This featured article was originally published by A1 Retail in the April 2022 issue of the A1 Retail Magazine.
By Stephanie Weagle
CMO
BriefCam
“Video content analytics (VCA) is creating a safer in-store experience for retail staff by making surveillance video searchable, actionable and quantifiable. By speeding investigations, improving situational awareness, and boosting operational intelligence, it empowers bricks and mortar merchants to more efficiently and effectively protect staff and store visitors against theft, injury, and even the spread of COVID-19.
Although video surveillance is frequently used in investigations, manual viewing of volumes of video can be time-consuming and error prone. Video analytics enables retailers to granularly search and filter video to understand incidents and rapidly and accurately investigate people and events of interest. Using filters including person gender and clothing colour or vehicle type and colour, retailers can focus video searches across multiple cameras on only the relevant criteria needed for the investigation.
To improve workplace safety and proactively monitor safe habits and behaviours, managers can configure rule-based, real-time alerts to be notified of certain conditions that indicate a workplace mandate is being violated. For example, VCA can be used to trigger alerts when a person is detected in a pre-defined area without a hard hat or a face mask. To prevent theft or accidents, it can be configured to alert when people are detected in an area that is off-limits to non-vehicles.
Throughout the pandemic, VCA has helped retailers enforce social distancing, detect the presence (or absence) of face masks, and track building occupancy, triggering alerts when limits are violated and crowds are forming. It is also used to generate long-term data reports about when and how frequently violations occur. These reports (ex. peak visit hours) help managers make data-driven decisions to reduce crowding and traffic bottlenecks and maintain a safe and seamless customer experience.”