Hi-tech camera takes surveillance into third dimension

Banks on the mainland are testing an advanced surveillance camera technology that could be installed at key sites including Tiananmen Square and Beijing airport, according to the start-up company behind the system.

Unlike most existing surveillance systems that film in two-dimensional video and require security staff to sift through hours of footage, this technology sees - or, rather, visually senses - objects moving in three dimensions and can automatically raise an alert when it identifies irregularities such as people fighting, falling or lingering in an area.

This will slash the time investigators need to sift through security-camera images, according to He Bofei, the chief executive and co-founder of the start-up company Deep Glint.

The firm, founded in Beijing in April last year, aimed to be the first in the world to commercialise the technology, He said.

The company had been testing its products in branches of three of the nation's four largest state-owned banks in cities including Beijing, Chengdu and Chongqing and the technology would probably start being used on a large scale this year, he said.

"Banks are an ideal setting for our technology because they need to be on high alert all the time," He said in an interview at the company's picturesque office next to the Summer Palace in the capital.