The use of surveillance cameras in private businesses and public spaces has been a matter of debate for some time. But even as the controversy becomes more heated, the use of surveillance equipment is surging, driven by new digital technology, falling prices and terrorism jitters.
Video companies are beginning to deliver technologies that allow the systems to analyze what they are watching and recording. Taking advantage of recent leaps in commercially available computers and using complex mathematical algorithms, the new systems can break down and analyze activity even as it is taking place.Video companies are beginning to deliver technologies that allow the systems to analyze what they are watching and recording. Taking advantage of recent leaps in commercially available computers and using complex mathematical algorithms, the new systems can break down and analyze activity even as it is taking place.
Chip designers are transforming the art of video surveillance. With the new smart cameras, data is recorded in digital format on hard disk drives so that reviewing hours of surveillance is much easier. Data can be sent over the Internet -- often through wireless data networks -- directly to a company's hard drive archives and software analyzes faces and send alerts to security guards when they spot known criminals or suspicious movements.
New imaging software alerts surveillance-camera operators to suspect situations by monitoring patterns of motion.
Inscenced by the growing use of surveillance cameras, privacy advocates are fighting back to jam the cameras with cheap lasers or guerilla theatre.
Amid uncertainty about whether surveillance cameras should be used to control crowds, detect terrorists or scare off drug dealers, the authorities in the nation's capital are debating rules intended to keep them from becoming a tool of Big Brother spying on citizens.
Scientists at Kingston University in London have developed software able to anticipate if someone is about to mug an old lady or plant a bomb at an airport. It works by examining images coming in from close circuit television cameras (CCTV) and comparing them to behaviour patterns that have already programmed into its memory.
Big brother is big business in the battle against crime in Britain, but photo-shy villains have developed a bag of new tricks to elude the gaze of thousands of surveillance cameras that now dot its cities, towns and villages.
A project to map the range of surveillance from CCTV cameras in New York City is causing concern that terrorists might use it to avoid detection.