1. An automated surveillance system, comprising: one or more media capture devices that capture media, and that generate media metadata and alarms; a graphical user interface communicating the alarms and the captured media to security personnel together with alarm handling rules; and a learning module that iteratively learns operation sequences executed by the security personnel during the handling of a set of alarms, extracts alarm handling rules from the operation sequences, and presents the alarm handling rules to the security personnel via said graphical user interface, wherein said learning module presents the alarm handling rules to the security personnel as a possible automation, and the system uses the rules to automate at least part of the alarm handling process when the security personnel expresses agreement with the automation via said graphical user interface.