Enabling Digital Data Flows Across the Security Ecosystem

The Open Security & Safety Alliance (OSSA®) Continues to Innovate

for the Industry, By the Industry

 The Open Security & Safety Alliance (OSSA®) was founded in late 2018 by major industry stakeholders to enable an influx of innovation across the security and safety markets. Our industry body is comprised of member companies from all facets within the security, safety and building automation categories – and together we work to 1) create device harmony, 2) ensure proper matching of demand and supply between devices, apps and audiences and 3) ensure we adhere to appropriate cyber security standards.

Specifically, over recent years, our members helped guide the creation of open standards that (when applied) allow for easy and cyber-secure integration of third-party AI analytics applications to run agnostically on video cameras, gateways and other computer vision/smart camera devices. This group of industry experts drives an open platform principle to open up the industry and take IoT security and IoT surveillance to the next level.

Our first issued specifications include:

• OSSA® Application Interface Specification: This technical specification defines a set of four interfaces which collectively enables third-party software applications to run on video security cameras following the common OSSA Technology Stack.
• OSSA® Compliant Camera Definition Specification: This technical specification sets the core system requirements for video security cameras following the common OSSA Technology Stack to provide a basis of trust and to ensure app interoperability across vendors.
• OSSA® Camera Cyber Security Specification: This technical specification contains definitions and guidelines regarding mandatory and optional cyber security measures for cameras. The mandatory part of these guidelines will be used as an input for the OSSA certification framework that’s forthcoming.

Hardware manufacturers simply design IoT smart cameras according to OSSA specs, and end-users gain access to an unfolding forum of AI advancements and business opportunities (see Driven by OSSA details and products here). Technology company and OSSA member Azena created a corresponding and agnostic operating system (OS) that connects with the industry’s biggest online Analytics App Store in support of this collaborative issue.

Making Data Flow to Enable Flexible IoT Solutions

Now, in 2022, we are further refining the Alliance’s focus by standardizing consistent and uniform data interpretation and consumption, thereby opening the door for security and safety solutions and sensors to gain a better understanding of each other’s data sets.

Members are expanding their attention from realizing third-party applications on brand-agnostic cameras and AI boxes/gateways, to designing corresponding ontologies and communications protocols to further unlock data produced, stored and (currently) confined to millions of “things” – things that have the potential to share important digital data that can help us not only ‘see’ but more importantly ‘sense’ and ‘understand’ what’s happening across an area under surveillance. For example, providing the ability to intelligently cross-reference or combine data from a simple CO2 meter with that from other “things” such as video security cameras to detect and respectively verify if a meeting room is occupied or not.

The Alliance’s push to make the sensing data that our industry constantly produces better and more uniformly consumable and interpretable across the aisles (i.e., across brands, devices, applications and beyond) is an important next step for us all. Tapping into stagnant data reservoirs and enabling resources to securely flow data outside of current digital siloes will open up a tremendous new corridor of IoT-based possibilities.

More good work needs to be done. And we welcome additional industry experts and innovators to join our effort. Participation levels are flexible and completely up to you. We offer very affordable membership levels – and there is an open seat waiting at the OSSA table for anyone with an interest in bettering our category alongside other forward-thinking individuals and organizations.

We look forward to more good industry collaboration from the Adria Security Summit October 5-6 in Croatia. Stakeholders from all areas within the security industry continue to meet up at points around the planet to align and bring more intelligence to our security and safety systems. OSSA’s security alliance members are at the center of important orchestration – and we look forward to bringing new participants into the fold to help steer the next chapter in security. Connect with us here!