How security technology can help address citywide challenges

Securing a city doesn't come without challenges.
A city typically encompasses so many diverse organizations and businesses which all revolve around the people that live, work and play within its borders. Ensuring community safety, deterring crime, and effectively handling threats requires many levels of involvement and many facets for consideration.

It's easy to single-out law enforcement as the main stakeholder for securing our cities. The reality is that there are many other players, including various public organizations, private businesses, architects and city planners, community groups and even the public at large which all play a role in keeping cities safe.

In a recent article from Touch magazine titled 'Unifying Citywide Surveillance Systems', our strategic markets team discusses some of the collaborative efforts that cities can implement using advanced and unified security technology.

The Sanford Public Safety Complex and Manchester City Council are just a few examples of government entities combining efforts and sharing information through unification. As a major NFL stadium and host of this past Super Bowl, MetLife Stadium also saw tremendous value in protecting its patrons on game day by providing surveillance access to local law enforcement and first responders.

Beyond a need for greater collaboration amongst these stakeholders, there are privacy and policy considerations, community engagement efforts, pro-active urban design and planning, and economic constraints which all directly impact how new crime prevention strategies and technologies are implemented, managed and maintained. 

The cost of implementing Citywide initiatives also constrains governments looking to expand surveillance efforts to reduce blind spots or vulnerabilities within their urban communities. To contend, some governments are turning their attention to the cloud, creating cloud-first policies in hopes of expanding their systems without the often high price tags of procuring and maintaining physical servers. Cities are complementing existing servers with cloud-based solutions, while the proper security measures are very much intact. The Genetec video on Microsoft's SLG.tv explains how our unified security platform and Microsoft Windows Azure for government are enabling this trend.