Smart Cameras Blog

From NBC5:

At a news conference at the Office of Emergency Management and Communications center, 1411 W. Madison St., OEMC Executive Director Ron Huberman, Harrison Area Deputy Chief of Patrol Charles Williams and Harrison District tactical unit officers displayed how a narcotics exchange caught on camera led to three arrests Feb. 9 at 4422 W. Madison St. The arrested were Evette Sanders, 49, of West Chicago, Ruby Moore, 46, of West Chicago, and Oscar Scott, 42, of Maywood.

The article notes the Sentri cameras use a gunshot detection system, night vision, bulletproof casing, and are connected wirelessly to the OEMC Center.

Here is how the arrests occured:

Information Services Sgt. Gregory Hoffman was monitoring surveillance cameras at the Operations Center when he said he noticed the suspects engaging and soliciting passersby at 4422 W. Madison St. for about 15 minutes. From a camera a block away, Hoffman observed a hand-to-hand transaction being made the morning of Feb. 9, and then contacted Harrison District Tactical Sgt. Michael Stack, Hoffman said at the news conference.

Another transaction was made with a man who jumped back into his car with the drugs in his pocket, and a third was made with a woman who walked away into a vacant lot with her purchase, according to Hoffman.

Stack and his team of plain-clothes officers, who went to the scene from the Harrison District headquarters after being called by Hoffman, made the three arrests without incident within 20 minutes after receiving the call, Stack said. Two of those arrested were a man and a woman dealing at the site, while the third arrest was the woman seen buying drugs, according to Hoffman. He did not know the names of which suspects were selling and which was a buyer. Twelve packets of heroin were recovered from the suspects, according to an OEMC news release.

The article notes the cameras can focus several blocks away allowing officers to see faces, read lips, and even the hair on a hand. This allows them to pinpoint where suspects are carrying drugs on their body.

rshah Chicago, Gunshot Detection

In a recent case a school is being sued, because it had cameras in a girls locker room that were accessible via the Internet with their default password. According to the story:

Fredrik Nilsson, Axis’s general manager for the United States, points out that Axis cameras are installed with a default password, and it is up to the owners to make the cameras more or less secure.

“Just to give some perspective, we have delivered close to half a million cameras, and a Google search produces only a few hundred of them,” Mr. Nilsson said. He acknowledges that default passwords to many camera systems, including those of Axis, are frequently traded over the Internet. Nevertheless, he maintains, Axis cameras are secure against accidental intrusion.

A lawyer for the school acknowledged in court papers that school officials never changed the video server’s password from its default setting.

“The real scandal is why these Webcams are insecure,” Ms. Newitz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said. “This is just really, really sloppy. It is one thing for an employer to place employees under surveillance, but to take no effort to keep the Webcam access limited just to the workplace is really reprehensible.”

rshah General

From Spyblog:

Public CCTV surveillance schemes do not cut crime, or the fear of crime:

BBC and other media reports about a Home Office study into the effectiveness of CCTV surveillance spy cameras, chaired by Professor Martin Gill of the the University of Leicester, seem to bear out previous studies,which show that public CCTV camera surveillance schemes do not actually cut crime or the fear of crime.

We will link to the actual study if and when we can find it on the labyrinthine Home office website.

Thursday, 24 February, 2005, 14:03 GMT

CCTV systems ‘fail to cut crime’

Most CCTV fails to cut crime or make people feel safer, according to a research study.

Experts at the University of Leicester studied 14 systems across the country on behalf of the Home Office. They found only one area saw a drop in the number of incidents which could be attributed to CCTV. Professor Martin Gill, from the university, said: “Overall, areas have encountered real difficulties in using CCTV to good effect.”

The study showed the only crime decrease attributable to CCTV focussed on reducing vehicle crime in car parks. Systems covered by the research included those in town centres, city centres, hospitals and residential areas. Professor Gill, from the university’s criminology department, said: “For supporters of CCTV these findings are disappointing. “For the most part CCTV did not produce reductions in crime and it did not make people feel safer.”

Staffing levels

Researchers said control room operation was an important factor in a CCTV system’s ability to detect crime. About half of the control rooms involved were staffed for less than 24 hours a day

Professor Gill said: “The truth is that CCTV is a powerful tool that society is only just beginning to understand. “It looks simple to use, but it is not. It has many components, and they can impact in different ways. “It is more than just a technical solution; it requires human intervention to work to maximum efficiency and the problems it helps deal with are complex.”

rshah General

Forbes has a story on G2 Tactics technology that can scan license plates on cars moving at 60mph. Teh technology designed by Andrew Bucholz is called Grand Larceny Auto Video Detection System (GLAVID). It can read the license plate of passing vehicles and compare it to the National Crime Information Center record of stolen cars.

The cameras sell for 25,000 and so far 17 have been bought, but only 2 to a law enforcement agency. The cameras are instead being used in cities such as New Haven, Conn. to identify people with outstanding parking tickets or personal property taxes. In New Haven, the camera has generated 500,000 in city revenue from overdue parking tickets and motor vehicle taxes.

More details of the camera and its technology for search multiple databases can be found here.

It notes that cameras can be used to search for BAD GUYS on the following lists:

Stolen Autos

Amber Alerts

Felony and Misdemeanor Warrants

Gang Members

Missing Persons

Revoked Driver’s License

First found at Arstechnica

rshah Vendors

Cernium offers Perceptrak, from their web site:

Perceptrak 3.0 is a complete enterprise system that immediately alerts security personnel to potentially dangerous or suspicious events through real-time behavior recognition and intelligent video analysis of live video. The software is capable of detecting 16 events, including erratic human behaviors, lurching automobiles, left-behind objects and much more. Perceptrak allows one person to monitor dozens or even hundreds of cameras effectively and can provide rapid return on investment through personnel efficiencies and reduced incidents. Perceptrak is the leader in the industry, analyzing and recording 16 cameras on a single PC.

rshah Vendors

From Politech, another example of the red light cameras fining the wrong car. In this case, they misread the license plate. Richard Diamond points out that the city had kept the footage of this incident for 5 months and even sent it to a reporter. Link to Sun-Times story.

rshah Chicago, Red Light Cameras

Smartconnect provides software for video surveillance of point of sale (POS) terminal data. Through a web based interface, you can view camera footage. The software combines the camera footage with POS data in real time. This allows you to see all the customers that buy tuna salad sandwiches, how long the cash drawer is open, or watch certain employees.

Here is a screenshot:

rshah Vendors

Mentioned in the March 2005 Wired

Vistascape

At VistaScape Security Systems, video surveillance enters a new dimension. Our SiteIQ™ surveillance solution displays a bird’s eye view of your entire physical environment on one screen, enabling you to grasp your security situation as never before. We secure facilities with or without existing perimeter barriers by combining input from multiple cameras with other sophisticated, site-specific sensor data. Then we apply your customized security policies in real-time, pinpointing potential security violations before they occur. Unlike traditional surveillance systems that depend heavily on the judgment of security personnel, our automated alerts enable guards to respond more quickly than ever.

rshah Vendors

Cicero is planning to install surveillance cameras that can stream video to squad cars.

From the trib:

Town officials listened this week to representatives of one company that has installed surveillance systems in Calumet City and Country Club Hills. The firm, South Holland-based Public Safety Communications Inc., also is in the process of installing a system in Cook County as part of its Homeland Security initiative.

One feature of the pole-mounted, wireless cameras is their portability, enabling authorities to deploy them in different areas, said company president Clarence Brownlow. The cameras can detect chemicals and have “shot spotter” sensors that zoom in on areas where gunshots are heard, Brownlow said

Cicero is looking to install the first camera in the next two months, and to eventually have three to five cameras, said Duque. He estimated the cost at $50,000 per camera, and said the town will seek federal funding to defray the expense.

rshah Chicago

Smart Software Gives Surveillance Eyes a ‘Brain’ (Feb 2004)

Randal Nelson at the University of Rochester is working on software for cameras that looks for things. While the software can:

Though a six-month-old baby can distinguish different objects from different angles, getting a computer to do it is a Herculean task of processing, and more complicated still is identifying a simple object in a complicated natural setting like a room bustling with activity.

Unlike the baby, the software needs to be told a lot about an object before it’s able to discern it. Depending on how complex an object is, the software may need anywhere from one to 100 photos of the object from different angles. Something very simple, like a piece of paper, can be “grasped” by the program with a single picture; a soda can may take half a dozen, while a complex object like an ornate lamp may need many photographs taken from different angles to capture all its facets. With those images in mind, the software matches the new object it sees with its database of object to determine what the new object is.

This technology has been licensed to PL E-Communications, LLC., which has plans to develop the technology to control video cameras for security applications. For instance, CEO Paul Simpson is looking into using linked cameras covering a wide area to exchange information about certain objects, be they suspicious packages in an airport or a suspicious truck driving through a city under military control. Even unmanned aerial reconnaissance drones like the Predator that made headlines during the current Iraqi war can use the technology to keep an eye on an area for days at a time, noting when and where objects move.

rshah Vendors