How do the ports of Rotterdam and Scheveningen ensure that they become even safer – without storing (privacy-sensitive) data? And without software that gets in the way of safety experts?
Seagull Surveillance software developed in the Netherlands has been added to the video control rooms in the ports of Rotterdam and Scheveningen.
There is a limit to what people can do – but we certainly cannot do it without people.
Camera surveillance helps enormously to prevent undermining in ports. That is why potential areas of undermining in most Dutch ports are continuously monitored with cameras. There is only one challenge here: the human eye. No matter how well trained subversion experts are, they never see everything; twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
A 100% check was never the intention of camera surveillance, that would take far too much unnecessary time. Ports would like to identify any deviations in shipping traffic as quickly as possible. And this 'detecting deviations' is exactly what automation can help with. Assessing the situation absolutely remains the work of people, we cannot do without it.
Data, but completely anonymous
The fact that automation is useful in camera surveillance of ports has already been proven in practice. Seagull Surveillance software developed in the Netherlands has been added to the video control rooms in the ports of Rotterdam and Scheveningen. This is an application that does exactly what we humans are less good at: detecting all deviations in port traffic on all available cameras.
The system signals if vessels exhibit unexpected behavior.
That's also the only thing that Seagull Surveillance does: no unnecessary (privacy-sensitive) data is generated in any way, nor is it stored. The system does give a signal if ships or vessels sail at different times or routes than normal. Users of the system can also set the rules for alarms. A security guard can then immediately check the camera to see whether any action really needs to be taken.
Watch all cameras
Enormous computing power is required to continuously scan all camera images, so Seagull Surveillance uses a smart algorithm with a piece of artificial intelligence (AI). This does not mean, as is often thought with AI, that the system makes human work redundant or stores tons of unnecessary data.
Seagull Surveillance continuously monitors all cameras in the ports of Rotterdam and Scheveningen, but human assessment is central. This means that interventions can now be taken much faster and in a much more targeted manner and it complements information from systems such as AIS and VTS well. For the application of Seagull Surveillance, a clear choice has been made for very specific AI algorithms. Adequate for the intended purpose, better understood and very easy to manage.