Melbourne, Australia - NEC Australia, a leading ICT solutions and services company, has entered a strategic partnership with Silicon Valley vision analytics firm, CrowdOptic, to bring next generation security to smart cities.

NEC Australia and CrowdOptic are jointly introducing a ground-breaking intelligent live video streaming security system enabled by real-time analysis of footage captured from fixed cameras and mobile camera sensors in body cams, smartphones, and drones.

This marks a significant improvement on video surveillance and facial recognition, which today relies predominantly on footage captured from fixed cameras.

Live, intelligent video footage combined with efficient transmission of data from mobile camera sensors enhances the impact of the world’s most accurate face recognition technology*, NeoFace®.

Naturally, mobility will play an important role in smart city technology. Using internet-connected mobile cameras integrated with NEC’s cutting edge biometrics is the future of public safety. Smart cities can now use mobile camera technologies to improve the safety of public spaces and the capabilities of first responders.

The real-time identification enabled by NEC biometric technology is enhanced by mobile camera sensors that give first responders, police and ambulance staff a clearer, real-time picture of the environment they’re operating in.

Mobility is where CrowdOptic’s technology offers new capabilities to NEC’s NeoFace®. CrowdOptic’s technology uses triangulation to detect when two or more cameras are aimed at the same person.

The integration with NEC’s NeoFace® facial-recognition software means that fixed cameras can interact with body cams and smart glasses to enhance identification. This provides the ability to feed multiple perspectives of an individual to the NeoFace® database, speeding and enhancing the accuracy of the facial-recognition process.

In addition, CrowdOptic technology lets first responders on the ground aim smartphones, wearables, or cameras at a shared point of interest in order to triangulate its position. A command centre can then direct a drone to the shared point of interest without knowing its exact location. For example, two fire rangers in the field can point to a plume of smoke and direct the drone to it, without the drone’s operator needing to directly see or know the location.

NEC Australia initiated this partnership, which offers both companies an Australian testbed for expanding the integration with NEC’s facial recognition platform on a global basis.

CrowdOptic has attracted investments from Silicon Valley Bank and Oracle Corp’s chief security officer, Mary Ann Davidson, among other prominent Silicon Valley investors.

NEC Australia’s customers will be the first worldwide that can test this mobile-enhanced vision security system.

NEC’s world-leading facial recognition technology when combined with CrowdOptic’s Intelligent Livestreaming and Engagement Geometry ushers in a new era of public safety. Customers can configure systems to use cameras with CrowdOptic software that capture video streamed to servers running NEC’s facial recognition software. Together, the two systems enable powerful new capabilities for automating the analysis of public spaces.

* NEC’s Video Face Recognition Technology Ranks First in NIST Testing