A Cape Town company believes it has found a way to help security teams stop crimes before they happen by teaching CCTV cameras to adapt to local conditions.
Using artificial intelligence (AI), Safeza's Swiss-developed AVA-X surveillance software promises to scan thousands of hours of video footage within seconds, recognize faces and objects, monitor suspicious behavior in real-time, and alert security teams before incidents escalate.
In a country where violent crime dominates daily life and investigators often spend days sifting through bad CCTV footage, the promise of faster, smarter policing is gaining attention locally and internationally.
However, experts warn that while AI can strengthen surveillance investigations and improve response times, it could also deepen privacy concerns, reinforce racial bias and lead to a dangerous reliance on the technology if not properly regulated.
Armand de Beer, founder and CEO of Safeza AVA-X (Pty) Ltd, said the company was born out of frustration with South Africa's crime crisis and outdated security systems.
“South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, and the truth is that our current security systems are mostly reactive – they record what happens, but they don't help prevent it,” De Beer said. “Investigators are spending hours, sometimes days, manually reviewing CCTV footage to locate a single face or vehicle. We want to change that.”
The biggest difference is that our system runs entirely on your own infrastructure. Your data never leaves your premises, never goes to a cloud server, and is never accessible to us or any third party
— Armand De Beer, Founder and CEO of Safezza
The company's name reflects that mission. Safeza means “Safe South Africa”. De Beers described the technology as “transforming standard CCTV cameras into intelligence aggregators”.
Its software is divided into three systems:
- Sentinel Investigations allows investigators to search archived CCTV footage almost instantly using facial, object or appearance descriptions.
- Sentinel Live monitors live camera feeds and flags unusual activity or known suspects in real time.
- Sentinel Access uses facial recognition to control entry into secure locations.
To explain how the technology could work in practice, De Beers took the example of a shopping center repeatedly targeted by armed robbers.
“Investigators can upload a suspect’s description or image to our Sentinel Investigation platform and search the entire archived CCTV library in seconds instead of days,” he said.
“Meanwhile, Sentinel Live is monitoring all live camera feeds in real time. If someone matching the flagged profile enters the premises, the system immediately alerts the security team so they can respond.”
The company said its technology differs from many global AI monitoring systems because it runs completely on-site rather than relying on cloud servers.
De Beers said, “The biggest difference is that our system runs entirely on your own infrastructure. Your data never leaves your premises, never goes to a cloud server, and is never accessible to us or any third party.”
“We also do not rely on OpenAI, Google, or any big-tech platform. Our AI models were developed independently in Switzerland and have been validated in real operational environments, including in European law enforcement.”
International recognition
The start-up recently received international recognition after being selected to present at the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Washington DC, organized by the US Department of Commerce. Out of over 230 companies globally, Safezza was selected among the top 48 finalists and won in the SelectTech Defense category.
“In that room, we, along with eight other innovative defense companies, pitched to US governors, senators and major investors,” De Beers said. “For a South African start-up, this is a remarkable recognition.”
This technique has been used in one of the world's most high-profile missing persons investigations. According to De Beers, the company's Swiss technology partner assisted investigators after a Polish woman made the claim Madeleine McCannBritish child who disappeared in Portugal in 2007. Using facial recognition analysis, the system concluded that it was “practically impossible” for the woman to be McCann.
“The system clearly differentiates between two different queries, which is exactly what you need from a forensic-grade tool,” De Beer said. “That result was covered internationally and remains one of the clearest public demonstrations of what our technology can do in a real-world, high-risk missing persons context.”
For many South Africans living with daily fear of kidnapping, robbery and violent attacks, the appeal of such technology is understandable. Private security companies play a growing role in communities where policing resources are scarce and AI-powered surveillance is being seen as a potential force multiplier.
Our goal is to make technology built and proven in South Africa's toughest conditions a real tool to make South African communities safer
— Sparkly Mokgosi, Safeza Senior Consultant
De Beers believes that technology can fundamentally change the way security teams operate.
“Real-time anomaly detection means security teams can take action before a crime occurs, not just after,” he said. “For communities that are most vulnerable to violent crime, the shift from reactive to proactive policing could be truly life-changing.”
Safeza, which is looking to ensure a commercial rollout, told TimesLIVE the technology has been adapted to South African conditions.
“The Swiss-engineered foundation we started with is excellent, but there are specific challenges in South Africa: extreme lighting conditions, high-density environments and the type of crime you don't encounter in Europe,” said Sparkly Mokgosi, its senior advisor.
“We are building our local deployment specifically to train AI on South African data. Our goal is to build the world's most stress-tested AI video intelligence system and South Africa, with all its complexity and difficulty, is the perfect environment to do so.”
“We are also working across road safety, retail, critical infrastructure and private security, so the impact is not limited to one area. Our vision is for technology built and proven in South Africa's toughest conditions to become a real tool to make South African communities safer.”
Experts emphasize use of AI to fight crime
Professor Mpho Primus, co-director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligent Systems at the University of Johannesburg, warned against seeing AI as a cure for crime.
“Crime is not just a pattern-recognition problem,” he said. “It is linked to inequality, unemployment, institutional weakness, infrastructure failure and social fragmentation.”
Primus said AI systems can improve efficiency by helping security teams quickly process large amounts of information and identify unusual patterns. However, technology alone cannot fix broken systems.
“If the underlying institutional systems are weak, AI simply exacerbates those weaknesses,” he said. “There is also a misconception that more surveillance automatically equals more security. It doesn't.”
He said facial recognition systems carry serious ethical risks because they may inherit biases from the data used to train them.
“These systems are not neutral,” Primus said. “In African contexts, this concern becomes even more acute as African populations remain under-represented in many global AI datasets.”
Dr Nicholas Baikie, senior lecturer in physical sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, agreed that AI surveillance has strong potential, but warned that mistakes could have devastating human consequences.
I often consider how powerless someone in that situation would feel, effectively coping with a system with a purported 99% accuracy rate, where being part of the remaining 1% could have life-altering consequences.
— Dr Nicholas Baikie, Wits University
“The critical issue is not just system performance, but how video analytics outputs are interpreted, validated, and integrated into rigorous human-led decision-making processes,” Becky said.
He warned that people incorrectly identified by facial recognition systems could suffer life-changing consequences.
“In my opinion, the major ethical concern is the risk of false accusations, arrests, imprisonment, and similar harms. I often consider how powerless someone in that situation would feel, effectively facing a system with a 99% accuracy rate, where being part of the remaining 1% can have life-altering consequences.”
Legal experts have also questioned whether South Africa is fully prepared for widespread AI-powered surveillance.
Simon Dippenaar & Associates said South Africa lacks a robust national facial image database linked to criminal records.
“At present, the SA Police Service lacks a robust, centralized database of mugshots linked to criminal records, so even if an offender is caught on camera, there may be no match,” the firm said.
The firm also warned about privacy risks and racial bias. “Facial recognition software has been found to misidentify people of color,” it said.
Despite concerns, government interest in AI-powered policing tools is growing. During the 2025 State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that South Africa planned to adopt “surveillance, analytics and smart policing solutions for modern law enforcement”.
Asked about concerns surrounding this technology, Mokgosi said: “Facial recognition and AI surveillance are powerful tools, and like any powerful tool, they carry real risks if deployed without potential for misuse, bias, false positives, erosion of privacy, or proper oversight. These are legitimate concerns and we take them seriously.
“Our response to them is structural: human-in-the-loop oversight means a person is always in the decision chain. Full auditability means every action can be reviewed and challenged. POPIA compliance means the legal framework for data protection applies to every deployment. We're not building a system that operates in the dark. We're building a system that can be scrutinized, interrogated, and held accountable.” Could.”
For Sefza, the goal goes beyond international recognition or commercial success. “Our core philosophy says it in the name,” De Beers said. “We want to protect our communities, our friends, our families in South Africa.”
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