September 28, 2007

Brief History of US Surveillance

From ACLU

A nice graphic on the history of surveillance

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September 26, 2007

IBM Smart Camera Vendor for Chicago

From cbs2chicago.com:
Tomorrow (Thursday), Chicago and IBM will announce a partnership to bring IBM's smart camera technology to Chicago. The details are scarce now, but I will update this once I find out more. Here two examples cited in the story for how smart cameras may be used:

For example, the system could be programmed to alert the city's emergency center whenever a camera spots a vehicle matching the description of one being sought by authorities. "Say you've got a report of a white car involved in an incident," said Docknevich. "With analytics and the ability to tag objects and movement you could search for the white cars almost by typing in a query like that at a keyboard."

The system could be programmed to recognize license plates. It could alert emergency officials if the same car or truck circles the Sears Tower three times or if nobody picks up a backpack in Grant Park for, say, 30 seconds. Then the person monitoring the video camera could determine whether police should be sent to check it out, Docknevich said.

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September 24, 2007

A Comparative Perspective on Chicago's cameras

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A story on the difference between Chicago and San Francisco's use of cameras. Its a rich news story with some good facts (fyi - I talked to the reporter). The story points out that in San Francisco, no one watches the camera footage live, they go back and look at it for serious crimes. In contrast, for Chicago, there are always a few people watching the camera feeds and they use the footage for minor crimes like drinking in public. San Francisco is treading lightly, while Chicago wants to make sure its citizens know they are being watched. Here are some interesting snippets:

Chicago police said that, as of the same day, they had used camera footage in 1,407 arrests, including at least five homicides, since the city began tracking data in February 2006.

"If you were to ask me for change for a $20 bill," said Hendricks, a 40-year-old printer, "I wouldn't give you change. "The camera doesn't know I'm giving you change," he continued. "The camera thinks we're doing a drug deal. The police would come out, and I'm not going through that harassment for nothing."

Flyers distributed in neighborhoods detail several camera-related arrests - for shooting dice, for stealing a street sign for scrap metal and for firing a gun. "This is a way to make it much more effective," said police Cmdr. Jonathan Lewin, who heads Chicago's information services division. "It's a more trustworthy source to say, 'Here's an arrest made because of a camera.' It becomes real."

Chicago police acknowledged a problem that San Francisco investigators have linked to their lack of arrests using cameras: When a serious crime is captured, and the footage is looked at later, the images often aren't sharp enough to identify suspects.

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September 22, 2007

Rise of the Robot Cameras

From Forbes.com:
A very nice short article on installations of smart cameras. The article mentions:

Port of Houston (Verint Systems)
The Eiffel Tower (Nice Systems)
New York City Subways (ObjectVideo)
Port of Corpus Christi, Texas (Vistascape)
O2 in London (Ipsotek)
Subway in Stockholm (Axis Communications)

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September 20, 2007

Effectiveness of London's Cameras for Solving Crimes

From Schneier on Security linking to thisislondon.co.uk:
Some politicians in the UK analyzed the number of cameras in particular areas and compared that with the proportion of the crimes solved. They found that police "are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any."

I agree with the many people who noted flaws in the logic and data with this argument. However, I am glad that there are people asking these kinds of questions. Maybe as cameras spread to the US, there will be more American data on the effectiveness of cameras.

Some interesting statistics from the article:

There are now 10,524 CCTV cameras in 32 London boroughs funded with Home Office grants totalling about £200million.
Wandsworth has 993 cameras, Tower Hamlets, 824, Greenwich, 747 and Lewisham 730, but police in all four boroughs fail to reach the average 21 per cent crime clear-up rate for London.
By contrast, boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Sutton and Waltham Forest have fewer than 100 cameras each yet they still have clear-up rates of around 20 per cent.

Quotes from comments on Schneier's blog on the flaws with the study:

To show that cameras do not help, you need to compare statistics for the same place before and after cameras were introduced. The article compares the resolution of crimes in areas differing concentrations of cameras to a mythical "average crime solving rate". Since crime is known to vary strongly by area anyway, the conclusions are void.

what is it that makes those areas have more cameras?
what are the crimes in the different areas, are the crimes different between the areas of high and low surveillance?
Do the introduction of cameras change the type of crime. Are there trends of crime changing as more cameras are introduced.
Percentages are one thing but what are the actual figures.
And glaringly missing are the figures over time. ie How do the percentages of solved crimes change as more cameras are introduced. Did they stay the same even when more cameras where introduced.
What are the national averages of solving crimes for all the particular crimes in each area.

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September 17, 2007

Murders Up in Chicago

From chicagotribune.com:
The annual crime statistics for 2006 have been released. In Chicago murders were up 4% to 467 from 450. For several years, the efficacy of the surveillance cameras was justified by the dropping of murders from 2003 to 2004. Since then murders have held steady and now increased.

One interpretation could be that the camera effect has worn off. The better interpretation is that cameras have very little influence on violent crime. The dip from 2003 to 2004 was due to many factors other than the cameras. (IMHO - I study technologies and not crime)

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September 16, 2007

Sense Through The Wall Technology

From BBC NEWS:
A roundup of smart camera technology by the BBC has something new:

"Each individual has a characteristic profile," explained Ian, holding a green rectangular box that looked like a TV remote control. Using radio waves, you point it a wall and it tells you if anyone is on the other side. His company, Oceanit, is due to test it with the Hawaiian National Guard in Iraq next year, and it turns out that the human body gives off such sensitive radio signals, that it can even pick up breathing and heart rates.

"First, you can tell whether someone is dead or alive on the battlefield," said Ian. "But it will also show whether someone inside a house is looking to harm you, because if they are, their heart rate will be raised. And 10 years from now, the technology will be much smarter. We'll scan a person with one of these things and tell what they're actually thinking."

I found out a bit more on the Oceanit web site in another news story by KGMB9:

Local company Oceanit has a two-year, $1 million contract to develop technology to keep soldiers safe as they sweep through a town or go house to house. It will be a hand-held unit that looks something like the tricorders "Star Trek Next Generation" troops used. "You go out there and you hit your buttons, and you kind of wait, take a reading of the building and then based on that, you do something," Sullivan said.

The technology uses radio waves, "so it bounces off them and from that we can determine heart rate, respiration and where they are," he added.

The company used similar technology in an earlier project to develop a sort of "Star Trek" bed, where a patient's vital signs are taken, without even touching the patient. Firefighters could also use the technology in a rescue to determine if there's anyone alive in a burning building.

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September 02, 2007

Video Surveillance of Public Places

From Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.
Offering a guide by the U.S. Department of Justice on the use of video surveillance or CCTV as a problem-oriented policing response to a crime problem. It is written by Jerry Ratcliffe.

This guide explores the benefits and problems associated with CCTV and summarizes the findings of numerous CCTV evaluations (see appendices A and B).
. . .
Although some see CCTV as a panacea to crime and disorder in public places, others view the growth of CCTV as an intrusion, with visions of an Orwellian 'Big Brother' invading personal privacy. This guide will help you better understand the effectiveness of CCTV and address some constitutional and privacy concerns. The guide's two appendices (A and B) summarize much of the available research about the effectiveness of CCTV as a crime control measure. After you read this guide, you should not only be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of CCTV in a public setting, but also be able to answer many of the public's concerns.

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