Surveillance systems are generally intended for the protection of physical objects such as stationary installations and transport vehicles. Development of surveillance systems is an extensive development process, which involves considerations of a large number of design aspects that relates to a variety of disciplines, e.g. sensors systems, communications, decision-support functionality, multimedia usage and design and user interaction. Furthermore, there is an extensive need for a comprehensive understanding of the usage domain. Needs and requirements analyses are of utmost importance when developing surveillance systems. The objective of the work presented is a generic architecture for surveillance systems. The outline of the architecture is based on needs assessment and on analysis of required capabilities. The architecture comprehensively describes how surveillance capabilities are achieved by processes, actors and systems support.