It seems amazing in this day and age that owners of CCTV Systems are putting their homes and businesses at risk by not keeping their camera systems working properly.
We recently surveyed 300 camera systems as part of our day-to-day repair work to existing systems – and we found that 75% of the systems examined had a fault which would mean the evidence could not be used in a court of law.
To put this in perspective, if that number is applied to the 6 million CCTV cameras currently operating in the UK – then around 4.5 million are currently not working as they should.
Issues we found included:
30% – DVR time set incorrectly
Time was 1hr out due to not being updated.
25% – Wrong time zone settings
Again, time incorrectly set.
15% – Faulty or damaged cameras
Cameras not working due to a technical fault.
CCTV cameras are a very powerful tool in the fight against crime, but only if they’re working, properly maintained, and pointing in the right direction.
Some systems we’ve come across are so poor that you can barely see what’s going on in front of the camera.
Many of the broken systems were, we feel, down to businesses tightening their belts financially. Many businesses over recent years have found that they need to cut back on repairs to buildings, and this includes CCTV systems. With businesses tightening their budgets and crime against property expected to increase, these figures will only get worse.
The survey was carried out by our engineers examining camera systems around the UK.
Jonathan Ratcliffe
jr@cctv.co.uk
