San Fran Surveillance
[From In Hard Focus: Getting San Fran Surveillance Right] & [From Schneier on Security: Two Security Camera Studies]
The San Francisco story has generated comments in the blogosphere. While I have not yet read the study, I wanted to comment on a few points.
My general impression (before the report came out) was that San Francisco was a good example of how not to do surveillance. Two significant points here are the lack of real time monitoring and the poor infrastructure. I will have more once I read the report.
Steve over at in Hard Focus points out a couple of things. First, he goes with the glass half full approach in reading the results regarding the effectiveness of the cameras. Next he emphasize that San Francisco should consider improvements in the technology in areas such as image quality, data storage, networked systems, and analytics to make it easier to use the footage.
Schneier reports on a study of Scotland Yard, which shows that “in 90 murder cases over a one year period, CCTV was used in 86 investigations, and senior officers said it helped to solve 65 cases by capturing the murder itself on film, or tracking the movements of the suspects before or after an attack.” (From the Telegraph) This is an interesting study, because it provides a different rationale for supporting cameras. The traditional focus has been that cameras can deter or reduce crime. It will take a bit more analysis and probing to think through this study and figure out exactly what is the contribution of the cameras. (Consider the economic cost of the cameras, whether the crimes would have solved through other forms of evidence, . . .) Nevertheless, it is an interesting idea that needs further research and thought.
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