With new security technology operating in its 68 stores Myer, Australia's largest department store group, is telling shoplifters that their game's now up. For more than a year the use of radio frequency tags and a new Geutebruck digital CCTV system operated by well-trained staff has been proving extremely successful in enabling security staff to identify and report known shoplifters, suspicious behaviour and co-ordinated activity among groups of individuals on their premises. The result being that most shoplifting suspects are now apprehended before leaving the premises.
Besides the system's general high technical quality, speed and reliability, much of the quality and convenience of the assistance which the store security staff experience in their everyday duties is due to a handful of standard system and plug-in functions. One of these is activity detection which triggers alarms and changes the recording parameters to predetermined settings when movement is detected in unexpected locations. Another much used facility is the ‘Follow me' function which allows operators to quickly ‘drag and drop' video of suspicious behaviour from the monitor where it is first spotted, to the central monitor of three on their console. Once there, the video is automatically recorded at high resolution for evidential purposes and retained for reference on a separate database. This ability to freely select and group
Besides loss prevention, Myer are finding that video images from the system are valuable for other purposes too. For instance if a shopper makes a claim against a store because of an accident, a fall for example, being able to prove with video images that the store had already drawn the hazard to shoppers' attention and therefore fulfilled its legal obligations, or that the accident did not happen as claimed, can save the retailer considerable legal expenses. Images from one particular set of cameras in each store is available to marketing staff for check display compliance centrally, without leaving head office. Given the vast distances between Australian cities, and hence stores, this useful facility saves travelling time and expense.