Smart Cameras Blog

From EWeek:

The article is a short case study on how the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is rolling out smart camera technology. The notable advances include a car outfitted with smart cameras and ANPR as well as a mobile facial recognition system to aid officers in identifying gang members in the field.

Now the LAPD is testing a patrol car outfitted with $25,000 worth of technology—including in-car video recording, facial-recognition software and roof-mounted license-plate-recognition cameras. Patrolling the streets and highways of L.A., this smart car uses infrared technology to scan the license plates of cars it passes on both the left and right. A computer in the trunk immediately runs the collected information against a database that is updated daily with plate numbers associated with stolen vehicles, felony wanted suspects and Amber Alerts. If a passed car is a match, the officers in the car immediately see the information on their in-car notebook computer, Gomez said. Working continuously for 10 hours, the cameras can automatically scan between 5,000 and 8,000 cars per day, depending on the level of traffic, he said.

Another system includes a portable facial recognition system:

Levesque refers to the Mobile Identifier—which is built by ViewSonic Corp. of Walnut, Calif., with software developed by Neven Vision of Santa Monica, Calif.—as a “traveling mug book.” Levesque is the gang unit’s expert on the Mara Salvatrucha gang. Knowing all the gang’s members, he took the Mobile Identifier loaded with 1,000 mug shots into the field to see if it could identify gang members as well as he could. When a suspect is scanned with the Mobile Identifier, nine possible images appear in order of best match to worst match. Consistently, Levesque said, the device correctly identified the person in either the first or second position. Three hundred officers operate out of the Rampart district, and 12 officers work in the gang unit. Only two of those 12 are experts on a specific gang, Gomez said. Given the success of the test, “I can deploy anybody and make them a gang expert simply by handing them the pod,” he said. “I’ve essentially given Damien’s knowledge to officers who would otherwise not be able to make this arrest.”

rshah ALPR