This report has been generated by the Erncip Thematic Group Video Surveillance for
security of critical infrastructure (TG VAS). 

Video analytics is a technology that analyses the video content. The technology is increasingly being adopted by security managers, law enforcement and other users to address various security issues. 

This report outlines the basics of the technology, how it is used and its advantages. It aims to draw end-users attention to the key factors which must be taken into account when considering its adoption. It is aimed at managers, security personnel, law enforcement officers and other end-users whose knowledge of video analytics is limited.

This report should help the end-user engage initially with potential providers of video analytics. General factors which affect video analytics are explored. For more in-depth analysis of factors affecting video analytics see Surveillance and video analytics: Factors Influencing the Performance (1). General comments are made in relation to video surveillance systems, however, for more in-depth CCTV deployment guides see Home Office. CCTV Operational Requirements Manual 2009 (2).

Note that this report does not aim to define what analytics can or cannot do, as this is a constantly evolving area. Nor does this report imply any recommendations by the authors or the European Commission.

Large European Union communities are working on and using surveillance systems. They are of diverse backgrounds, such as end users (e.g. law enforcement agencies and critical infrastructure owners), suppliers of surveillance products and services, academics
and policymakers. One of the goals of the ERNCIP thematic group (TG) on video analytics and surveillance (VAS) is to support these communities and the interaction between them with a future proof performance evaluation methodology of video analytics, and in the future potentially also of other components of a surveillance system.

The main objective of this report is to analyse existing data sets for video analytics (VA) and to determine how best to enable collection/common access to data sets in the EU for testing/evaluation of video surveillance software. 

This report presents a critical analysis of video analytic data sets with specific attention to the protection of critical infrastructures. The introductory part of the report describes the importance of VA and the growth of the related market. In this scenario the
importance of the usage of a common data set is highlighted. The main reason of the fundamental importance of data sets in video analysis is the intrinsic complexity of VA related techniques: a common set of video sequences is seen as a powerful boost in the
design, development and testing of VA algorithms.