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.
rshah General
From Digital Communities:
A story on video analytics or smart cameras that appears largely based on a report by Dilip Sarangan, a research analyst for Frost & Sullivan. The report is titled Video Analytics: The Ground Reality. I haven’t read it and I missed the briefing on the report back in October. The story covers the basic uses and markets for smart cameras.
The story has a few interesting facts:
Some estimates put around 30 million video surveillance cameras in the United States, shooting four billion hours of footage each week.
The video surveillance industry has grown into a $160 billion global industry, especially after homeland security efforts after 9/11, where the federal government has poured money into video surveillance.
The New York City Police Department operates its own network of 3,000 cameras. Chicago has also received grant funds from the DHS and built a “Homeland Security Grid” of 2,250 cameras, with plans to add even more cameras in the coming years. Baltimore and New Orleans also have thousands of cameras throughout the cities.
Municipalities that deploy Wi-Fi networks can often utilize the infrastructure to greatly reduce the cost of deploying video cameras across a city. And emerging mobile video capabilities are going to play an increasing role for police and emergency responder.
rshah General
From WSJ.com:
The latest Harris poll shows that 70% of Americans favor expanded video surveillance. This is a high for video surveillance.
The question with the historical data:
Here are some increased powers of investigation that law enforcement agencies might use when dealing with people suspected of terrorist activity, which would also affect our civil liberties. For each, please say if you would favor or oppose it.
Expanded camera surveillance on streets and in public place
rshah General
From The Detroit News Online:
An article about the smart cameras at San Francisco International Airport. It points out the basic uses for cameras such as “two airport workers scooting through a security door at the same time, when they should enter one at a time, or a vehicle parked too long at a place where it shouldn’t be.”
But for much more detail on the smart cameras at the airport, see the webinar by Vidient. It has lots of great information. The airport evaluated 18 cameras for 7 different behaviors. The final results were a > 91% accuracy rate with over 700 staged events and a 1% false detection rate.
The tested behaviors included:
Exit Lane Detection
Baggage Jam Detection
Baggage Inspection Table
Access Controlled doors
Vehicle Access Control
Large Stationary Vehicle
Stationary Vehicle
This was sponsored by Homeland Security and a sanitized version of the report will be available at some point.
rshah General, Vendors
Inspired by the Cincinnati Post:
Its something sociologists have long recognized, but its talked about very little. When cameras go up in one area, some crime may just move to another area. The term for this is displacement.
“We’ve never really gotten anything useful from them,” said Cincinnati Police Capt. Kimberly Frey. With hopes that they would be a boon for crime-fighting, the city first installed video cameras in 1998. By 2000, their utility was already in doubt. A review by the University of Cincinnati that year found the devices accomplished little beyond shifting criminals out of areas under the lens into unwatched spots, where they resumed their illegal activities.
While the police captain is shaking his head, the academic review provides some key insights. Some of results of the study were published in Security Journal by Mazerolle, Hurley, and Chamlin (I believe the Cincinnati study was done for David Hurley’s dissertation):
Our study of CCTV in Cincinnati found that surveillance cameras create somewhat of an initial deterrent effect in the month, perhaps two months, following implementation. We conclude that erecting signs to notify people about the cameras could possibly increase the level of deterrence of CCTV. Signs about CCTV cameras in operation would also address some of the fairness issues raised by civil libertarians. We also suggest that shifting CCTV cameras around on a frequent basis could solve two dilemmas: first, it would increase the number of hotspots under surveillance, and hence remove some of the inequities observed in CCTV deployment; second, short and periodic, as opposed to permanent, deployment of CCTV cameras would capitalize upon some of the initial deterrent effects of the cameras that are observed in our data.
The recommendations seem solid to me and should be considered by those deploying cameras. (And this shows the value of allowing academics to study the deployment of crime fighting technology).
rshah General
From Scripps Howard News Service:
This is an excellent article on government video surveillance. It covers several issues including the growth of cameras, regulation (or lack of), effectiveness, and the privacy implications. The article really doesn’t discuss smart cameras (but includes quotes from yours truly).
rshah General
Story on masslive.com about guidelines for camera usage. The rules were modeled on rules adopted in Chicago.
I couldn’t find the Chicago rules online, but I found two others. Middletown, NY and State College, PA
Update:
John Hopkins policy statement
Update 2:
San Luis Obispo policy and news story about it
rshah General, Policy
From Public Eye:
A nice article on the emerging role of smart cameras by transit agencies from the New York Times. It notes that the goal is to use smart cameras to help prevent crime, instead of the traditional use of cameras as an after the fact investigative tool. However:
The National Transit Institute, a federally funded training and research organization at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., has studied the new technologies, but Christopher A. Kozub, the associate director for safety and security programs, cautioned that few have been proved to be fail-safe. “The application of smart technology is only in its embryonic stages,” he said. “The potential is there, but variables like temperature conditions, the passenger environment and rush-hour influxes are all very hard to program into these systems.”
The article also provides the number of surveillance cameras in use for several transit agencies.
rshah General
Update on LA Cameras
The surveillance cameras in the Fashion District will be monitoring an area known for bootleg DVDs. As a result, these cameras are being used to enforce intellectual property laws. This has led to a lot of reaction across the web by bloggers that worry about IP law. See posts at Sivacracy.net and Miller’s blog.
rshah General
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