CCTV Technology and Security: A Comprehensive Overview and Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of CCTV technology as a crucial component of modern security systems. It delves into the various applications of CCTV, including its use in deterrence, forensic investigations, and intelligent video algorithms, highlighting its significance in business supervision and security. The essay also explores the limitations of CCTV, such as limited area coverage, frequency interruption, and the threat of hacking, which can compromise privacy and system integrity. It discusses the evolution of CCTV technology, its impact on society, and the diverse perspectives surrounding its implementation. The essay emphasizes the importance of understanding both the benefits and drawbacks of CCTV technology in order to make informed decisions about its use and deployment.

Running Head: CCTV Technology and Security
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Introduction
Technology security is among the 21st milestones in innovation. It is the procedural flow
of instigating systems and measures designed for the purpose of safeguarding human
phenomenon. This technology varies depending on the functionality of the technology in that,
the technology can be diversified according to smart home security, industrial security as well as
national security. In all those aspects of technology security, the use of closed-circuit televisions
has been utilized in modern society following the risen cases of improved crime in both the
developing and the developed worlds. This essay is platformed on the aspect of CCTV as top-
notch technology security, its significances, disadvantages as well as cases where it has been
convenient for the sake of upholding security and the prevention of terrorism.
The function of the CCTV includes capturing of images and video clips of the
surrounding within the point where the human eye can reach. CCTVs are positioned in strategic
positions from where they can absorb the proceeding events of the vicinity while the data is
stored in secure memory machines from where they can be fetched for references such as
evidence, investigations et cetera.
CCTV technology systems have in the last decades after their invention been the most
utilized form of technology security in the world. This aspect has been witnessed not only from a
personal point of view but also from the ability they contain to cross point with other security
technologies such as alarms and face recognition as seen below.
Uses of CCTV in technology security according to their milestone development

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The technology of CCTV at the present has uses according to their functionality tagged
along with the milestone development of the CCTV security technology. These include
deterrence, interdiction as well as for forensic tenacities among other milestone functionalities of
the CCTV technology.
The Aspect of Deterrence
At the point of their discovery, The CCTV technology was used for deterrence. In the
setting where one is of the motive to do some harm to another party, CCTV acts as a
discouragement to the offender as it helps in creating the notion that another party is being kept
aware of their misdeeds. As such, it thus keeps the offenders at bay for fear of the precedented
recognition (Clearly 2014).
Today, the deterrence aspect of CCTV has lost its novelty as they grew common in
society. They have reduced the deterrence effectiveness as people are no longer afraid of their
presence in the cases of vehement criminology and illegal entry into buildings and countries
(Stutzer & Zehnder 2013).
Forensic investigations
The next milestone of the usage of the CCTV technology lies on the platform of forensic
investigations. As such, the criminal justice system has adopted the reliance of the CCTV in
many of their investigations. For example, according to the New York Times, the murder of
Oscar Perez, who commandeered a police helicopter and later used it to drop explosives in
several government buildings. After the raid for his search, Mr. Perez was found dead together
with his six colleagues. Though the Venezuela government hides the truth of the demise of

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Perez, CCTV enabled forensic evidence has shown of Mr. Perez’s yearning for surrender in
several Instagram posts from several videos he shot before his death.
Though the Venezuelan government has used intimidation and power, the new method of
open-source forensics has been used to trace the ongoing of the raid through the collection, proof
of identity and position calculations in space and time from the gathered evidence of the murder
of Perez in reconstructing a copy narrative of what happened during the raid. The forensic
experts have used photos, videos and tweets taken by the residents, Mr. Perez, as well as the
Venezuelan security forces, merged with the leaked radio statement by the police. This data is
then reconstructed into a 3-dimensional digital on-screen evidence that shows the execution of
Perez and his men (Fiorella & Leroy 2018).
From such a creative forensic survey from the available media evidence including the
CCTV, it can be drawn that there are still some more milestones the CCTV phenomenon is yet to
unveil in the onset of criminal forensic investigations. Such technology has thus sealed the
loopholes created from evidence interference and thus creating an advanced method of solving
the crime from the stimulus of the closed-circuit television technology.
Intelligent Video Algorithms
The CCTV technology has of late been interfaced with diverse security platforms such as
alarms, face recognition as well as entree regulating devices. They have aided in the gain of
momentum in that, they come as an aid to security employees in the aspects of identifying and at
the same time interrupting impeding security fissures before they even occur as well as when
they are being done. This happens when the CCTV technology interfaces with sophisticated
video processes such as motion detection whereby an infrequent walking style can be detected

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and the security officers are alerted to investigate the ongoings from a precise video screen.
CCTV technology with object-recognition systems is generated to detect the unusual in the
surroundings and thus warns the appropriate security body on the suspicious object or person for
them to take the proper actions (Thiel 2000).
Wide dynamic range
The modernity of the CCTV technology as an aspect of security has also upgraded to a
wide dynamic range. This aspect has become common to the modern CCTV whereby, CCTV
cameras have the ability to resolve certain abilities such as form and substance of an object
regardless of the amount of darkness or light in the surrounding of the object. This feature is to
mean that, these cameras have gained the ability to interpret the details of a certain object more
than the traditional cameras or the human eye can when it comes to environments containing
excess darkness or light (Yang 1994).
Significances of CCTV technology as an aspect of security in the society
Business supervision and security
The CCTV security technology has been widely incorporated into the corporate realms.
In the workplace, the aspect of CCTV has enabled the higher management including the human
resource office with an unconventional Internet Protocol CCTV set to supervise and manage
their businesses even without their formal presence. This feature has allowed the higher
management to keep an eye at the performance levels of their employees due to the CCTV
records of the daily procedure activities their employees have been making while in their

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workplaces from a real-time perspective. When using IP sensitive cameras, the recorded data can
be viewed from a specific interconnected device such as a cellphone or a PC (Brown 2000).
In terms of business security, the CCTV technology has allowed a warm relief for
businessmen as the installed cameras have been signified to deter criminal activities within and
around their business premises. The main advantage of CCTV surveillance in workplaces is the
prevention of misdemeanor by employees as well as any external threats. In cases of premise
theft, the footage, pieces of evidence have been used as evidence references and are thus a useful
tool for the recovery of the stolen assets (Hearnden 1996).
The CCTV security cameras have also safeguarded employees in a workplace within the
perspective of false accusations. Employees are sometimes falsely accused of a misdeed in the
workplace. This accusation may originate from other employees, the business owner or the
clients. Altogether, the functionality of CCTV cameras has allowed finding the “truth of the
matter” easy by referencing the claim to the whereabouts and practice procedures of the accused.
As such, it has aided in revealing some truths from an impartial witness viewpoint.
From a wide range of applications ranging from households, business premises et cetera,
the technology of CCTV has been used to detect a calamitous event such as fire. Although
smoke detectors are the main advocates of fire detection, CCTVs have also been utilized in
detecting unwanted fires within a certain building. As an added advantage CCTV dissimilar from
smoke detectors have the ability to detect an unwanted fire before it even spreads to form smoke
(Liu & Kim 2003).
Limitations of CCTV cameras in security technology

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With all the above-discussed significances and advantages of using CCTV as an
instrument of security, the technology is still a victim to a number of limitations as revealed from
homes, workplaces as well as any premises- public or private.
Limited Area Coverage
This phenomenon remains the major limitations to CCTV security technology. Many
CCTV cameras can only record objects close enough. As such, their significance is nullified
from the recording of objects from a far distance. Also, these cameras can easily be vandalized
by wrongdoers in their mission for the crime. They can be paint sprayed on the lenses thus
blinding them from the ongoings and thus becoming useless in their intended function (Surette
2005).
Frequency Interruption
For the IP sensitive and wireless CCTV cameras, they require specified frequencies to
send and receive the recorded data from the cameras to the surveillance stations. Such
interruption can be caused by the running of nearby electronic motors such as wireless phones,
air conditioners as well as the simple fluorescent bulbs. Such frequency interruption results in the
distortion of the quality of video or picture and may even lead to a system cessation (Abdo et al,
2018).
Hacking
In the 21st century, the value for information has heightened abruptly following political
and marketing demands to name a few. As such, hackers have turned their attention o the CCTV
recorded data. Such disastrous demeanors have laid the germination of fear of privacy intrusion

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since a hacker can access the private life of an innocent resident from an alien computer system
with a malicious intention (Grundy 2017).
Conferring from the Washington Post, two Romanian hackers are being charged for
Cybercrimes and fraud after they were caught after hacking the Washington surveillance camera
systems before the Trump presidential inductions. They are believed to have accessed more than
two-thirds of the alfresco surveillance data, these attacks are said to have altered the
performances of 123 police departments in D.C. as 187 installed CCTV cameras remained
inactive for a certain undisclosed amount of days. Bill Miller asserted that these attacks
presented a controversial aura for the Trump inaugurations as the Secret Service defending
undertaking was well laid under jeopardy (Weiner 2017).
As simple as these offenses sound, hacking done from security cameras has been seen as
an unscrupulous emerging trend of the 21st century. These unscrupulous attacks are majorly
directed towards celebrity personalities and important demographics in the world. Rendering
from the Daily Mail, more than four British educational establishments have been affected by
hackers as they have managed to access the data from the school’s security cameras. As such, the
hackers have also streamed the videos from these security cameras on the internet, the US site
with the stolen videos has denied any allegations claiming that institutions and private CCTV
systems need to upgrade in their defenses against hackers (Tozer & Critchley 2018).
Although there are some key areas where CCTV cameras are never installed, such as
washrooms and changing rooms, the aspect and reality of CCTV cameras have however forged a
kind of fear in people that some other parties can be secretly n watching them in their personal

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environments. As such, people thus get uncomfortable under the reality of the corruption caused
by the existence of CCTV surveillance.
Perceptions of the CCTV security technology
With the popularity of CCTV security technology, the world has reciprocated this
technology in diverse perspectives depending on the emerging trends of this technological
phenomenon in the 21st century. These emerging trends include the positive; interfacing with
other technological phenomena and fighting crime as well as the negative- hacking and intrusion
of privacy.
Alyssa Nielsen reports that, as much as CCTV security technology has been important in
the predicting, recording and follow up on criminal activities, which according to everyone is an
undisputed advantage of this invention, it is also a wide opening for malicious access of valuable
data recorded from these cameras. This is because these cameras are not glued to the
functionality of only recording crime, they record everything they come across. This is the
controversial perspective of many as it has been discovered a phobia to many about the intrusion
of their privacy as agreed by Marina Lowe, the attorney of American Civil Liberties.
From this perspective of privacy intrusion, the public perspective lies between; the
government is intruding on personal lives, corporations unauthorized intrusive surveys or
random character intrusion. Joseph Ekstrom warns that, whenever a certain cellphone has its
camera turned on, then the surrounding including the people there have a high chance of being
recorded and it is something one cannot know of (Nielsen 2017).p

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However, regarding the contending perspectives of the use of CCTV cameras especially
in public places is represented by the data gathered from the 2013 Rasmussen report which
involved a research study conducted via telephone interviews depicted that a mere 18% of the
American grown-up conflicted the usage of CCTV surveillance in the public. 11% of the
American public were undecided and a solid 70% approved CCTV surveillance in the public as
represented in the table below (Rasmussen Report 2013).
2013 Rasmussen Report Findings
Percentage standing
18% Disapprove the use of CCTV surveillance in the
public
70% Approve the use of CCTV surveillance in the
public
11% Undecided
Solving the inadequacies of CCTV security technology
With a good portion of the population within the favors of having CCTV security
surveillance in public places, this study thus looks at some of the remedies to ensuring that more
people are of the favor on the use of CCTV surveillance in the public places as it has been
proved by this paper that CCTV surveillance has more significances than disadvantages in their
functionality.
Password enhancement

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This contribution can be related to the story of Andy Gregg as told by the Mail Online.
Gregg was startled after a voice came from his home installed Nest camera cautioning him that
his camera was prone to get hacked. The hacker advised Gregg to revise and change the current
password for his CCTV security system as they had already hacked it with no mentioned
malicious purposes. Although the hacker introduced themselves as an unidentified group in
Calgary, with their intentions termed as malicious, their action of accessing Gregg’s security
surveillance was illegal. To counter such activities, the hacker provides an important tool to
prevent hacking, the use of complex passwords which are changed with time.
Confidentiality
Also, it comes as a caution for people to avoid placing their systems online after a basic
installation. This is because the basic passwords as well as using different ports in the DVR are
not actual prevention of hacking. This is because a professional hacker or malicious software can
compromise someone’s DVR once the system is accessible online. The explanation of the
vulnerability of hacking a DVR is because these machines together with IP cameras use a Linux
Operating System that has been used by many electronic manufactures. Due to the commonality
of this operating system, hackers then have easy access to the system information and the data
stored in it.
Conclusion
From an irrefutable position, it has been proven crystal clear of the significant uses of the
CCTV security systems as a crucial component in the crime prevention and upgrading of

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security. With the above diversely discussed significances such as criminal deterrence, forensic
investigations as well as interfacing of the CCTV security system with other security systems to
help in detecting crime before it happens and the detecting disastrous events such as fires in a
building CCTV security technology is also faced with a number of limitations based on the
functionality of these cameras as well as the diverse perspectives of their utility for the society. It
has been discovered that the CCTV security technology has been received well by many adult
Americans which is a positive sign.
However, the few stable minds who refuse to conform with this technology have their
reasons which the CCTV security system industry is yet to correct in the next CCTV milestone
invention. However, it comes as a caution for everyone to get vigilant of any suspicion on the
main deterrent of CCTV utility- hackers. Also, it comes as advice to all to safeguard their
passwords and any other personal information, especially regarding their CCTV security systems
as it is among the major method of protecting their systems as well as their personal lives
altogether.