A recently announced public-private partnership between tech company, Vumacam, and the Gauteng government to combat crime in the province has led to “numerous successes.”

In February Gauteng premier, Panyaza Lesufi, entered into a memorandum of understanding with Vumacam to gain access to almost 7000 of their CCTV cameras spread across the province.

Vumacam’s network scans and flags between 20000 and 40000 vehicle number plates of interest every day – and flags whether the vehicle has been used in the commission of a crime, leading to between 10 and 15 interceptions and arrests daily.

Vumacam told ProtectionWeb their artificial intelligence technology makes use of algorithms to detect suspicious or unusual behaviour, which is then fed into their central monitoring control room.

“This can be anything from a tree falling across the road to someone jumping over a wall, hitting/punching or attacking someone. This eliminates reliance on human observation and creates a far more encompassing and successful rate of detection. Skilled monitoring teams assess flagged incidents rather than constantly observing feeds.”

“Our License Plate Recognition (LPR) cameras detect license plates that have been placed on the Vehicles-of-Interest Database and flag these when passing our cameras – this allows monitoring units to send on-the-ground teams to investigate where they deem there to be a crime in progress, suspicious vehicle, or they suspect a crime is about to take place.”

“The network effect of multiple cameras being used across multiple locations within Gauteng, allows for broader surveillance and the ability to pursue criminals across multiple areas of the province, where vehicles detected in one area may be flagged when passing through another.”

Vumacam said its use of dark screen technology results in non-invasive surveillance but rather, precise and AI-driven surveillance that is rigorous in its protection of data and privacy.

There have been numerous successes since the start of their partnership with the government.

“There have been multiple successes including three individuals apprehended for fraud-related crimes; five vehicles intercepted that were wanted for serious crimes including home invasions, vehicle theft and armed robberies. In these cases, vehicles were flagged, the occupants apprehended and the vehicles impounded. In most incidents, we saw effective collaboration between private security companies, JMPD and SAPS to intercept suspects.”

Gauteng provincial government spokesperson Vuyo Maga said the overall goal is to have a main control room with access to Vumacam’s network as well as SANRAL’s network to track and trace criminals inter-provincially.

“Overall we want to make sure we have the ability to look where crime is happening in the province. We have about 8500 boots on the ground. The guys in the ops centre are able to pick up any crime that is happening and interact with the guys on the ground to respond to that. All the roads will possibly lead to the highway and that’s where you have all the SANRAL cameras situated so working in that comprehensive set up you are able to deter crime and also fight back.”

Vumacam said the majority of major security companies in Gauteng are signed up to make use of their CCTV monitoring services.

“The company’s overall goal is to make South Africa a safer place through the collaboration of private and public law enforcement through the power of technology and underpinned by big business. To ensure that we support the fight against crime through the use of world-class cameras and technology that ensure a more agile, effective and collaborative impact on combating crime. Through our SafeCity initiative we aim to enhance networks and areas of operation and bring more partners on board to ensure greater impact.”

As it stands, Vumacam is planning to extend its network into parts of KwaZulu-Natal, specifically looking at eThekwini.