New UK regulatory regulations do not affect monitoring market development

Last week, the British government introduced a new video surveillance regulation. The latest report from IHS stated that the incident will not have an excessive impact on the economic growth of the UK video surveillance equipment market.

According to the report of IHS1 entitled “World Market for CCTV and Video Surveillance Equipment”, the United Kingdom is an important exporter of video surveillance equipment and is the world’s fourth largest regional market after China, the United States, and Japan.

The implementation of the new code provides guidelines for the best practices of public area monitoring systems in England and Wales. However, compliance is voluntary, and breaking the code will not be forced or punished.

"It is expected that the monitoring system in public areas will only account for a very small percentage of British cameras. Most of them will be installed on private property," said Josh Woodhouse, an IHS monitoring market analyst. "Furthermore, even for those equipment suppliers and contractors working in public places, the implementation of the code will not cause much concern. This is because they are already accustomed to complying with stricter regulations in other countries."

For example, some countries have strict data protection regulations that allow video to be stored for a relatively short maximum time. Some countries still have written warnings that must show the nature of video surveillance in that area.

Project installations flourished in the late 1990s, and the new millennium witnessed the rapid growth of the number of surveillance cameras in the UK. Based on video surveillance equipment, model replacement rates, and newly installed shipment data collected from suppliers, IHS estimates that 4 million surveillance cameras were installed in the UK in 2012. This is equivalent to one camera per 16 people.

IHS predicts that the UK video surveillance equipment market will grow between 2013 and 2017 despite the current difficult economic climate. The new installation market will grow, but greater growth will come from the new system's replacement of existing aging systems.

"With new features such as HD compliance, wide dynamic range and day/night functionality, the new system will enhance image quality," Woodhouse said. "Although the UK has installed a large number of systems, suppliers should not overlook the opportunities that the regional market continues to demonstrate."