A crime with no witnesses physically present must involve an effort to identify the culprit. Fingerprints and other traces of physical evidence can prove elusive, meaning the search can be extremely difficult. Fortunately, areas protected with surveillance cameras give law enforcement officials an edge. In addition to providing a picture of the culprit, the footage from security cameras can help guide efforts to recover evidence in other ways.
New Zealand example
According to The New Zealand Herald, a security camera helped police identify a burglar in Christchurch in several different ways. An 18-year-old French citizen, Felix Christophe Jacques Damarey, recently surrendered to police. He is accused of committing burglary at an apartment building in Auckland, where security cameras seem to have captured him on the way out of the building.
The Herald noted that the camera footage helped police in two separate ways. Damarey appeared in the video to be drinking from a white coffee mug. Police then used the cup as a source of physical evidence, dusting it for fingerprints and other traces that could help identify the thief.
According to the news source, the pictures from the cameras also helped law enforcement agencies provide media pressure to bring the suspect to justice. Still images from the color footage ran in newspapers as police sought to identify the perpetrator. Members of the public contacted the police with his name. With both his picture and name attached to the photos in public, the French tourist turned himself in.
"As a result of the pressure placed on Damarey with his name and picture being published as well as an appearance on not only the Herald website but also the police website, he felt he had no option but to hand himself in," Constable John Goddard told the Herald.
New options
Surveillance cameras seem prepared for new commercial applications. Companies eager for the multiple benefits of security cameras but unwilling or unable to host the information storage technology in-house may have begun adopting new ways to install the systems. According to a new MarketsandMarkets report, firms have eagerly adopted cloud-enabled technology, using hosted systems to maximize their capabilities.
The research firm stated that the video surveillance market is normally slow to respond to changes in technology. The cloud has proven too powerful for decision-makers to ignore, however, giving firms the ability to run complex security programs with less technical know-how.