Community Connect empowers communities to collaborate with local police

With more security cameras being deployed by local councils and businesses there is lots of video footage that can be used by police as evidence and to help apprehend offenders. But police forces are stretched to capacity and often lack the resources to find that footage and integrate it into their investigations.

Leading global security company Genetec recognised this challenge which led the company to establish Community Connect. Stephan Kaiser, Genetec’s General Manager for AutoVu, explains.

“We wanted to create a simple way for communities to share their security infrastructure with the police. Community Connect enables the different stakeholders in the neighbourhood and community to share their security infrastructure and their video footage with the police.”

Community Connect has delivered significant reductions in crime rates around the world. In Detroit, a city that has long laboured under high violent crime rates, neighbourhoods where Community Connect is active have seen crime rates fall significantly. And in Canada, car theft at aninternational airport was almost completely eradicated.

“Community Connect is an opt-in framework for engaging communities with law enforcement so that they can reduce crime rates and ensure faster response times from police,” explains Kaiser. “It’s not a product you buy – it’s a way to facilitate connection between communities and law enforcement to help create safer cities and neighbourhoods.”

Through Community Connect, video feeds from cameras deployed in communities can be directly sent to police department control centres. In Detroit, potential offenders were deterred from committing crimes as areas that participated in Community Connect displayed a green light to show their security cameras were directly connected to the police.

Community Connect has the potential to transform communities, enabling them to work with police and participate and work towards common goals such as public safety, economic growth and operational efficiency.

You can learn more about Community Connect by visiting  https://www.genetec.com/industries/community-connect

Listen to the interview below.