Think Public Safety

2017 Public Safety Survey – Focus on Video Author: David Parry

Created Nov 17 2017, 12:52 PM by Paul Jeffs

Our 2017 EMEA Public Safety Survey Report is now available. It makes very interesting reading as Public Safety communications continue to transform. The report identifies key new trends in the growth of video and need for cloud-based apps. The survey also finds several other top-of mind subjects including high speed real-time data, multi-device multiagency communication, cybersecurity, social media and technology management. This first blog article about the survey focuses on video.

Growth in video
The report identifies substantial growth in the use of video, especially body worn. It shows consistent growth in the use of video across almost all types and substantial growth of 80% in responder-worn (body-worn) video since (from 2015 to 2017). Overall use of video has grown too. Today, around two thirds of agencies use some form of video - that has now risen from around half in 2015.

Although we are seeing growth across the board and this exceptional growth in body-worn video, fixed and in-vehicle video are still the top modes of video use:

Barriers to video usage
The report identifies the top barrier to video adoption as administrative overhead and cost, followed by concerns over privacy and new concerns over security of data against tampering.

Is cloud the answer?
Cloud-based applications for Public Safety are a relatively new offering. In the survey, we wanted to find out who is using them and identify key needs. The report finds that agencies are already using a wide spread of cloud based applications. In fact, over one-third of respondents tell us they are already using cloud based reporting, for example.

But what about video? Video comes high on the list of applications that respondents want in the cloud and almost half of respondents want to have cloud-based video storage. Over a third want video analytics there...

More about the report
This latest survey offers insight into technology trends in the public safety sector. The 2015 survey (conducted in late 2015) grew from similar surveys conducted in North America and was the first focused on Europe and Africa. The 2017 survey expanded the reach to Europe, Middle-East and Africa and now reflects the input of almost 200 public safety professionals in 46 countries.

The full report stretches to 12 pages, so I’m only able to share a short portion in this blog post. I plan to share more in future posts. Meanwhile, you can download the complete report here