IRIS ANPR and Digital Evidence Platform – City of Cape Town: Smart Policing
Crime statistics in South Africa paint a grim picture, with the country’s crime index at 75.4 according to an article published by Statista (Cowling, 2024), the highest in Africa and among the highest globally.
In the quest for safer communities, reduced accidents, lower fatality rates and greater transparency among law enforcement officers, modern Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems, body-worn cameras and digital evidence management platforms are playing a pivotal role in addressing the challenges faced in today’s evolving safety and security landscape.
In 2021, TMT collaborated with various law enforcement and private security agencies for a full year to identify their primary challenges. The key issue identified was a lack of sufficient situational awareness required to effectively respond to and combat crime. Recognising this, TMT set out to use technology to improve perception, understanding and response capabilities.
In January 2022, TMT’s Public Safety division launched the IRIS suite of products. Initially comprising two integrated product suites, IRIS introduced a body-worn camera platform focused on digital evidence management and an open ANPR platform designed for flexibility and configurability.
IRIS ANPR was first developed as a vehicle-mounted solution, built upon TMT’s long history of in-vehicle technologies. Support for portable and fixed cameras followed soon after. The vehicle solution supports up to four ANPR cameras and four overview cameras, with live video streaming capabilities to the IRIS control centre.
Equipped vehicles feature an Android-based heads-up display that provides real-time feedback on identified vehicles. The system compares detected number plates with SAPS, eNatis and various LPR user group databases in real time, sending alerts to both control centre operators and drivers when matches are identified. Alerts can also be delivered to a dedicated app used by ground forces or forwarded to messaging platforms such as Telegram, including GPS coordinates, vehicle images and alert details.
The IRIS ANPR platform aims to advance a South African ANPR market that is mature but fragmented. IRIS integrates with any existing ANPR camera, supports multiple makes and models with continuous additions and allows users to create custom Vehicle of Special Interest (VOSI) lists with full auditability linked to specific user accounts. Fixed cameras can also be monitored for notifications and linked to messaging platforms for real-time feedback.
The IRIS platform can also be used for lane enforcement applications, including Bus Lane Enforcement and Vehicle Access Control using Allow Lists.
A research case study conducted by TMT highlighted multiple positive law enforcement outcomes resulting from the IRIS ANPR solution.
During several taxi-related violent incidents in 2023, officers equipped with body-worn cameras and in-vehicle cameras were able to record events, vandalism and other criminal activities. Vehicles involved in the unrest were identified and added to hotlists, and in-field ANPR cameras monitored these vehicles automatically, sending alerts when sightings occurred. This footage has since been used as evidence in court proceedings.
Terrain footage recorded during a search-and-rescue operation following a kidnapping in 2024 enabled officers to document the terrain, identify hazards and assess risk to ensure safety.
Unlike other offerings that focus primarily on hardware, TMT’s body-worn camera solution prioritises efficient and rapid evidence management. All footage is indexed, geo-tagged, encrypted and stored securely. The platform also supports live tracking of body-worn cameras, voice communication with the control centre and fully encrypted data transfer.
Historically, similar digital evidence products required significant ICT infrastructure or costly cloud hosting. TMT addresses this by offering the IRIS platform as a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, with subscription fees per body-worn or ANPR camera, along with a private mobile APN to ensure data integrity and security.
In October 2022, the City of Cape Town selected the IRIS platform for its smart policing initiatives. Since then, the platform has been deployed by SANRAL, Gauteng Province and various public and private entities. Today, the IRIS platform supports more than 2,500 cameras of varying types and capabilities.
Zaid Gangraker, Head of Software Engineering at TMT, stated, “The rapid success and growth of our IRIS platform is a testament to our unique market approach. The rate at which we add new functionality far exceeds that of our competitors.”
TMT, headquartered in Cape Town, is a market leader in Intelligent Mobility Solutions, Traffic Law Enforcement Technology and Community Safety Technologies.
