Facewatch begins live beta testing of crime intelligence platform

The platform is designed to afford retailers a much clearer understanding of the criminality affecting their businesses and can be deployed as a standalone crime reporting solution or otherwise sit alongside Facewatch’s established live facial recognition technology.

Used together, the two systems can help retailers to understand offending across their stores and target preventative action where it’s most needed. Retailers can also use either service on an independent basis.

Nick Fisher, CEO of Facewatch, said: “Live facial recognition has already proved its value by giving retailers accurate and actionable intelligence the moment an offender enters a store. Facewatch Live affords retailers the opportunity to record incidents, see the bigger picture in terms of their own crime data and build stronger evidence against prolific offenders.”

Fisher added: “Retailers can decide which system best suits their needs, but feedback from current retail partners who’ve helped to build the platform is that the two systems together offer a powerful force against retail crime.”

Operational use 

Facewatch Live’s beta testing phase will put the platform into day-to-day operational use for loss prevention and retail teams in participating stores across the UK, allowing for further retailer feedback and fine-tuning before the platform becomes more widely available.

Frasers Group, the collection of retail brands and an existing Facewatch retail partner, is among the first retailers confirmed to participate in the live beta testing phase. Others are preparing to join.

Participating retailers will test how the platform brings incidents, surveillance images, witness information and other supporting evidence together to build a clearer picture of crime across individual stores and, indeed, entire estates.

Multiple incidents can be associated with the same offender profile, helping retailers to identify repeat and prolific offending that can be difficult to recognise when incidents are viewed separately.

Linked incidents and supporting evidence can also be assembled into structured case files for submission to participating police forces, in turn helping the police to identify patterns of prolific or organised offending that may not be apparent when incidents are considered separately.

Additional opportunity 

Facewatch Live will be available as a completely standalone service, giving retailers free access to record incidents, manage supporting evidence and analyse their own crime data. It will not be necessary for a given retailer to subscribe to Facewatch’s live facial recognition service in order to use Facewatch Live.

For those retailers that also use facial recognition, the combination does provide an additional opportunity to connect incident intelligence with real-time crime prevention.

In conclusion, Nick Fisher observed: “We’ve taken the decision to make Facewatch Live not just free to the police service, but also completely free to the retail sector. Retail operators should not have to pay simply to understand what’s going on in their own businesses. The process of reporting crime should not come with a price tag attached to it.”

*Further information is available online at www.facewatch.co.uk