Through a newly signed framework, Gothenburg together with six other municipalities on the Swedish west coast, now have easy access to Mindmancers technology for soft surveillance of for instance schools.

– Our product School Guard is included in the contract, but the deal applies to all types of camera surveillance, notes Hasse Djurfeldt, head of sales at Mindmancer.

The municipalities included in this framework are Gothenburg, öckerö, Ale, Stenungsund, Härryda, Kungälv and Tjörn. The contract also includes several municipal companies.

In total there were nine companies bidding for different types of technical security systems, but Mindmancer was the only one to meet all the requirements in the subdivision of camera surveillance set by the municipalities through Gothenburg’s Framework Company.

– There was a rather long list of functional demands. One of the most important was that the system was to have an active soft surveillance that supports actions before anything happens, not only to record video footage to be used as evidence later, says Hasse Djurfeldt.

Another important requirement was that the analytical software needed to be capable of running on the central municipal servers, independent of the individual schools local servers.

– It’s mostly to do privacy protection regulations. It should not be possible to locally access school surveillance facilities without first having good reason to do so. In addition to that the availability is increased and the cost per school is substantially decreased.

With this new framework, Mindmancer becomes the main supplier of camera surveillance services for schools in the two largest cities in Sweden. Previously the company also won the framework contract for Sweden’s largest centralised intelligent camera system with more than 130 cameras for surveillance of schools in Stockholm.

– It’s a good deal for the municipalities notes Hasse Djurfeldt. We expect that a camera system pays for itself within six months for a school in any of the larger urban areas in Sweden.

The deal with the seven Swedish west coast municipalities is valid for two years with an optional extension for a further two years.

– This is naturally a very important deal for Mindmancer and a part of our strategy, but it’s also a good opportunity for these municipalities to defeat vandalism that costs a great deal of money every year at both schools and other municipal buildings, comments Johnny Berlic, CEO of Mindmancer.

– It also feels good to know that the municipalities are buying technology that protects privacy and allows for the possibility to act before anything serious has happened.