Top 10 smart surveillance systems from Israel

Published 28 June 2010

Video surveillance systems have become an important tool in enabling authorities to trace criminals and terrorists; Israel is one of the leading players in the field of intelligent surveillance; here is a list of the Top 10 video security technologies from Israel; these companies offer solutions that range from “seeing” through walls to reducing twenty-four hours of video to a few (indexed) minutes to detecting subtle changes in the landscape to offering high-resolution under-water images, and much more

The attempted bombing in New York’s Times Square highlighted, if such highlighting was necessary, the significance of video surveillance systems. Within hours of the car being discovered, police had used surveillance camera footage in a nearby shop to identify a suspicious looking man seen near the vehicle.

In the London bombings in July 2005, in which fifty-two were killed and 700 wounded, police officials, using dozens of surveillance cameras placed on the streets and in railway and tube stations, were able to trace almost the entire journey of the four bombers as they prepared for the attacks.

For crime too, police today turns to surveillance cameras to try to discover what took place.

Israel21’s David Shamah writes that it is no surprise that Israel is a world leader in this field. With its ongoing national security problems, the country relies heavily on advanced video security technology to keep Israelis safe. Using expertise gleaned from the Israel Defense Force, Israeli companies have moved quickly into the field, responding first to the needs of the local market, and then using this as a base to access the rest of the world.

Today, Israeli video security companies provide some of the most advanced solutions in the world, selling to law enforcement and military authorities in Europe, the United States, and Asia. The most common innovation these companies share: smart video surveillance systems that not only observe, but also analyze, alert, and make security personnel more effective. Here is a list of the Top 10 Israeli video security companies;

1. MATE Intelligent Video. Mate’s video analytics system can detect changes in the landscape.

One of the biggest problems facing security organizations is worker boredom. Monitoring large banks of monitors hour after hour has a debilitating effect on the people doing the observing, and that fatigue can be exploited by those bent on breaching security.

In addition to fatigue, continuity of observation is an important issue. When guards change shifts, continuity is lost, so that terrorists, if they time it right, could place a bomb hidden in a bush next to an electrical plant or in the path of a security patrol. The bush would look as if it belonged there, and no one would realize anything was out of place until it was too late.

Shamah writes that to combat these two problems, MATE developed a video analytics system that can detect changes in surroundings and landscape, indicating whether anything has