Dr Mark Sugrue and Barry Walsh, at a recent awards presentation in Kinesense's Merrion Square office
Irish and UK police forces have become the first customers to utilise an innovative new CCTV technology developed by Dublin technology firm Kinesense, which allows them to analyse and gather evidence from CCTV material.
Kinesense’s technology functions as a video search engine designed to quickly help users to find key events using search filters.
The technology developed by Kinesense can help cut the costs of gathering and analysing CCTV material from crime scenes by 95pc and could be seen as a major asset in the fight against crime.
Latest figures from the Central Statistics Office indicate that since the demise of the Celtic Tiger in 2007, crime rates are on the increase, with a rise in burglary of 7.69pc and aggravated burglary up by 42pc.
The technology is of particular use to the Gardai at present, considering the retirement of 1,200 Garda officers in 2012.
Company founder and CTO Dr Mark Sugrue told Siliconrepublic.com that the company has won deals with local police in Ireland as well as a number of constabularies in the UK.
“The problem our technology solves relates to the huge volume of CCTV material that is everywhere these days. The problem is that while this material is a huge source of evidence it is time consuming to go through it all, not to mention the quality of the video.
“Our software helps break down the video, put together a narrative and our search engine technology helps them to characterise key events without interfering with the original state of the evidence.
“When an officer searches for evidence, our technology creates a timeline and helps them to search in terms of the content of the video, such as the movement of cars, certain colours, people’s behaviour.
“You can put a filter around movement through a specific doorway, or a combination of things, such as the colour of clothing and the direction someone may be walking through a store.
“For law enforcement to exist, the chain of evidence has to be respected, so the original state of the video material isn’t affected.”
Sugrue, who has a PhD in video analytics, and his team started Kinesense in 2009 at DIT’s Hothouse incubator.
Enterprise Ireland is supporting the company’s global expansion.
The Irish Executive Network’s Inspire Ireland competition recently awarded Kinesense ‘Most Inspiring Winner’.
