The use of smart surveillance technologies for suicide prevention in public spaces: a professional stakeholder survey from the United Kingdom

Background: Around a third of suicides in the United Kingdom occur in public spaces, such as on the railways, at bridges, or coastal locations. Increasingly, the use of Artificial Intelligence and other smart technologies are being proposed as a means of optimising or automating aspects of the surveillance process in these environments. Yet relatively little is known about how they are being used for suicide prevention and the realities of deploying these systems in public spaces.
Methods: 108 professional stakeholders across the UK completed an online survey to understand how smart surveillance technologies are being deployed across different types of public spaces to (also) prevent suicides. Through a series of multiple choice and open-ended questions, participants were also asked about the perceived benefits, limitations, and biggest barriers of implementing these technologies for suicide prevention reasons.
Results: 72 examples of smart surveillance technology were identified, with around two-thirds at “high-risk” locations. Motion-activated CCTV, cameras with AI analytics, and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras were the most commonly identified technologies. More than half of systems alerted a control room when activated (58%), and the majority of all identified systems (80%) initiated a human-led response.
Qualitative analysis suggests that these technologies can help guide real-time or future rescue responses. However, the importance of ensuring technology met the needs of a location was raised, with many originally designed for other purposes (e.g., crime prevention). Furthermore, several participants indicated technology alone could not prevent suicides, and felt a human response was still required. This, however, presented challenges such as the feasibility of delivering rapid responses. Barriers to installation and other challenges, including ethical and legal concerns, were also raised.
Conclusions: The present findings suggest that smart surveillance technologies have the potential to aide suicide prevention efforts but are unlikely to replace other measures. The findings highlight the importance of engaging with other stakeholders, including staff who lead the response or work with the systems day-to-day and people with lived experience of suicide. Furthermore, environmental factors, existing infrastructure and the processes surrounding the use of these tools may also influence their effectiveness as a suicide prevention measure when deployed in real-world settings.

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