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April 25, 2008
Privacy Protected Surveillance Using Secure Visual Object Coding
[From Intergovworld.com More privacy-boosting technology begets more video surveillance]
Developed by Karl Martin and Kostas Plataniotis, researchers at the faculty of engineering, their secure visual object coding application uses cryptography techniques to encrypt "objects of interest" within video frames -B faces or other features that may be used to identify a person - and store them separately. In order to view the original complete image, a decryption key is needed to restore the object of interest.
The project web site by Karl Martin shows a number of pictures of the process at work. The idea here is to encrypt either faces or complete bodies as a way to protect privacy. For example, surveillance could be monitored in real-time but faces would be obscured. However, this is reversible if a decryption key is used.
The PET application is an add-on designed to work with a front-end video surveillance system that has object detection capabilities. "Facial detection has been around for a long time to varying degrees of performance. Many vendors already offer it in consumer applications like digital cameras so you can focus on faces when taking photos."They are currently working on implementing their system with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).
Posted by rshah at April 25, 2008 07:36 PM
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