Campus Safety

New U Illinois Surveillance System Includes Officer iPod App

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/14/10

Police at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign will be purchasing a new surveillance camera management system and outfitting its officers with an iPod app that will give them access to the video images.

The university's Division of Public Safety recently obtained a $100,000 commitment from the chancellor, according to a statement on its Web site, to purchase a "state of the art camera system which will dramatically increase our ability to identify, locate and arrest offenders." The cameras will be placed in locations that historically have had higher crime rates and other areas that might benefit from video security.

The police department also received two large donations totaling $25,000 to purchase iRa C3, a video console application from LexTech Labs. The application lets a user view up to 12 live video feeds simultaneously through a Web interface and up to six feeds on an iPhone or iPod touch through a wireless Internet connection. The donation included a grant from Alex Bratton, a university alumnus and CEO of LexTech.

The company has been working with police at the university to incorporate the vendor's video surveillance into its security infrastructure since August 2009.