Vumacam captures around 4,500 suspicious vehicles and activities in Joburg daily

Vumacam, a wireless outdoor camera provider, picks up more than 4,500 suspicious vehicles and activities daily around the Johannesburg metropolitan area through its smart cameras and licence recognition cameras. 

This was revealed by Vumacam CEO Ricky Croock on Tuesday when the company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the City of Johannesburg's public safety department.  

“When the vehicles are moving around we recognise them because there are listed on the police database as either stolen or wanted. An alert is pushed to the control room and the alerts will be pushed to the integrated intelligence operations centre (IIOC) that the suspicious vehicle is travelling on a specific road so they can pursue the suspect, intercept and make an arrest,” he said.  

The two-year MOU will enable VumaCam to strategically deploy and manage hi-tech cameras throughout the streets of Johannesburg to strengthen the IIOC in its quest to make the metro crime free.  

Crook said Vumacam has more than 6,000 cameras and as soon as they are linked to the IIOC they would be populated to their system.

He said the cameras are equipped with black screen technology with the intelligence to understand unusual occurrences and incidents.  

The VumaCam cameras are known for their high-quality video and audio, durability and weather resistance, and will be mounted on walls and poles in public places and managed through a solid fibre network connected to the IIOC. 

The motion detection, night vision, two-way communication and cloud storage will be used to detect suspicious activities, assist officers with investigations and monitor bylaw infringements.   

The cameras, which are internet-connected, will allow law enforcement to monitor human activity remotely and improve traffic flow management, emergency response times and the overall deployment of municipal resources. 

“When you partner with Vumacam our whole business is around maintaining and making sure the cameras are always working. Our team is always looking when a camera is down to send a technician immediately because we signed a service-level agreement to guarantee the cameras will always work.”

He said they have designed their system specifically for the South African environment and their footage is water-stamped and time-stamped so when evidence is submitted to court it will be admissible. This will allow for the suspect to be charged and sentenced.  

The acting head of department for public safety, Tebogo Modiba, said the partnership will help the city as private security which works with Vumacam could only do so much.   

“You see those [suspicious] vehicles but nothing happens. You can only report them. But with this partnership we will make sure we deploy law enforcement officers to quickly stop vehicles and criminals will be arrested.”

He said they hope to leverage the cutting-edge technology that is highly effective and provides a well-maintained and regulated network to augment the city’s law enforcement and crime prevention strategies. 

Vumacam covers around 70% of the city of Johannesburg and Croock said they would increase their network coverage as they identify more hotspots.  

“They are tapping into our infrastructure because we have units on the ground. We have units from region A to region G. Whenever suspicious activity happens we will be able to use the geolocation to see which Johannesburg metropolitan police department vehicles are in that area and we can send them to the crime scene,” said public safety MEC Mgcini Tshwaku.  

The cameras are also expected to help departments and entities improve service delivery and mitigate crimes against municipal assets. 

TimesLIVE

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.