As reported in the April article, Ward 64 Control Room Support, the MID’s due diligence process resulted in far more questions than answers. We’d rather fail in meeting our deadline than fail in our due diligence and compliance, that is, ensuring that R100 000 levy-funds are going towards LPR and CCTV overview equipment and installation that can be supported by the Ward 64 control room infrastructure.
Wading through this process has required far more meeting time than anticipated. Meetings with the Ward Councillor, meetings with various City Departments and their service providers, meetings with potential service providers AND back-and-forth discussions on timelines which still relies on the Ward 64 control room going live.
Some of the questions to which we needed answers included:
- Which sites within, and on the periphery of the MID borders are best suited for LPR and overview CCTV cameras to be most effective, can MID get permission to install there, is power available and if so who covers this cost?
- How will data (LPR and CCTV) reach the Control Room? Because Fibre in the ground is not yet readily available at cost effective prices, wireless point to point links that require line of site to each other and eventually the control room must be carefully planned out taking existing wireless interference into consideration.
- When said data reaches the Control Room how are the LPR alerts going to upload to the cloud (internet) and who will cover this cost? (Unlike CCTV, LPR requires internet access to function.)
The biggest challenge with the Ward 64 control room is securing sufficient internet access within the City parameters.
At this stage the MID can reassure the membership that the R100 000 surplus funds allocation will be rolled over into the new financial year, effective 1 July 2018. This roll-over has been communicated to the City’s CID Branch since funds weren’t spent within the financial year ending 30 June 2018.
Ensuring due diligence is a responsibility that the MID management team takes very seriously. Especially when consideration is given to the most recent implementation of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the POPI Act (South African Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013) since LPR and CCTV surveillance records activity in public space.