Citycom Employs Facial, Object Recognition for Covid Remote Working Security Checks

UK-based technology provider Citycom Solutions has created a solution that combines different monitoring and audio-visual recognition tools to solve some of the compliance challenges created by traders and other financial markets professionals working from home, outside of their highly controlled office environments during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Citycom’s new solution, dubbed Remote Supervision & Control, combines several risk factors into one dashboard for management, risk, and compliance. The solution will determine whether an employee is adhering to security practices without the same controls being in place, and behaving appropriately outside of their usual professional environment, as well as whether they are meeting performance expectations, or showing signs of stress, or mental health issues.

Specifically, it combines third-party facial and object recognition systems to confirm the identity of the employee and to recognize what they are doing, with voice and video analytics to determine whether others are present, and anything happening around them that could constitute a breach of security policies, as well as with Citycom’s own transcription search and audio analytics tools.

CEO Mark Whiteman says Citycom developed the solution in response to client demand for a product to help manage the challenges of financial professionals working remotely.

Previously, Citycom had focused just on the analysis of voice and text data. “We had been encouraged to look at video, but I couldn’t see how we could monetize that. But with Covid, after the initial shock of working from home, furloughs and layoffs [across the industry], I thought about how this could impact Citycom, our clients, and the markets,” Whiteman says. “We had a number of calls around a month ago with the heads of operational risk and chief compliance officers at major banks, and they all said remote working is a concern.”

This concern stems from the use of new technologies that may not have the same security controls as those found in their corporate environment and the lack of in-workplace controls that existed in their previous work environments.

“Traders used to have to swipe a security pass to enter their building, swipe another to get into their office, they sat among colleagues where they had risk and compliance tools and policies, and professionals walking around monitoring them. It was a very secure and compliant environment. Then suddenly, that is all gone, and they are expected to do the same work in a non-regulated environment,” Whiteman says.

Companies can use the solution to review an employee’s previous day’s activity, rather than to monitor their activity in real-time.

Facial recognition can confirm the video caller is the employee they claim to be, and can also register other people that enter the camera frame—either flagging any unknown people as a security concern or recognizing anyone already in its database (such as a trader’s spouse). Object recognition can determine whether the employee is holding items that might be prohibited or a security concern, such as a cell phone, or a piece of paper with writing on it—things that a trader might use to avoid audio recording or transcription tools. Now, a transcript would reflect that a stranger was recorded entering the room, or that the trader was holding an item—and in the case of something written, what the writing said.

The solution also has other potential benefits for companies and employees. If an employee’s videoconferencing usage drops, or if they become visibly tense, or swear more than usual, this is a way of flagging that an employee may be under stress and underperforming, before it shows up in regular performance assessments. “It will pick up inappropriate behavior, as well as whether someone is well or not,” Whiteman says. “By the time you see their performance go down, it’s too late. This is a good way of managing that before it happens.”

Though the solution has applications for other industries, such as healthcare, pharmaceutical manufacturing, call centers, and education, among others, Whiteman says Citycom will initially focus on risk within the investment banking sector. Conversations with potential clients will determine exactly how those firms want to prioritize usage.

“Our early conversations are around replacing supervisory controls. For example, if someone is working from home, how do we know who it is, what they’re doing, and who they’re with?” Whiteman says.