CAM-908
A hand on the lens
A narrow street seen from the camera, some four metres up. A man in a dark hooded sweatshirt has climbed a stepladder resting on the cobbles and reached the equipment. He holds an open hand out towards the lens: so close that it fills half the picture and comes out blurred. In the other hand he is holding a screwdriver. Behind him the midday street carries on: two cars, a van further up, a no-entry sign, the green awning of a greengrocer with the fruit outside, a parked scooter. IRIS sees a hand centimetres from the glass and a person level with the camera. It does not know who he is or what he intends: it does not recognise faces.
Turn on IRIS Vision
AI-generated image
What IRIS understands
What it recognises in this scene
- an open hand
- a person
The rule
You decide once. IRIS applies it always.
If
a hand or an object covers the lens from very close, or there is a person level with the equipment
Then
- alert at once with the camera, the spot and the time
- set aside the video of the minute before, while the street could still be seen
- flag the camera as not operational until a person confirms it can see again
The instruction that set it up«Tell me straight away if a hand or an object covers the lens from very close, or if somebody is up level with a camera, and keep me the minute before.»
What changes
What changes for whoever answers for the cameras working
At half past twelve the picture from that camera turns into a hand and stays that way. On a wall of four hundred cameras nobody notices: the camera has not gone down, it is still sending signal, it is still green. Three weeks later somebody asks for the video of that street and finds there is no street that day. With IRIS the alert goes out while the hand is on its way, not once it is in place, and it arrives with the part that matters: the seconds before, when the ladder, the street and the person climbing were still visible. Whoever is on duty decides whether to drive out, to call or to let it go. The point is that they decide today.
What people usually ask
Does IRIS recognise the person in the picture?
No. IRIS does not recognise faces and does not read number plates. All it states is a fact about the picture: there is a hand centimetres from the lens and there is a person level with the equipment. It does not say who that is, does not check them against any list and does not store anyone’s identity. Who it is and what they were doing is for a person watching the video to decide. IRIS handles the other half: making sure that video exists and that somebody looks at it today, not in three weeks.
Does this work as evidence?
It is a starting point, not a verdict. What you are left with is the video, with its camera, date and time, plus the record of which rule fired and when. That is what goes to whoever has to weigh it up. IRIS does not rule that an offence took place and does not identify anyone: it describes what was in front of the lens. The real value is that the useful video — the part from before the lens was covered — is kept, instead of being lost when the recording wraps around.
And what if it is the maintenance technician doing his job?
Then the alert fires anyway, and that is how it should be: from the lens, a maintenance visit and anything else look exactly the same. What you tune is the response, not the detection. If there is a work order open for that camera, the alert is logged and calls nobody. If there is not, it calls. That one minute of checking — is anyone working on CAM-908? — is all that separates an annoying alert from a blind camera nobody has missed.
See it for yourself
Watch what happens. Then watch what IRIS does with it.
Not a recorded video and not a drawing: it is a summary of the real tool, with a different case each time round. The whole tool does not fit in a box.
- You ask
- IRIS searches
- It shows you
Next step
Who is watching a whole quay at three in the morning?
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 the cameras of a whole branch network?
13 cases: 12 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.
And the best part
A recollection cannot be checked.A number can, and it comes out the same every day.
The number does not depend on who was on shift or how they remember it. It is measured the same way every day, and that is why people counting is certified by the Centro Español de Metrología.
Tell us your problem and we will say whether IRIS understands it, or not yet.
We reply the same working day.