Surveillance companies, using networks of cheap Web-connected cameras and powerful new video-analysis software, are demonstrating the kind of surveillance capabilities that were once only possible in a Hollywood movie. Faces and license plates can now be spotted, in almost real time, at ports, military bases and companies. Security perimeters can be changed or strengthened with a mouse click. Feeds from hundreds of cameras can be combined into a single desktop view. And videotape that used to take hours, even days, to scour is searched in minutes.
Hackers in Austria have developed a variety of methods for hacking or jamming surveillance cameras.
The striking images of London subway bombers captured by the city's extensive video surveillance system and a rising sense that similar attacks could happen in the U.S. are renewing interest in expanding police camera surveillance of America's public places.
The author looks at how Britain became the "world's premier surveillance society", with over 4 million CCTV cameras in active use, and how the use of these devices to track the subway bombers have changed the debate.
Pressure is building for greater use of video cameras to keep watch over the nation's cities -- particularly in transportation systems and other spots vulnerable to terrorism -- after the bombings in London.
A highly advanced system of video surveillance that Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people here some of the most closely observed in the world.
Surveillance cameras no longer are relegated to banks and convenience stores. The average American is captured on video about a dozen times a day, police estimate. And that has caused video surveillance cameras to become an increasingly important law enforcement tool across the country.
Citizens on patrol has gone digital in Cincinnati with civilians watching wireless "crime cams" for suspicious activity to report to police.
The Defense Department wants to redirect intelligent video cameras, or DIVAs, from preventing traffic jams to fighting terrorism. The project's director anticipates the system will be a reality by this time next year.
Network-enabled surveillance camera systems are becoming more commonplace as a way of watching and controlling crowds in shopping malls and events.