Elgin leverages public, private video assets through Motorola Solutions’ real-time intelligence console

And the RIC does not depend only on city-owned cameras; it also is able to leverage video surveillance from private systems, such those owned by businesses and other enterprises. If these entities use analog cameras, the video feed is run through a digital encoder before entering the RIC, Bisceglie said. Currently, only one business has its video integrated into the Elgin RIC, but many more have expressed interest and are expected to become part of the solution.

None of the Elgin businesses have expressed any privacy concerns about sharing their video-surveillance feeds with the city, Bisceglie said.

“I have not really experienced any pushback from the private sector at all,” he said. “In fact, it’s been welcomed, because a lot of times we’ll have to send officers or detectives out [to an enterprise] in the middle of the night to try to pull some video feeds for different cases we may have.

“This kind of streamlines that process. It’s still recording on site, but the feeds we pull are recording back on our servers. We’re able to get to get that recorded data in the middle of the night, if needed, without bothering the business owner.”

Elgin does not use additional video analytics, except for some threat-detection and video-synopsis capabilities that are built into the RIC, but more video-analytics use is “something we may look at in the future,” Swoboda said. However, having officers monitor the video in the system is still very helpful, according to Nathan Rowe, Motorola Solutions’ director of public-safety product management.

“It still acts as a force multiplier, because it gives them the opportunity to have immediate eyes on the scene with virtual support,” Rowe said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “So, they can assess the situation and the severity of it and provide the information that they see—combined with their field experience—to the responder that’s actually going to physically ride there.”