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MTS-ISS installed a 20-camera, 360 frames per second audio/video system at the Sea Isle City Police Dept and Municipal Court. This installation is the baseline for an integrated safe community architecture, with additional sites around town in the planning stages.

All eyes are on Watchung surveillance program
Borough’s high-tech software could be a model for the rest of the state.

By KARA L. RICHARDSON
Staff Writer

June 10, 2007

WATCHUNG– If you’ve driven by the Watchung Police Department in the past year, chances are your license plate has been captured by a video camera. And if you’ve walked in the department’s lobby or the municipal court, your image has been taken for high-tech face recognition software. Many Central Jersey towns have varying forms of surveillance camera equipment as part of their public-safety programs.

But Watchung has taken one additional high-tech leap, by participating in an experimental, year-long program that incorporates license-plate and face-recognition software in its digital video camera systems. The borough’s police chief and the private company that is running the program hope that the department will be a model for video surveillance in the state. In fact, Wat-chung’s camera system, with live video feed, will be featured during the Police Security Expo June 19 and 20 in Atlantic City.

“These are tools to allow the police to be more effective,” said Rob Merchant, president of MTS Intelligent Surveillance Solutions, the Howell-based company which installed the software in Watchung [...] when he converted the department’s video-tape based surveillance system to digital.

Only a few other New Jersey towns have the same type of technology, Merchant said. They include the Deal, Bradley Beach, Sea Isle City and Maplewood police departments. But apparently, no other Central Jersey towns have tried incorporating this advanced technology into their public safety arsenal, according to law-enforcement officials.

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