's normal when students are on campus and when they're not, weekday versus weekend, day and night. When it detects an anomaly it switches immediately from a black screen to a live feed of the situation for the dispatcher to see.
Security Services can determine how much or how little the system will react to, Davison explains. "We can adjust the sensitivity of it to catch more or less of what's happening at a given location or time of day. We have a completely different environment at night, so pretty much any movement at night brings up the live feed."
