Blog: Posts in Surveillance Cameras

ACLU OFFERS A SMART SAFEGUARD FOR USING SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY

Admin@thecoverteye.com (Admin ) — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:34:47 +0000

Surveillance technology can make communities safer, but only if privacy and civil rights are protected first.

Advances in technology have given police agencies vastly expanded surveillance capabilities. But used in secret or indiscriminately, the same technology presents major threats to citizens' privacy and civil rights, and can erode public trust in law enforcement.

Read More: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-surveillance-and-privacy-20141123-story.html

COUPLE LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO REQUIRE SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS IN ALL CARE HOMES

Admin@thecoverteye.com (Admin ) — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:35:55 +0000

We can't always be around to keep an eye on our loved ones every minute of the day, and how confident can we be that the babysitter, nanny or care giver who we entrust to look after our child in our absence isn't mistreating them? This is why the use of home hidden spy cameras are becoming more and more popular today.

Parents Paul and Julie Rowlands installed hidden cameras in their home after suspecting that their hired caretaker was abusing their disabled son. As they played the recorded footage, they realized it was even worst than they thought.

HIDDEN CAMERAS REVEAL HOW MUCH (AND HOW LITTLE) SOME HOTEL MAIDS REALLY CLEAN

Admin@thecoverteye.com (Admin ) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 15:07:57 +0000

Ever wonder when you check into your hotel room just how well its been cleaned from the previous night's occupant? We assume the maid has cleaned everything, including changing the sheets and disinfecting the bathroom. But a hidden camera investigation revealed that may not always be the case.

The Rossen Reports team booked rooms for two nights at some of the most popular hotel chains and rigged them with cameras (all three of the hotels were in northeastern New Jersey). In each case they put soda in the glasses, threw towels on the bathroom floors and made the rooms looked used before calling to have housekeeping make them up, as well as prominently displaying the card requesting that all linens be changed.

You may want to do a little investigating yourself the next time you travel. Check out some of our covert spy cameras and leave one in the room when you go out for the day. You may be surprised when you review the video later that day. https:www.thecoverteye.com/Covert_Spy_Cameras

KAYNE WEST INSTALLS SECURITY CAMERAS IN HIS LA HOME

Admin@thecoverteye.com (Admin ) — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 17:55:23 +0000

KAYNE WEST INSTALLS SECURITY CAMERAS IN HIS LA HOME IN ORDER TO SEE HIS DAUGHTER WHILE AWAY ON TOUR. Kanye West has come up with a way to keep an eye on his daughter North while he is on tour.

The 37-year-old rapper has reportedly installe...d surveillance cameras in every room in his Los Angeles home to keep track of 13-month-old North.

Kanye called in a security company to kit out his house with all of the equipment but wife Kim Kardashian is said to be unhappy with his actions.

http://ow.ly/zCums

ONE HIGH SCHOOL CRACKS DOWN WITH COVERT SURVEILLANCE

Admin@thecoverteye.com (Admin ) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 15:50:12 +0000

Not long ago I spoke on the phone with a friend of mine, John, who teaches high school in central California. He'd been at the school now for about eight years, but had been teaching English for close to 20. Since he came to his present position I would often hear stories of his frustration in trying to maintain a level of discipline and learning in the classroom, while often being at odds with the administration office. Actually, it was a frustration felt by many teachers in the school. It was a school run amok, or as John put it, one where the students were running the asylum. Without getting into the whole educational debate and the lack of funding for many of our schools in this country, the basic complaint that was heard here was the lack of support given to teachers from the District Office on down. Teachers were not only questioned if they handed out “D's” and “F's”, but if a student was sent to the principal's office for violation of school policy or for disrupting the class, they were sent back to class almost immediately with hardly a reprimand. Over time this only usurped the teacher's authority, and gave the upper hand to the students. Teaching at the school was hard enough. It ranked in the lower third, academically, and the socio-economic background of the student population was lower middle-class, with many parents out of work or on welfare. Theft and drugs were two other growing issues, and then there began a more serious one where many students started becoming confrontational. A student threatening a teacher wasn't unheard of, and when that threat was brought to the school principal it was usually shrugged off, or the teacher was made to feel they had aggravated the situation with the student. It wasn't surprising that teacher turnover was also becoming a growing concern. John said he, too, would have left last year, but with two more years to go before he could retire with his pension he elected to stick it out.

“A lot of the problem stems from the parents,” John said. “Very few show up on parent/teacher nights, and fewer still take a hand in instructing their kids at home or seeing that their homework is done on time. But catch a kid cheating on a test, or smoking a joint in the bathroom, or try suspending a student for stealing, fighting or verbally abusing a teacher, and the next day you have the parents in the administration office threatening the school with lawsuits. The school backs down, the district office backs down, and everything gets swept under the rug. It's too messy and costly, and administrators don't want to jeopardize their jobs, let alone the possibility of losing federal education dollars.”

This year, though, a new high school principal came onboard. He had been a Vice-Principal at a high school in west L.A. This one seemed different, and while he made it known that one of his goals was to raise academic achievement, he was also a no non-sense type of person. One of his first agendas was to meet with the entire teaching staff before the start of the semester and get their feedback on where improvements can be made, and what the problems were they faced in the classroom and in the hallways. He listened for over two hours as incident after incident was recited, and heard the frustration they were feeling. With that, he promised to try and institute some changes, and then a few days later met with the district superintendent about the problems his staff and school were facing. One of the suggestions he proposed was to install hidden cameras in strategic locations throughout the school. He related how they had used them in his old school, and how they were both effective and inexpensive. It would also aid him in enforcing school more forcefully. Letters would be sent out to all parents informing them of the new security procedures in place, and a list of what was expected of each student and of the guidelines and rules that would be in place. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, his suggestion was approved, and since he was simply expanding the few security cameras they had outside the school already, he got the backing of the school board as well.

One of the first things they did was to replace all the wall clocks with new ones, but ones with tiny cameras and built-in DVRs for recording. Video is captured on a small SD card that can be easily removed for later playback on any PC. He also added two spy cameras to the library; a desk lamp on one of the back reading tables, and a book camera that sat on the librarian's reference shelf. Both, recording onto internal DVRs. They could also be set to motion detect mode for after school hours.

Also functioning as surveillance cameras were the exits signs at the end of the hallways. Looking just like the ones they replaced, the pinhole cameras inside of these could record video even in low light conditions. In addition to the cameras, the principal also installed PIR motion sensors in rooms and areas not already covered by video. These would trigger an alarm if anyone were to enter a room they shouldn't be in, or enter after hours.

The principal then met with his staff once again and explained the monitoring systems that had been put in place. He also encouraged them to help in the school's goal to reduce and minimize student's misbehavior and to enforce a code of conduct in the classroom, including how assignments were to be done and turned in on time. He then showed them a pen camera that he took from his shirt pocket and the watch camera he had on his wrist. Working just like the hidden cameras that had been placed around the school, these two everyday items could also record video as well as audio. He suggested that these, and many other similar type objects, might be something they'd want to consider investing in. Inexpensive as well, they could be carried around easily and provide a measure of security when in the classroom or when outside the range of the security cameras. This was not only for the school's and the student's safety, but for that of the teachers as well.

At the beginning of the school year it became a bit amusing to watch many of the students as they walked the halls and went from one class to another. Knowing that the school was taking a stricter stance on behavior and had added new surveillance cameras throughout the building, they seemed puzzled when looking around to find where exactly the new cameras were placed. Expecting the typical surveillance camera mounted on a corner wall, as seen in most office buildings, they failed to see anything out of the ordinary. During the first few weeks the students had a feeling of caution and there was not one incident of misconduct reported. However, after a while a few began to suspect whether the new system actually existed or not. When the first student was called into the principal's office for fighting another student by the lockers, and a second was called in for sneaking a periodical out of the library, they had but few words and even more astonished faces when presented with the video evidence as it played on the principal's laptop. Word quickly spread from there, and while the majority of the student body never caught on to where the cameras actually were, the number of incidents involving thefts, fighting, vandalism, and classroom disruptions were severely reduced.

There was one other incident that did occur later in the semester, and this one set the tone that the school was serious in its new policies. A math teacher was accosted in the parking lot one day by a student of his, whom he had given a failing grade to on a test a day earlier, and then told to leave the classroom when he became verbally abusive. Seeking his retribution outside the eyes of any cameras, he waited for the teacher as he was leaving, and then pushed him against his car. In no uncertain words, he swore and threatened to physically injure him if he ever again failed him on a test or embarrassed him by sending him to the office during class. Shaken, but otherwise ok, the teacher reported the incident to the new principal. Fortunately, he had heeded his administrator's advice earlier in the year and had purchased a pen camera that he used mostly for grading papers. He really hadn't used it for much else. When he saw the student approach him, though, his reflex was to push the clicker on the pen which was in his shirt pocket. By doing so it had recorded the entire confrontation. When a call was made to the parents later that evening informing them of the incident and that their son was being suspended from school, it triggered an outburst from the other end of the line. As expected, the next morning saw both parents at the school demanding to see the principal. How dare he suspend their son. And what kind of teachers were they hiring in this school? According to their son, it was the teacher who had it in for him and purposely failed him on the test. More than likely because their son was Latino. Furthermore, they had it from their son that he only approached his math teacher as he was leaving to ask him a question, and inquire how he might pick up his grade by doing extra credit. By their account, it was the teacher who became physically and verbally abusive. The father again brought up racial bias as being at the root of all this, and vowed that they would be meeting with their lawyer that afternoon to file charges against the school. He was not about to let it rest.

The principal listened patiently as the parents unleashed their anger, and then calmly informed them that the whole incident had been caught and recorded on video. He brought up the clip on his laptop, hit play, and turned the monitor around so they could watch and listen. It lasted less than a minute, but the silence that filled the room was deafening. The father swallowed hard while the mother turned her head to look away. The words came hard, but the father acknowledged that a mistake had been made. Their son hadn't been truthful with them, and this seem to hurt just as much as witnessing their son's grievous actions. With humility, the father apologized for their outburst and then for their son's behavior. He accepted the suspension, and promised the principal that he would come down with his own form of punishment at home. He thought he had raised his son better than that, but apparently he took too much at face value and missed many of the warning signs. He vowed that if his son was allowed back, he would return with a new attitude.

That was the last major incident to have happened at the school, and while there continued to be some rumblings from parents about legalities and privacy issues, there were no violations of the law. What was seen, though, at the end of the school year was a dramatic reduction in theft, vandalism, and misbehavior, and a marked improvement in overall grades and test scores. Admittedly, even many of the students agreed that the cameras had made an improvement and provided a sense of security in the school that they hadn't felt before. Do we need more surveillance measures in our lives, and should all schools adopt this same policy? I don't think so. Hidden cameras do serve a purpose and when used judiciously can be an effective tool to alleviate a growing problem or concern. In this instance, and quite possibly for many other similar schools in our cities across the country, a system of hidden cameras may be the answer to creating a safer learning environment, and allowing our teachers to do more teaching and less policing in the classroom.

SMALL BUSINESSES NEED VIDEO SURVEILLANCE, TOO

Admin@thecoverteye.com (Admin ) — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:18:22 +0000

The city of London has one of the highest numbers of video surveillance cameras in use in the world today. With over 10,000 cameras, by some estimates, mounted throughout the metropolitan area, perhaps the largest concentration of surveillance monitoring can be found along Oxford Street, in one of the city's busiest shopping districts. It has been estimated that in just a single day, approximately 500,000 shoppers can be found along its rows of retail stores looking for bargains.

It's not only big stores or corporate offices that need video surveillance, but small retailers, too. It's an unfortunately fact of life that businesses of all sizes are affected by theft. According to National Retail Security Survey figures, released last June, merchandise loss cost retailers in the U.S. $33.5 billion. The majority of that (43%) was due to employee theft, which cost business owners $14.4 billion. And 35 percent ($11.7 billion) was due to shoplifting.

Non-retailers can also benefit from video surveillance. Any business concern that operates warehouses, storage lockers, offices, and even parking lots can protect their interest from continuous monitoring to safe-guard against theft and vandalism. Video surveillance can also help to reduce the risk of liability from workplace accidents.

What should small business owners look for in a video surveillance system? Here are three questions to help you determine the best solution for your company:

1. How many locations do you have?

IP enabled network video surveillance systems enable you to view live video from a multitude of sites across different geographical locations. You can view live camera feeds on your PC or mobile phone, or be alerted on those devices to unusual activities based on the programming you set on the camera's software.

2. Do you need to monitor your business during off-hours, or when you can't be there in person?

You don't have to be tied to your computers in order to view your security cameras. Choose a video surveillance system that allows you to view camera feeds from any device that has an Internet browser. You could keep an eye on your assets from your dining table in a restaurant via your smartphone, or from your laptop when on the road.

3. Do you have other security technologies, such as door sensors, motion sensors, and alarms?

Your video surveillance system should be able to link to a variety of technologies, including other security controls, to give you a comprehensive view of your protected assets. The system should also be able to alert you via e-mail or phone messages to any unusual activities it detects.

Other capabilities that you should consider in a video surveillance system include video monitoring software that comes as part of the package. For example, both our IP-Camera-Pro and IP-Camera Cloud network cameras comes with monitoring system software that includes support for up to 4 cameras, remote view and playback, and set-up for email notification anytime motion is detected by the camera's sensors. Also, choose cameras with pan, tilt, and zoom capabilities so you can view images from any angle. This is a cost-effective alternative to deploying multiple fixed cameras.

Has a video surveillance system helped your business? Tell us how!