Smart Cameras Blog

[From New Video Surveillance Cameras - High-Tech Law Enforcement Spying Programs - Popular Mechanics]

Great article, here are some interesting snippets:

Liberty Island’s video cameras all feed into a computer system. The park doesn’t disclose details, but fully equipped, the system is capable of running software that analyzes the imagery and automatically alerts human overseers to any suspicious events. The software can spot when somebody abandons a bag or backpack. It has the ability to discern between ferryboats, which are allowed to approach the island, and private vessels, which are not. And it can count bodies, detecting if somebody is trying to stay on the island after closing, or assessing when people are grouped too tightly together, which might indicate a fight or gang activity. “

My heist had been condoned by Pedro Ramos, Pathmark’s vice president of loss prevention, though he didn’t know precisely when or where I was going to attempt it. The beer was identified by an object-recognition scanner at ankle level—a LaneHawk, manufactured by Evolution Robotics—which prompted the cashier’s question. Overhead, a camera recorded the incident and an alert was triggered in Ramos’s office miles away on Staten Island. He immediately pulled up digital video and later relayed what he saw. “You concealed a 12-pack of Coronas on the bottom of the cart by strategically placing newspaper circulars so as to obstruct the view of the cashier.” (Using Storevision)

But examples abound. Take E-ZPass. Drivers signed up for the system to speed up toll collection. But 11 states now supply E-ZPass records—when and where a toll was paid, and by whom—in response to court orders in criminal cases. Seven of those states provide information in civil cases such as divorce, proving, for instance, that a husband who claimed he was at a meeting in Pennsylvania was actually heading to his lover’s house in New Jersey. (New York divorce lawyer Jacalyn Barnett has called E-ZPass the “easy way to show you took the offramp to adultery.”)

rshah Applications, General

From I.B.M. System to Scan Streets at Beijing Olympics – New York Times

A short piece noting that IBM’s Smart Surveillance System, or S3 will be used in China and Chicago. It notes that S3 is being integrated into Chicago and the network is already rolled out in China. It will be operational by the time the Olympics begin in August 2008.

rshah Chicago

From The Art of Surveillance, Wired has a story in its culture section with 11 images relating to surveillance.

Also, Newsweek ran a story on the new documentary film, Look by Adam Rifkin, that shows the impact of surveillance by relying entirely on surveillance footage. The web site has some good info and the writers have blogs. Right now the film is only in a few cities, hopefully at some point they will release a DVD (it will never come to a theater near me).

rshah General

[From In Chicago, Cameras Now Required for Nightclubs at SecurityInfoWatch.com]

The City Council voted last month to require all late-hour liquor establishments, including bars, clubs and restaurants, to operate with an exterior safety plan that includes security cameras, personnel training, outdoor lighting and measures designed to reduce criminal activity. Under the ordinance, businesses are required to:

- Install surveillance cameras at entrances and exits. Cameras will record from 1 to 6 a.m. Recordings are required to be kept for 72 hours.

. . .

Daniel Sullivan, general manager of Charlie’s Chicago, a 4 a.m. bar in Lakeview, said the bar already tries to keep its music low and ensure patrons leave the bar quietly and safely. Sullivan said he installed cameras at the bar for $15,000 — though he disagrees with that tenet of the ordinance.

“It’s an invasion of privacy,” Sullivan said. “But what are you going to do?”

rshah Chicago