South Africa’s cellular network giant’s Vodacom Business has partnered with the National Vehicle Intelligence Cloud (NAVIC) to combat crime.
NAVIC provides a cloud-based vehicle intelligence platform for communities, businesses, and government agencies in the fight against crime in South Africa.
The new cloud-based partnership focuses on helping to recover missing persons, stop kidnappings, and rescue animals through the scanning of 120 million license plates monthly.
Prevents and assist in criminal cases
This effort is aimed at preventing criminal activities and assisting law enforcement agencies in apprehending criminals.
The project is activated through the leverage of technology in the interest of public safety.
The project, which is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) via Vodacom Business, NAVIC’s real-time cloud-based vehicle intelligence platform, is also helping public and private security organisations to access and act on important vehicle intelligence with verified alerts processed in seconds.
With modern technology and artificial intelligence (AI), NAVIC cloud integrates data from Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras by processing information and cross-references it with vehicle of interest databases and third-party sources, such as the South African Police Services, for verification systems.
Vodacom Business executive head of AWS Cloud Solutions, Prince Hlatshwayo, gave details of the project.
Positive effect on the communities
“As an organisation that is impact-focused, Vodacom is always thinking about how we can have a positive effect on the communities in which we operate.
“The collaboration between NAVIC, Vodacom Business, and AWS showcases how technology can be harnessed to assist our law enforcers, increase public safety, and benefit South African citizens. As NAVIC continues to expand its ecosystem, we hope to share more wins with them and continue to transform lives.”
André Snyman, NAVIC’s director and head of sales confirmed the project.
“Our national operations centre works closely with public and private security agencies. And it is involved in fighting all manner of crimes, from hijacking to human trafficking. The technology was also integral in solving a number of kidnapping cases. And the NAVIC platform was recently used to help the SPCA rescue 21 dogs and several cats that were being mistreated.
New technology to track and trace anything
“Working with our neighbourhood watch groups, we even managed to help reunite an [older man]. He was suffering from dementia and had gone went missing. Vodacom Business has been instrumental in helping us achieve this. It provided the necessary AWS infrastructure and support to power NAVIC’s operations.”
At this point, NAVIC stores around 7 billion licence plate reads and associated metadata on the AWS cloud. With an average of over 120 million new image reads per month.
This massive data processing capability is made possible by AWS’s near real-time data processing and AI-driven insights. These are crucial for the timely and effective use of ANPR technology.
