From El Universal – Mexico News:
Mexico City tentatively plans to install 4,000 new surveillance cameras in 2007 (they have 1,000 existing cameras). An interesting part is the they will use multiple monitoring centers (16), because they believe this will lead to quicker police response. The cameras use a Wimex high-speed microwave transmission system to feed into each monitoring center.
They are also following the model of Athens and using cameras to looking for suspicious behavior. They plan to use 100 cameras for facial recognition. (Are there other setups that have found facial recognition software useful?) While 16 cameras are dedicated to ANPR.
rshah Uncategorized
From Suburban Journals – News:
A very good article on the technology and process of using photo enforcement vans to catch drivers speeding. I believe right now, Illinois is limiting the use of these vans to construction zones. Here are some interesting details:
In two hours one van recorded more than 66 vehicles exceeding the speed limit, at $375 a ticket, that works out to $25k an hour!
A typical photo enforcement van uses two cameras and a radar speed detector to monitor passing vehicles. For those vehicles exceeding the set speed limit, the van snaps four photos as the vehicle travels through the photo zone. Drivers usually receive a speeding ticket in the mail a few weeks later.
Each photo is marked showing the speed of the vehicle, the time of day, location, posted speed limit and other essential details.
The vans currently use 2.1-megapixel cameras, enough to print out a high-quality 5-by-7 photo. The next generation of photo van cameras will take a 7-megapixel image, providing even more detailed pictures of speeding drivers.
rshah Uncategorized
From Public Eye:
Peter kindly posted an answer to some questions that I asked him about Google Earth. I noticed his product, TrueLook, as well as other products such as Guardian’s Solution’s Gview are using Google Earth. I was curious if this was an emerging standard, if Google has placed any restrictions on commercial usage, and if there was any availability issues since Google Earth is an online service. (You will have to visit Public Eye to see Peter’s answers)
rshah Uncategorized
In the New Statesman via Spy Blog:
A good article on the state of video surveillance in the UK. One of the nice parts of the article is about how camera operators work. Here are some snippets:
Brown and his team control 160 cameras, covering locations across the borough: the West End, Belgravia, the Golden Jubilee Bridges, Trafalgar Square, Knightsbridge and the full length of Oxford Street. The cameras are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year – “Yep, even Christmas Day,” says Brown.
The control centre is, bizarrely, registered as a charitable trust, and is funded by Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police and private businesses. Since becoming operational in 2002, the control room has recorded 24,000 “incidents”, ranging from (in Brown’s categories) “low-level” graffiti, fly-tipping and public urinating to “high-level” robbery, drug dealing and prostitution. It has also had 5,000 visitors from more than 30 countries whose governments or police forces are looking to adopt similar systems. Britain used to export textiles, iron, steel and pop music; now it exports Orwellian methods for monitoring the masses.
. . .
“We look for signals, body language, anything out of the ordinary,” says Brown. He pulls out a vast file marked Internal Tasking System, a manual for camera operators. It contains five or six photographs of each of the streets monitored by the 160 cameras. In every photo, there is a square red box. These are “areas of suspicion”. So, in a snapshot of the entrance to the Chinawhite nightclub on Air Street (or “Air Street Camera Four”, as Brown refers to it), there is a red box to indicate where vagrants sometimes sleep and another showing where ticket touts operate. There are hundreds of these photos, all laminated and neatly filed in folders.
rshah Uncategorized
A Press Release in Directions Magazine:
NAVTEQ is offering a Camera Alert feature in their vehicle navigation system. It has data (which is updated monthly) on the location of speed cameras. This allows drivers:
to get from A to B while being told via clear, concise voice alerts to avoid potential hazards such as speed cameras, speed limits and many officially designated accident blackspots. From the NAVTEQ newsletter
I am sure this will go over big in the UK, which has lots of speed cameras. But it highlights a potential arms race between navigational systems that cater to drivers and governments that don’t want to publicize the location of cameras.
rshah Uncategorized
From Newsfactor & BBC
Texas Governor Rick Perry is spending $5 million to set up webcams along the border. The real time video streams will be broadcast on the Internet along with a 800 number that will allow viewers to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency. The analogy supporters like to use is that of a neighborhood watch program. I think the analogy is flawed because people are not going to commit themselves to watching video footage one night a week for the foreseeable future. Also, one function of a neighborhood watch is to intimidate criminals. A few cameras hanging off posts are not likely to intimidate illegal immigration. Nevertheless, I hope this program goes forward, merely because I am interested in whether “outsourcing” monitoring to the general public is worthwhile.
rshah Uncategorized
From CNET News.com:
The British are developing a facial-recognition system that would link a national police database with facial images of criminals and their history. I am curious how well this will work, since facial recognition technology has been over-hyped. However, there are signs that facial recognition may have value, such as the recent study on Identix. So lets wait and see.
According to a report quoted in the article:
“PITO [Police Information Technology Organisation] expects to prepare an outline business case for national video identification systems, define standards and link video images with facial images stored within Find [national police database], during the coming year”
rshah Uncategorized
From Public Eye
Peter has a nice post on the role of smart cameras at airports. It was a reaction to the recent Slashdot post on smart cameras at Helsinki airport, also discussed here. He argues the following:
- Lots of smart camera algorithms are not useful, such as package detection because of the false positive problem
- He suggests the most useful algorithms are for detecting people/vehicles entering restricted areas and flow control
- This biggest value for smart cameras is not real time alerts, but managing camera footage (think 1000 cameras each storing 120 days of video) to allow operators easy access to relevant archival footage
While I am personally interested in the real time alerts feature for cameras, I think Peter has some excellent points and we can all benefit from his knowledge and experience.
rshah Uncategorized
From The New York Times:
With a rising interest in border control, the NYT covers the promise and reality of using technology to secure the border. I previously discussed the problems with video surveillance at the border here. This article provides insights into the scope of the government initiative, the approach of various contractors, and past problems with securing the border using technology.
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the largest, are among the companies that said they would submit bids within two weeks for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build what the administration calls a “virtual fence” along the nation’s land borders. [Boeing and Ericsson — are expected to submit bids]
. . .
The equipment these Border Patrol agents use, how and when they are dispatched to spots along the border, where the agents assemble the captured immigrants, how they process them and transport them — all these steps will now be scripted by the winning contractor, who could earn an estimated $2 billion over the next three to six years on the Secure Border job.
rshah Uncategorized
From The Japan Times Online:
A column in the Japan Times notes that there will be testing of facial recognition software at the Kasumigaseki Station in Tokyo. An interesting twist is that they will close down part of the station, so that the public won’t be photographed. Here is a snip:
For an hour or two each day over the course of two to three weeks, one of the station’s ticket gates will be closed to the general public. A newly-developed biometric camera, capable not only of photographing faces, but of analyzing facial data and in essence converting each person’s face into a unique bar code, will be at work, snapping shots of participants in the experiment as they pass back and forth through the gate. Its point is to assess how well the camera works.
rshah Uncategorized
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