Case Study: University of Illinois achieves campus-wide centralized surveillance and faster investigations with Milestone Systems' XProtect

University of Illinois standardizes with Milestone XProtect® platform

The University of Illinois at Urbana‑Champaign, a large urban campus serving roughly 53,000 people daily with more than 400 main facilities, faced decentralized, heterogeneous analog video systems that hampered the 55‑member police department’s ability to respond to thefts and other incidents. With no central inventory or easy access to video, investigators ran multiple incompatible programs and could not efficiently monitor or archive footage across campus.

To solve this, campus IT and public safety implemented Milestone XProtect® on a gradual 3–5 year rollout, standardizing roughly 4,500 IP cameras under a single, vendor‑agnostic management platform with centralized dispatch access and department‑level monitoring. The change sped investigations, enabled rapid recovery of stolen property, supported resource sharing with the local transit authority, and laid the groundwork for centralized storage and access‑control integration, improving overall campus security and operational efficiency.

University of Illinois

Barbara O'Connor

Chief of Police, Executive Director, University of Illinois