ONVIF Launches Education, Enforcement Campaign, To Ensure Product Conformance
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Campaign designed to educate manufacturers about requirements to comply with standardization initiative for IP-based security products
A new proactive education and enforcement campaign to ensure product conformance by manufacturers of IP-based physical security products has been launched by ONVIF, the leading global standardization initiative for IP-based physical security products.
The campaign will help further educate the IP-based security product manufacturing community about the specific requirements of compliance and their ability to advertise individual products as ONVIF conformant, as well as further protect the ONVIF brand and preemptively monitor ONVIF’s copyrights, trademarks, and logos on an ongoing basis.
Currently, the only way to determine a product’s conformance is via the ONVIF website, where listings of conformant products can be easily searched using a variety of criteria. If a product is listed on the An ONVIF website that means that the product has undergone ONVIF’s testing and conformance process, and has been individually certified by ONVIF as conformant. There are currently more than 3,300 individual conformant products listed.
“We recognize that the credibility of the ONVIF brand is crucial to the success of the standard and the organization going forward, therefore we take the protection of this brand very seriously,” said Per Björkdahl, chairman of the ONVIF Steering Committee. “Our objective with this enforcement campaign is to reinforce to the market that the ONVIF name continues to represent interoperability to the market.”
Earlier this year, in an effort to augment these efforts, ONVIF announced that it is adding a new membership level within the standards organization dubbed “Observer.”
According to a statement, this membership level is open to security consultants, systems architects and engineers, as well as members of the media, and is intended to provide these individuals with an opportunity to access Network Interface Specification test tools to be able to independently test products to evaluate their conformance with ONVIF profiles.
“We recognize the importance of making ONVIF as inclusive as possible to those wishing to participate in the conformance verification process,” said Per Bjorkdahl, Chairman of ONVIF’s Steering Committee. “Through the addition of this fourth membership level, we are granting more individuals access to ONVIF’s test tools and empowering them to independently authenticate Profile conformance on products they wish to present to their clients or readers.”
“As a member driven organization we rely very heavily on the efforts of our members to help us develop policies and procedures that ensure the success of ONVIF, both for its members and for the industry at large,” said Stuart Rawling, Vice Chairman, ONVIF Communication Committee. “We encourage anyone who suspects a product of falsely claiming conformance to contact us at help@onvif.org.”
Further information about ONVIF conformant products, including the vendors and the conformant models, is available on ONVIF’s website: www.onvif.org.