Public safetyIntrusion detection
CAM-570
A boat that stops where there’s no anchorage, and stays there
An open cove at midday, seen from a lookout. In the foreground stands the coastal surveillance camera on its pole, with two people on duty: one scanning with binoculars, the other checking the image on a field console. In the middle of the cove an open boat has stopped, listing, its gunwale almost level with the water and a ring of foam around it: it’s been turning without making way for a while. Further out a yacht, a fishing boat and a sailing boat are all under way. IRIS doesn’t say who is on that boat or where it came from: it says a vessel has stopped making way inside the cove and how long it’s been like that.
Turn on IRIS Vision
AI-generated image
What IRIS understands
What it recognizes in this scene
- boat stopped in the cove
- ring of foam around it
- coastal surveillance camera
- person scanning with binoculars
- person checking the image
- field console
- yacht under way offshore
- fishing boat under way
- sailing boat in the distance
- cliff closing the cove
- shallow rock visible through the water
The rule
You decide once. IRIS applies it always.
If
a vessel stops making way inside the cove for more than four minutes
Duringit is outside an anchorage area
Then
- alert the rescue service with the position inside the cove
- zoom the camera on the vessel and save the video from the moment it stopped
- keep the alert open until somebody confirms it has been attended to
The instruction that set it up«Tell me if a vessel stops making way inside the cove for more than four minutes.»
What changes
What changes for whoever goes out, whoever decides and whoever justifies it later
Two in the afternoon on a Saturday in August. The coastal watcher lowers her binoculars: the boat in the middle of the cove has been turning without making way for half an hour and its gunwale is almost level with the water. A small boat that stops where there’s no anchorage is usually a breakdown, and sometimes it’s somebody in trouble. What’s needed there isn’t security, it’s help: somebody to go out. The alert carries the position inside the cove and how long it’s been stopped, so the rescue service sets off knowing where to go instead of waiting for a phone call. Four minutes stopped means nothing; thirty, with the gunwale level with the water, does.
What people usually ask
Is this for controlling who comes into the cove?
No. The rule doesn’t fire because somebody comes in: it fires because somebody stops making way. It’s a rule about help, and that’s how it is written. A boat that stops in the middle of a cove with no anchorage is usually an engine that has failed, and what’s needed there’s somebody going out, not somebody asking questions. IRIS doesn’t know who is on board, recognizes nobody and isn’t going to: what it contributes is a position and a clock.
What if the boat has simply stopped for a swim?
Nearly always it’s exactly that, and the alert is written knowing it. That’s why it comes with the video and why the threshold is in minutes and not seconds: whoever receives it looks at the image, sees people in the water and closes it. That check costs seconds. And that is what an alert that accuses nobody is for: so it can be closed without anybody being harmed by it having been raised.
Can IRIS alert on a person in the water?
That case depends a lot on the framing and the distance, which is why we don’t promise it as if it were the same everywhere. A person in the water fifty yards from a well-placed camera is an object that can be seen; at a quarter mile, no. The honest way to put it: it is tested at each site before the rule is written, and if it doesn’t hold up in that framing, it isn’t deployed. Promising what can’t be seen from that particular camera would be exactly what we don’t do.
Other cameras
- CAM-560 · The gate has been blocked by a stopped vehicle for eight minutes
- CAM-561 · How many people are inside the compound right now
- CAM-562 · Two cars in the lane with the red cross above it
- CAM-563 · Thirty-four minutes of waiting, and only three lanes open
- CAM-564 · Something crosses the wall from above and drops a package inside
- CAM-565 · Who went into the store, when, and what can be proved
See it for yourself
You set the rule once. IRIS applies it every time.
You will see a summary of the interface, played step by step and hands-free. Each round starts with another case. The complete tool doesn’t fit in a demo.
- The rule gets built
- It goes to every camera
- Published, it watches alone
- And then it fires
Next step
Who sees the child who’s fallen at the far end of the schoolyard?
14 cases: 13 raise an alert when something happens and one only measures. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
Who is watching a site where there’s almost never anybody?
44 cases, and in every one of them IRIS raises an alert when something happens. You see each image as it is, and then with what it understands on top.
And the best part
The disk fills up on its own.The questions stay unanswered.
Storing images is easy, and it isn’t cheap. What was missing was someone to look at them. IRIS looks at everything you record and shows you only what is worth a glance.
Tell us your problem and we’ll say whether IRIS understands it, or not yet.
A person answers, the same working day.