Indian firms use 249 cameras on average for surveillance, suggests Seagate report

PUNE: Indian organisations use 249 cameras on average for video surveillance, according to a report by American data storage company Seagate Technology. The number is about the same as in China, but significantly lower than that in developed countries such as the US and UK, where organisations use about 349 cameras on average.

“The surveillance market in India is growing at a great pace. With the country’s focus on smart cities and the rising need for better safety and security, the emphasis and relevance of video surveillance is increasing,” said Rajesh Khurana, country manager for India and Saarc at Seagate Technology.

The use of video surveillance in business is growing due to security concerns as well as regulatory requirements, according to the Seagate Video Surveillance Trends report, based on a survey carried out across organisations in India, China, US, UK and Brazil. This is throwing up new challenges related to managing these systems and storing the raw video footage, as per the report.

While the banking and financial services industry is the leader globally in terms of use of video surveillance, in India it is the government. In India, demand for video surveillance is growing in city surveillance, hospitality, airport security, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), retail, BPO, manufacturing, college campuses, infrastructure companies and education. There is also growing interest from small and medium enterprises, Khurana said.

As per the survey, 85% of nearly 1,100 system integrators and enterprise IT executives across a wide range of industries said that one of the key reasons driving video surveillance is safety and security.

The need to optimise work flows (53%) and regulatory compliance (48%) are other factors driving the adoption of video surveillance systems.