Brickcom Cameras Used for Enterprise Surveillance in the United Kingdom

"We needed a product that was discrete but effective. During the evaluation process we tried various manufacturers, but experienced reliability issues. We then tested Brickcom and coupled with good reliability we found the picture and audio quality to be excellent."

Tony Worthington, Infrastructure Manager
Chester & District Housing Trust

About the Client
Chester & District Housing Trust is a non-profit organization that provides general housing services for the local community by managing council housing stock and running an OAP scheme. The Trust employs approximately 300 staff and operates from multiple locations across Chester. Chester & District Housing Trust was founded in the year 2000.

The Requirements
Chester & District Housing Trust conducts meetings with members of the public in order to assess their requirements.

The Trust required a surveillance system to monitor activity in their interview rooms, so that staff would feel better protected from members of the public in situations where they might become aggressive. In addition, difficult situations could be reviewed to improve staff training or incidents recorded.

The main requirements were identified as the following:
• Small form factor camera (unobtrusive but non-covert)
• Ability to detect and record both sound and motion
• Easy setup and dual streaming capability
• Remote live viewing
• No software license costs to reduce TCO
• High quality image for evidential purposes

The Solution
The Trust deployed a Brickcom ‘cube camera’ in each of their interview rooms and setup the Brickcom NVR software on a PC elsewhere in the building to record both sound and video on a PC in the IT department. They also set up a PC in the concierge office to allow security staff to monitor the rooms live and respond in any overly aggressive situations.

Chester & District Housing Trust have also used the camera recordings to improve training by playing back recording interviews for recordings to staff and analyzing where improvements in procedures can be made. These recordings have also been used to help resolve complaints made by the public towards staff. In addition, the recordings can be used as evidence in court if required.

An additional benefit is that because the cameras work on IP, the Trust can use the existing cabling infrastructure to deploy the cameras anywhere across their four locations and the recordings can be viewed live by the customer services team both locally and remotely from any PC. This has improved staff efficiency by reducing the need to travel between sites.

"Our customer service staff feels reassured with the cameras and this has led to an improvement in morale and motivation. In addition, we have seen an improvement in behavior from the customers who may have been more troublesome in the past,” said Tony Worthington. “The NVR software is easy to use and configure, and as it is included with the camera at no extra cost, it provides good savings when compared to other solutions."