THERE’S heightened concerns in the suburbs with more people than ever decking their homes out with CCTV and security.
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While people are trying to make their homes fortresses with eyes watching over their castles, one local security specialist says people aren’t being proactive enough.
The federal government is encouraging councils and organisations to tap into newly available funding to help increase public safety with CCTV, additional public lighting or bollards.
Tamworth Regional Council’s crime prevention group confirmed to The Leader it would look into securing some mobile CCTV units for the city and outer rural communities.
Chris Dyson, service manager with Advanced Inland Security, says more and more people are seeking out technology to keep an eye on their homes.
Home break and enters have just gone up and up.
- Advanced Inland Security Chris Dyson
Break and enters have been “through the roof” in the last six months, according to Mr Dyson, prompting people to look at more home security.
“I’ve been here 15 years and in the last two years, home break and enters have just gone up and up,” he said.
Cameras in the home were a lot less common just 12 months ago, but that’s what everyone wants now, Mr Dyson says.
While residents are, increasingly, looking to CCTV surveillance in their homes, Mr Dyson said not enough people were being proactive with home security and sought to bolster their residence after something has already happened.
According to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, there were 537 incidents of dwelling break and enters in the Tamworth Regional Council area from July 2016 to June 2017.
Meanwhile, the federal government has floated the idea of bolstering a national facial recognition system, seeking access to state driver’s licence photos to create a “real time” database.
Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said the database would help identify people from CCTV surveillance in shopping centres and stadiums, among other public locations
“Whether it's in homes or in shopping centres or airports or stadiums, but the ability to be able to identify - in real time, or indeed in terms of a past date - whether a particular person has been in there or not, to be able to track them, is vitally important,” Mr Turnbull said.
“So, having a national database so that can all be integrated and accessed in real time is I think, a logical next step. I mean, this is information that is already being accessed.”