CameraWatch is a new organization that “will support organisations impacted by CCTV and their understanding and compliance with current policy and legislation.”
My hope is they will produce useful data. So far, in a June PR, they asserted that 90% of UK based CCTV systems do not comply with legal requirements
From Lauren Weinstein’s Blog:
Privacy activist Weinstein points out potential privacy issues with the NYC congestion plan.
Of course, such a system is also dandy for building and maintaining a massive database of driver activities for a range of other purposes. This is likely (regardless of any claims of data privacy) to become fodder for all manner of officials and clever attorneys — just as “FasTrak” toll data in the San Francisco Bay Area already has.
. . .
This is the kind of invasive technology — with massive “data creep” potential — that privacy-conscious people should really be concerned about today, not services like Google’s existing Street View application.
It’s time to get our priorities straight, folks.
From Discourse.net:
Froomkin comments on an article in Inside Bay Area on how civil and divorce lawyers are using commuter records from the electronic toll collection system called FasTrak. The article notes:
Subpoenas that MediaNews obtained under the state Public Records Act turned up several cases over the last two years in which the Metropolitan Transportation Commission released FasTrak subscriber records in civil disputes. The records include logs of the date, exact time and bridge where a car using FasTrak rolls through a toll plaza at any of the eight Bay Area spans.
“Part of the reason Fred has not had success . . . is that he takes too much time off,” claimed a woman who sought her husband’s toll activity in one divorce case. “His transponder records . . . will show how little he works.”
. . .
Another divorce lawyer jokingly pleaded with a Times reporter not to write this story, saying it could “ruin a great gig I’ve got going. “With the FasTrak data and maybe credit card receipts, you can put together anybody’s life every day,” said Oakland attorney Matthew Graham. “It’s pretty damaging stuff you can come up with.” He said FasTrak data recently helped him refute claims by a client’s wife that she worked often from home – an issue in a dispute over visitation rights. Graham said he has considered giving up his own FasTrak account.
Since the start, transportation officials have sought to ease privacy concerns, highlighting a policy that bars release of customer data “except as required by law or ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction.” McMillan said the policy is among the tightest of any e-toll system. Neither the privacy policy nor the customer license agreement explains that court orders may include subpoenas in civil cases, which do not require a judge’s approval unless they are contested.
Currently, video surveillance footage is not as useful for these purposes because its not personally identifiable. However, with the emergence of video recognition systems or the combination of video surveillance and sensors (e.g., RFID subway card and a camera), it will only be a matter of time before government camera footage is used in the civil lawsuits. Nevertheless, there are plenty of civil cases where government footage could be useful, I wonder if cities like Chicago have ever turned over camera footage.
From USATODAY.com:
A story analyzing the market for video surveillance from an investment perspective. First, some perspectives:
In 2006, venture capitalists and other investors poured $100 million into late-stage video surveillance technology companies. Experts think the market is ready for consolidation.
Yet while digital video cameras are starting to emerge, more than 90% of cameras today still generate conventional analog images. Generally, that camera is attached to a video recorder or encoding appliance to translate the analog signal to digital. Start-ups making this conversion technology include . . . . These companies also typically offer some form of video analytics to help determine whether an image is important or not.
“We’re going to see more (mergers and acquisitions) from the likes of IBM and Cisco,” said Dilip Sarangan, a research analyst with Frost & Sullivan, a San Antonio-based technology consulting firm. “A lot of the previous M&A activity has been from traditional security players, but now it’s a growth market for information technology firms.”
Breaux Walker, managing director of America’s Growth Capital, an investment bank in San Francisco . . . “I think this is a hyped bubble,” Walker said. “When you look at the market, it’s just not that massive.”
While I don’t have any real knowledge for how fast this market is growing, my feeling is that its not very fast. While smart cameras systems are being installed, it is still a very small part of the market. There are lots of reasons for this, but I think most of these will disappear in the next 5-10 years as IP cameras proliferate and image processing power increases. So while I wouldn’t bet on these round of companies, I think its inevitable that this technology will be deployed.
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