NEC Aims for a Smarter & a Safer City

The increasing need for surveillance products has led to the demand and eventually the growth of the security & surveillance market in the country. Throwing more light on this, Takayuki Inaba, MD - NEC India tells VARINDIA of how NEC tries to fit into this industry with its cutting edge technology products and the roadmap it has set for the Smart City project -   

The surveillance and security market has tremendous growth prospects in India.In the past few years, the market has matured at a very fast pace owing to the increasing demand for public safety offerings. The increasing need for secured infrastructure, rising government focus on smart cities, growing IT spends by government have given the necessary impetus to this industry. Other factors like rising crime rates and terror threats, growing public and private infrastructures have resulted in the increased demand for various kinds of surveillance systems in India.

Today, security solutions like facial recognition technology are used across more than 40 countries worldwide for fighting crime, preventing fraud and improving public safety. A large number of corporates are also seen spending more on security and surveillance today. The Government has also enhanced its investments in verticals such as city surveillance, smart cities, airports, seaports, and the infrastructure sector. 

Leveraging on its leading position in biometric solutions, NEC has been able to consistently provide high-end public safety solutions across industries such as law enforcements, border security and identity management application. It collaborates closely with its customers to create solutions for a variety of public safety categories, including law enforcement, emergency and disaster management, cyber security, public administration services etc.

Public Safety & Smart City – A big Opportunity for NEC

The Indian government has been actively promoting its mission for delivering 100 Smart Cities to promote urban transformation. Government initiatives like these are great opportunities for companies like NEC as it will give it an opportunity to bring its global expertise and contribute to the government’s smart cities mission. In India, NEC is working closely with the central and state governments to understand the need of utilising technology for tackling governance challenges and making a smart city safe. The company envisages to make smart cities not just smarter but aims at creating safer and a more secure environment for its citizens. 

“Public safety and security is one of our priorities and focus in India. We offer a variety of solutions including biometrics and fingerprinting technology for police forensic departments and cybercrimes. NEC has already successfully deployed our advanced Face Recognition System, in Surat Safe City for Surat Police, and at Lemon Tree Premier, Delhi Airport in India. These solutions empower security teams to prevent crime by offering real-time blacklist and white-list management using highly intelligent live CCTV feed analysis. We are also one of the biometric solution providers for India’s largest national ID project,” asserts Takayuki Inaba, MD - NEC India.

NEC has concentrated on developing stronger face recognition methods within the framework of biometric security systems and is now applying face recognition technology to law enforcement and other markets. NEC has successfully developed and executed high quality projects in countries like Singapore, Argentina, New Zealand, etc. Within a short span of time, NEC has many breakthrough references in public safety domain.

In Aug 2016, NEC India deployed facial recognition systems in Andhra Pradesh for a large-scale religious festival, providing real-time surveillance for the safety and security of event attendees.

“Currently, NEC India is open for technology partnership and working on its business model to work with the global and local partners. We are looking to put smarter ways of communication, public safety, transportation, and overall governance that can empower India to achieve its growth and development objectives. The strategy has worked for Japan and several other countries across the globe, and is even more relevant today with technology playing a much larger in building smart cities a reality,” says Takayuki.

The Future for NEC...

NEC has proven products and solutions that are important part of surveillance solution requirement by customers in India. It has partnered with major system integrators to participate in the surveillance projects in India. The company has also invested into its production facility, entering into new areas like transportation and energy, creating resources and looking for alliances.

At present, several state government are installing CCTV cameras to make cities like Mumbai and Delhi safer. According to NEC, just installing cameras is not a solution as it requires more agility and software. It is hence working with the governments, and is sharing its deep knowledge and expertise cutting edge technology like facial recognition and analytics. “Our business domain covering entire ICT not only has IT but also has security and network; we have the entire portfolio to manage the safe cities. Moreover, NEC is bringing global solutions to make contribution to 100 smart cities initiative. NEC has more than 2000 resources for software and solution development in Bangalore and Chennai. NEC group has different subsidiaries for developing software and solutions around these new avenues,” concludes Takayuki.