Oxford Street images taken with a megapixel CCDP™ camera. The camera is an ordinary compact digital camera connected to a laptop or pc via a usb cable. These cameras are often no bigger than the size of a cigarette packet and are therefore unobtrusive to shoppers, because they are mounted within the secure environment of a premises and not in the street. A camera can by positioned behind an office or shop window mounted on a bracket and overlooking a street in order to capture images of the whole street. A few cameras could effectively cover a wide area.

For example, in the Oxford Street area, one camera could be located behind an upper floor office window overlooking Regent Street to capture both sides of the street ; another camera could be positioned in the ticket office at the underground station; while yet another camera could be positioned in a shop premises to cover not only everybody entering the shop but also pedestrians passing by!

Each camera is attached to a laptop or pc, and therefore by simply inserting a broadband adapter into the computer, the live camera scene and recorded images can be viewed from each location via the internet! An operator who wishes to quickly view or retrieve images from a number of camera locations can therefore do so without moving from the central office.

This enables images of suspects to be viewed and retrieved quickly for the purposes of law enforcement as soon as a crime has been reported.

(Images on this page were taken with a Canon Powershot S2iS camera).