Monday, February 28, 2011

Who is watching you

Video Analytic s
A dangerous new frontier
In the war on terrorism

Video analytic s are being hailed as a great new way to help combat terrorism and crime and is seen as a way to help prevent accidents, help keep vehicle traffic moving at intersections and stream line assembly line errors and any kind of process where a watchful set of eyes can be put to good use.
Video analytic s uses advanced computer technology along with mathematical algorithms
To analyze captured video images of anything out side of a set pattern of behaviors.
Take a video analytic s system being used at an airport.
And it is trained on a line of people walking towards a ticket counter. Suddenly one person stops in the line and turns back heading the opposite direction. While this action might be considered abnormal but not unusual while a guard might miss this potential security problem the camera does not and alerts the staff there is an anomaly in the line which needs further investigation .This same line of people might have an individual carrying a weapon again video analytic s can be programmed to detect unusual bulges and other anomalies that an individual is intent on causing harm.
All of this is fine and well but the problem is the Analytic s programs also produce plenty of false positives which can greatly interfere with individuals who have no intentions of causing harm and in fact might be disabled and have other physical problems which allow for the anomaly to be detected if they are wearing a pump for chemotherapy drugs or a colostomy bag or other medical device. The person who got out of line all of a sudden might have problems with there legs or sudden mussel spasm or other medical condition and responding guards have no ideal what they are dealing with till they arrive and question the individual and this is where serious incidents could happen when a guard is too gung ho to do there job and thinks they are dealing with some one carrying a weapon instead of a medical device and an innocent individual could end up at a minimum detained temporarily or at worse opened fire on.
Because Video analytic s has such a huge learning curve and the high potential for false positives this type of equipment must be carefully used and security and police fully and properly trained in how to respond to a computer hit to insure that intrusions into a citizens personnel business and rights are not trampled upon .George Orwell’s future is well upon us and we must take care not to give up individual liberty’s and freedoms for the sake of security and Video analytic s is leading down this path if we are not careful.

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