In-Your-Face Bank Surveillance

Here's an example of a tower camera, marketed by ADT, for the same purpose.

IRIS is a bank surveillance specialist that offers both tower and teller sign cameras, like so:

So why put a dome on a stick when purpose-fit form factors like those above already exist? Price?

When I first saw it passing by, I immediately thought "how customer-friendly!" (NOT)

With the SunTrust bank in question, the entire bank is within a well-lit, large chain grocery store.... there is already surveillance everywhere, both inside and outside the building.

So if a robber was going to hit that bank, it is almost assuredly not a takeover robbery. Odds are, almost all instances where someone has robbed one of their in-store branches, that the perp slinked in like a regular shopper - probably wearing a hat to obscure his face from the numerous overhead cams.

So, the only really effective bank camera angle to provide shots the stores cams can't, is to mount them right on the counter facing up and at an angle towards the face of anyone standing in line.

That said, the placement SunTrust used in this location seems more intended to disuade the average store-bank robber from hitting them in the 1st place, since the cameras are so obviously aiming at their face from only 2 ft away.

Maybe it's an ingenius bank dummy cam array. Didn't see any blinking red lights though....

Go Longhorns?

Note, that is from a tower camera, a good example the difference angle makes from conventional, ceiling mounted cameras.

We used something similar to this for a university to capture pictures for student ID's in the bursar's office, but they were Logitech webcams.

I work for a bank, and I have seen this type of installation before. Cameras mounted directly on, at or near the teller line. Not simply on the wall behind or ceiling above.

We don't do any of this. We have brand and we want our facilities to all have the same clean lines look. So placing a camera on the teller line counter is not going to happen. As far as Charles Dozier's comments about the robbery photo gets all the attention but fraud gets the budget, this is true but there are reasons for this. Today bank robberies are few in comparison to fraud events. Banks get hit with fraud every day. However,your bank branch may not get hit with a robbery but once or twice over a period of years. This explains the budget. However,the reason the robbery image gets the attention is no fraudster has ever walked into a bank waiving a gun and yelling this is a forged check. Every fraud event is non-violent. Many robberies are non-violent as well however a majority of them state, claim, or passa note claiming to have a weapon.