Captured on camera

Whatever their size, retail businesses are forced to confront the daily threat of crime from a multitude of sources. That crime manifests itself in burglaries, armed robberies, acts of vandalism, theft by customers and the misappropriation of goods by members of staff. In straight financial terms, customer theft cost the sector a whopping £410 million in 2003, with staff pilfering weighing in at a hefty £282 million.

The cost of retail crime remains high (although the trend, as evidenced by the 11th Annual British Retail Crime Survey, is moving in the right direction). Inevitably, this impacts upon profitability and the infamous bottom line so beloved of retail gurus. Retailers don’t like their profits to be attacked. An unprofitable business is an unsustainable one, which largely explains why those same retailers have been at the forefront of developments to protect their goods and their share of the market.

Necessarily, much of that development has involved the nurturing of CCTV technology. The very latest digital surveillance systems are now being installed to maintain CCTV’s edge in this ongoing battle, thereby doing away with tape management issues and delivering powerful databases and search facilities supporting the effective identification of suspect activity.

The ability for it to be integrated with other elements of the retailing infrastructure greatly enhances a CCTV system’s flexibility and cost effectiveness. An excellent case in point is the fact that Ethernet data input is now possible via a digital video recorder (DVR) or video server, allowing the user to conveniently link into a retail outlet’s IT network. This capability negates the limitations and expense associated with lengths of unwieldy cabling, while the use of the network as a transport mechanism supports future expansion.

It’s also possible to tie-in solutions with other security measures such as garment tagging. If tagged goods are then taken through a security barrier, an in-store alarm is triggered and associated digital images of that area stored for later use in Court.

With the negative impact of staff theft on the bottom line once again in the spotlight through the British Retail Crime Survey, the fact is that, historically, dishonest actions by members of staff – such as bogus refunds, on-sales, under-rings, loyalty card fraud and other forms of register theft – have been notoriously difficult to catch. Naturally, retailers are more than keen to stem the tide.

One of the key ‘battlegrounds’ is the Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS), with digital video recorders being used to monitor each transaction at the tills and log the footage in an event file. When this capability is combined with powerful search facilities, it’s possible to rapidly identify suspicious transactions. By tracking what is happening at individual registers, and with the potential for matching images to key inputs such as ‘void’ or ‘refund’, life is certainly not going to be so simple for the criminals lurking within.

Dome cameras make their mark

What about the types of camera applied in the retail environment? Undoubtedly, it has been the aesthetically pleasing and incredibly flexible dome cameras that have really made their mark of late, particularly as it is often preferable to have surveillance measures in place that can successfully blend in with the setting while at the same time overtly track suspected and actual offenders.

The very fact that individuals aren’t necessarily aware that they are being monitored by a given camera places control of the situation back in the hands of shop security staff, who can then choose the most appropriate moment to intervene.

In such a testing environment it’s really the most modern PTZ domes that are able to deliver a faster slew rate and rotational speed range when compared with traditional PTZ variants. Some domes even boast an auto-flip capability which, in essence, means that the camera module moves automatically through 180 degrees as a suspect passes underneath, keeping the picture the right way up for the viewing security officer in the Control Room.

Few of you will have failed to notice that the roll-out of the major Chip and PIN initiative to combat credit and debit card fraud has been in full swing. According to representatives of the UK Chip and PIN Programme, all of the 2004 targets set for upgrading cardholders and businesses to Chip and PIN have been met. No less than 36 million cardholders now have Chip and PIN capabilities, with 636,000 tills accepting them across the UK. More than 75% of all cardholders now carry one or more Chip and PIN cards in their wallets and purses.

These figures, announced in January, are published as the Programme issues its latest cardholder research findings. Consumers, it seems, are continuing to adapt easily to this ‘new way to pay’. Shoppers themselves are finding more and more opportunities to use their new cards, with 71% of those cardholders quizzed by Chip and PIN Programme researchers expecting their next transaction to be carried out in this way. 45% of respondents stated that all or most of their card payments were now being made by Chip and PIN methods alone. According to Jane Exon, retail operations controller at Debenhams, nearly 50% of all its customers’ credit or debit card transactions are now verified by PIN.

From January this year, Chip and PIN heralded a change in the relationship between retailers and the credit and debit card issuers in the UK. Prior to the New Year, card issuers bore the liability for all card transactions. However, the financial liability has now shifted to the retailer unless they have adopted Chip and PIN (or they can ably demonstrate they have taken adequate steps to prevent fraud). Inevitably, this increases the value to the retailer of excellent quality CCTV recordings.

It is equally important that CCTV systems are able to protect the privacy of customers when they enter their PIN number on the pads provided. Here, the programmable privacy zone facilities of high speed domes and advanced video control technology that can obscure sensitive information – by ‘blacking out’ sensitive areas on the keypad – may be readily applied to do just that. This means that security staff can monitor activity at the tills while protecting a customer’s right to privacy.

Some of the cameras now available to retail security managers boast 24-hour privacy masking, as it’s so aptly called, with the masks automatically repositioned and resized when and if the cameras are moved.

More than just ‘security’

The old adage that information is power holds just as true in the retailing arena as it does anywhere else. As part of the new security technology era, we are witnessing the emergence of ‘intelligent’ software features. These can help retailers add value and improve efficiencies by monitoring footfall and directional customer flows, and then feeding this into new store layouts.

In an ever more litigious world, the GOTO date and time facilities of the latest generation DVRs can prove invaluable in dealing quickly and effectively with potentially costly issues such as customer slip and fall liability claims. The best of today’s systems also support the ability to record audio alongside video images, which is an excellent development in relation to those cases involving abusive customers.

Now, we are even seeing CCTV systems being fitted which can offer added value multimedia functions in addition to their usual security-related capabilities, with marketing messages being displayed on plasma screens dotted around a given store. This is something we are likely to see much more of in the future.

Looking in more detail at two distinct applications of surveillance systems in retailing – one covering an independent, the other a well-known, large department store – these case studies serve to illustrate the challenges that today’s retailers face, not to mention the ways in which CCTV can make a genuine difference to situations that would otherwise be fraught with difficulties.

In an ever more litigious world, the GOTO date and time facilities of the latest generation DVRs can prove invaluable in dealing quickly and effectively with potentially costly issues such as customer slip and fall liability claims

First, the independent retailer. Part of a nationwide symbol buying group (that must remain nameless for security reasons, of course) and located on a housing estate in Greater Manchester – an area described as “troubled” by local police – the retailer was facing a multitude of familiar problems including internal stock shrinkage, shop theft and constant harassment from drunk and/or abusive members of the public.

All of those problems needed to be brought under control. A suitable surveillance solution simply had to be found.

A four-camera DVR – able to associate EPoS transaction data with CCTV footage – was installed. Given the concerns over staff pilfering, it was decided to place one camera covertly above the till area so that there could be little doubt regarding the connection between recorded video and the till transaction data entered by any one of the shop assistants. The fact that the system could be networked also opened up the potential for the owner to monitor the premises remotely from their own PC while at home or on business.

As a result, the full extent of the stock shrinkage became clear, with shop assistants regularly ringing goods through incorrectly at the till, charging the customer the correct amount and then pocketing the difference. This sort of practice had been making a considerable impact on margins but, thankfully, with the new system in place such problems were all but eliminated. As a consequence takings increased quite dramatically – in turn covering the cost of the new CCTV system.

In circumstances such as these, a strong working relationship between the store’s management team and the local police is absolutely essential. Before the store adopted the digital surveillance solution, staff experienced difficulties in obtaining a police response when local troublemakers entered the premises. That situation has also changed for the better, with the police now able to obtain the information they need to deal with the miscreants.

The aforementioned GOTO time and date facilities on the DVR ensure that images, transaction data and any associated audio may be located rapidly and copied to CD using the unit's internal CD-Rom writing software.

The change in atmosphere in the store is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that spirits – a major target for thieves – no longer need to be kept behind the counter or a Perspex screen. Instead, they are displayed on open shelves. In fact, this is the only shop in the area in which local licensing magistrates will allow this.

Video-over-IP: the benefits

Moving up in scale to a major department store in London’s Oxford Street – home to Europe’s busiest stretch of retail outlets – here too internal shrinkage was a real headache. The difficulties with the stocking of prestigious and high profile fashion brands were compounded by external factors (including the presence of ‘professional’ shop theft gangs, whose antics have been highlighted more than once on several BBC Television documentaries in the not-too-distant past).

Initially, a PC-based solution was tried to cut back on theft, but persistent system crashes meant that the move to a more robust, purpose-designed, video-over-IP network solution – complete with an embedded non-PC derived system, making it immune from computer virus attacks – was initiated, while still retaining the benefits of digital recording.

This sort of system – which makes use of the store’s existing IT infrastructures – is ideal for today’s multi-level outlet, with video servers able to be dropped in at convenient points along the IP network and ensuring that coverage of all key areas is constant.

Such a transmission medium also removes the ‘glass ceiling’ of more conventional solutions in terms of the number of cameras used, while removing the prospect of bundles of expensive (and potentially disruptive) coaxial cable through floors to a central point.

From an operational perspective, it was now possible for authorised users to view live and recorded images from any PC on the store’s IT network. By using MPEG-4 low bandwidth compression for transmission purposes, images could then be supplied to security staff on demand without clogging up the IT network, safe in the knowledge that the pictures recorded to the video server’s hard disk were preserved in evidential quality.

To assist security staff still further, an intuitive Graphical User Interface was created with maps of each floor and concession area and cameras assigned that would then be used to monitor specific points.

What about the EPoS areas, though? The solution adopted here was able to support up to 14 EPoS data inputs such that transactions could be associated with the relevant video. This led to a nasty discovery in one concession where a stock take had unearthed a depleted number of high value goods and an overstock of lower value items in comparison to what the store’s records showed had actually been sold.

By using a text search facility for goods sold under a certain price, it transpired that a high number of silk scarves had been sold by a particular shop assistant, but on review of the video associated with these transactions the truth was very different. High value evening wear, designer jeans and shoes were being substituted. Fortunately, evidence gathered by the CCTV system helped to secure a conviction.

Technology for technology’s sake?

As far as CCTV solutions in the retail arena are concerned, it can never be a simple matter of using technology for technology’s sake. Rather, technology must be applied in a user-friendly manner to deliver real and practical benefits to retail managers and the security team.

Certainly, the temptation among some till staff to defraud their employer (or among thieves to attempt to walk out with the latest designer goods, having not paid for them) isn’t going to disappear. That being the case, security managers must have the right surveillance systems in place such that stock is effectively managed and the activities of criminals deterred at every opportunity.