Digital video surveillance is beginning to shake up three market sectors where dumb analog cameras have been mounted for years: public spaces like airports and airbases, colleges and schools, and retail – which include banks and those quick service restaurants and stores.
We spoke with research director Stan Schatt at ABI Research about his recent study “Watch this Space” highlighting the coming boom in digital video surveillance software and equipment.
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Why is ABI looking into video surveillance?
We believe in connectivity. The focus at ABI is everything wireless. Surveillance video is rapidly moving to wireless technologies as are we all, so that is why it is interest to us. It is an emerging technology that will fundamentally change global consumer and business markets.
Surveillance video isn’t exactly new.
Video surveillance systems have existed for many years. But until recently, extracting useful information from them was labor-intensive, time-consuming and tedious.
Now, the quickening transition from analog to digital video has made it possible to use software for detection and analysis. This can free humans from the drudgery of slamming through hours of tape, while improving accuracy and the ways video can be use – ways that were just not possible before.
I am particularly excited by the potential of digital video for analyzing and improving business processes. Once the retail sector sees the potential for business analytics, budgets for video surveillance, which now mostly come from the IT department, will begin to flow from the much more generous pockets of Marketing.
Video surveillance software was the particular focus of your study?
Yes. Because we can effectively massage digital records, the potential for intelligent use of software is enormous. Already the link between current physical security applications and what wireless, digital video and its movie-like rich images can do is dramatic.
There are many small software companies in this market, and some big ones such as IBM, which has released software that is largely platform-agnostic, increasing pressure for others to follow suit. While most systems today are sold to end-users, IBM Global Services sees potential in a managed service model, and it would not be surprising to see HP jump in as well, particularly following its EDS acquisition.
There are a number of smaller players who impress. Object Video, which was founded by some DARPA types, stands out with 800,000 licenses.
Some other small companies are quickly becoming familiar names: Axis Communications on the IP-based camera side. PMSC of South Carolina on large storage.
How about airports?
Airports are an obvious application, but you can set the rules with this stuff if you have digital images and digital storage and let it do much of the work. If a bag is left unattended for a number of minutes, the software can quickly, even automatically pick that fact up and set off an alert. If a passenger in an airport corridor suddenly reverses direction or makes an abrupt approach to an exit when the standard flow of traffic across is in the opposite direction, towards an entrance of gateway, there can be an instant alert and intervention.
Smart software can also trigger mechanical consequences – for example, instantly locking down escape routes in an airport when an individual is behaving erratically or takes off at a run.
Any human monitors needed in that digital future?
There’s always room for human judgment. You will see more large institutions – corporations, college campuses – setting up much more elaborate video monitoring centers that go beyond alarms and observation, allowing a shift leader or incident commander to react to what they see happening … or about to happen. Banks already do that.
The metadata procedurals the software designers are playing around with – there are about 13 different detection directions, by my last count – include any number of different characteristics.
What are the most demanding of these?
The most ambitious are automated face recognition programs that banks can use, say, at an ATM – not just to identify bad guys as criminals but to identify you so no one but you can use your card. Smart cameras can also survey the parking lot and tip the central control room to any break-pattern activity, such as leaving a car too long in a particular space … or moving it to a space where it doesn’t belong.
You said in an earlier interview that it reminded you of the futuristic film, Minority Report.
Yes. All this, of course, raises profound questions of civil liberties – and they play with those issues in the film Minority Report, which has Tom Cruise intercepting criminals before they commit their crimes. We have a pretty conservative court system at the moment, so I don’t think you will find much support there in blocking the initial deployment of these software recognition and tracking systems. And who knows what classified smart video applications are already in use in the skies above Iraq that will be coming our way?
What about China? Have the Olympics created any technology leaps there?
I expect there to be some advances, using the Olympics as an excuse for upgrades, but nothing dramatic. The China market is attractive, but a continuing concern, particularly on software, is the potential in that nation for software hacking which is right down doing major damage to the mobile phone market.
Most of the video surveillance equipment in China right now is cheap analog stuff. On the other hand, they have no shortage of people in China who can roll the analog tape back and forth to find what they are looking for. Britain, which began aggressively putting up outside analog video monitoring as far back as the IRA bombings twenty or more years ago, is now aggressively going digital. Most of the British equipment is installed and monitored by local municipalities.
Do you expect industry consolidation in the next year or so?
I do. The video surveillance area in general is so busy with new companies and small firms that I do anticipate some mergers and acquisitions. There are any number of products and platforms in the market, but very little interoperability yet.
The camera companies are also trying to get together, but more by establishing common technology standards than on merging. Canon, Samsung, and Panasonic – not sure why there are all Japanese – are in some sort of dialog on tech standards. North American camera manufacturers tend to focus on the high end. Lumenara from Ottawa is one of those with an 11 megapixel camera coming out soon. You could shoot a respectable motion picture or TV show on a camera that advanced. It’s broadcast quality.
A video stream that rich must take up a good deal of storage.
It does. But once all that information in storage, you can do some very smart things with it. Intelligent processing can begin right inside the camera itself. For example, the digital signal processing chips that are essential to advanced video are faster than ever. They are now able to put some fundamental video analytics into the chip itself. An Israeli firm, Mango DSP, seems to be making some remarkable progress to that end.
Where’s the quickest growth?
The steepest growth curves we see are in the government, retail, and educational sectors. Growth in the government sector is still driven by heightened security concerns since 9/11, of course. We are now seeing video installations in transport systems that keep an eye not only on external surroundings of the vehicles, but on the people inside – including trains and buses.
There’s a popular trend to jump on board a bus after it crashes and then claim whiplash – so come cities are trying to add video to fight that. We’ve all seen the popularity of police video cameras that capture not only police responses, but the provocations that precede the response. The ports are another area where very little of consequence has been accomplished.
How about education and retail?
The video market in the education sector has gone from a trot to a gallop since the campus killings at Virginia Tech – and elementary schools are also now adding video when they can find the budget to do so.
Retail will take the lead, however. It just beginning to appreciate the possibilities of business analytics in all this. Retailers have traditionally low margins, so they are reluctant to take on equipment costs. But if some of this smarter software, backed up with smart chips, can tell them how customers respond to a display and what they like, it justifies the cost to elevate video surveillance equipment and systems – and reduce stock shrinkage by the employees and customers who are stealing them blind.
■ Tom Goff
Showing posts with label SURVEILLANCE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SURVEILLANCE. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Privacy vs. Terrorist Surveillance
Privacy. Video surveillance. Intelligence sharing. Prevention of terrorist attacks. Take any of these terms, sufficiently controversial on its own, blend it with the others, and you will invariably generate a swirl of emotions that end up polarizing security and lay observers into opposing camps. Yet all connect reasonably and, taken together without extremes, can yield a useful, coherent approach to the anti-terrorism challenge facing today's democracies and their security practitioners.
Out of deference to my colleagues of Special Forces pedigree, I should note that what follows relates to anti-terrorism, that is, defending against terrorists -- not counter-terrorism, or taking the fight directly to the terrorists themselves. My friends who have suffered brutal selection and induction processes for the privilege of traveling to danger zones to chase those who slaughter innocents -- these people rightly claim counter-terrorism as their preserve.
Let's begin with privacy. Is it a right, a luxury, a cloak to mask petty crime, a tool for international terrorists to use against those whom they have sworn to annihilate? Answer: Yes, depending whom you ask. In countries with a Western tradition, privacy is a value tied to the presumed sanctity of the home and natural territoriality. In such societies, we generally act as if people have a right to do as they please, in private. But how far is our society willing to support this value? Is it inviolate? Is this an absolute whose violation would spell the end of our society? One need only consider a few modern scenarios to see that even the staunchest supporters of such a position would struggle to offer a 100% defense.
Medical information merits a good deal of protection and is generally treated as among the most deserving of privacy. Yet our own laws governing health care professionals compel them to reveal the most imtimate confidences. In the face of any evidence of a violent crime or of child abuse, for example, they must alert authorities or themselves face sanctions. Which privacy advocate would reverse what our society accepts as a higher obligation? Yet the same citizens willing or eager to endorse the bowing of privacy to the thwarting of child abuse often close their eyes to this: terrorist targeting for acts resulting in massive fatalities makes the same claim on privacy as child abuse and spousal beating. The natural, security argument would be that anyone deeply involved in anti-terrorism, let alone counter-terrorism, should not be hamstrung by privacy protections that are abused by ruthless adversaries plotting against us. Reasonable people, particularly if themselves threatened or victimized in the past, will sympathize with this view. What gives reasonable people pause, though, is any skeptic's experience with giving too much license to authorities who are, after all, fallible, human, and just as likely to overstep as anyone given too much power without enough checks and balances. So, let us postulate some middle ground on the privacy debate that will answer valid conserns of skeptics without neutering legitimate efforts to thwart terrorist plots before they are realized.
Postulate 1: Suppose we agree that privacy is an important value, but not a shield behind which to carry out great harm. We then say that any governmental breach of privacy must be subject to checks and balances, and that absent those checks and balances, what surfaces as the result of a privacy breach may not be used against the individual. Period. At the same time, though, while such information may not be used for prosecution, we apply no such restraint on interdiction. In other words, if you plot to assassinate the president, blow up a school, or release sarin gas in a subway and I as a federal officer learn about it through a means that violates due process and your privacy, I may not be able to use that against you in legal proceedings. But I should definitely be able -- even obligated -- to use that information to stop the attack from taking place. After all, as George Will observed,
"Public safety is the public's business. Public authorities take the lead and some of them work at it full time. However, at all times, and especially in times like these, it is every citizen's business."
Sunday 11-4-01
Washington Post
Next we look at video surveillance, a proliferation in our industry, and a growing part of modern life. Britain, arguably the most well known employer of video surveillance in an urban setting, London, proved the societal value of exploiting CCTV to round up transit bombers in 2005 before they could turn bus and subway terrorist attacks into a campaign. A camera watching over activities that occur in public places is, according to most courts, no violation of privacy. But it is always possible that even publicly available information could be misused for personal gain. If a surveillance technician uses public cameras to stalk a former spouse or to track a future robbery victim on the way to the bank, such action would be wrong and should be punished. This brings us to,
Postulate 2: Any activity taking place in public space is by definition not private, hence subject to video surveillance. But there should be some form of check and balance, as well as an appeal and review process, to keep such surveillance from being misused.
In the final analysis, privacy can be cherished and respected without being sanctified. The same applies to surveillance for the public good. Too much of either, unchecked, creates exploitable opportunity for foul play. But a reasonable balance is possible. It takes work. Calibration in social enterprise requires an infinite capacity for monitoring the dials and making adjustments, normally small adjustments. And when a crisis occasions a major adjustment, that change should come with the safeguards of a built-in sunset provision and unbiased oversight to defend against abuse. Otherwise, as James Thurber once observed, you may as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards.
– Nick Catrantzos
Out of deference to my colleagues of Special Forces pedigree, I should note that what follows relates to anti-terrorism, that is, defending against terrorists -- not counter-terrorism, or taking the fight directly to the terrorists themselves. My friends who have suffered brutal selection and induction processes for the privilege of traveling to danger zones to chase those who slaughter innocents -- these people rightly claim counter-terrorism as their preserve.
Let's begin with privacy. Is it a right, a luxury, a cloak to mask petty crime, a tool for international terrorists to use against those whom they have sworn to annihilate? Answer: Yes, depending whom you ask. In countries with a Western tradition, privacy is a value tied to the presumed sanctity of the home and natural territoriality. In such societies, we generally act as if people have a right to do as they please, in private. But how far is our society willing to support this value? Is it inviolate? Is this an absolute whose violation would spell the end of our society? One need only consider a few modern scenarios to see that even the staunchest supporters of such a position would struggle to offer a 100% defense.
Medical information merits a good deal of protection and is generally treated as among the most deserving of privacy. Yet our own laws governing health care professionals compel them to reveal the most imtimate confidences. In the face of any evidence of a violent crime or of child abuse, for example, they must alert authorities or themselves face sanctions. Which privacy advocate would reverse what our society accepts as a higher obligation? Yet the same citizens willing or eager to endorse the bowing of privacy to the thwarting of child abuse often close their eyes to this: terrorist targeting for acts resulting in massive fatalities makes the same claim on privacy as child abuse and spousal beating. The natural, security argument would be that anyone deeply involved in anti-terrorism, let alone counter-terrorism, should not be hamstrung by privacy protections that are abused by ruthless adversaries plotting against us. Reasonable people, particularly if themselves threatened or victimized in the past, will sympathize with this view. What gives reasonable people pause, though, is any skeptic's experience with giving too much license to authorities who are, after all, fallible, human, and just as likely to overstep as anyone given too much power without enough checks and balances. So, let us postulate some middle ground on the privacy debate that will answer valid conserns of skeptics without neutering legitimate efforts to thwart terrorist plots before they are realized.
Postulate 1: Suppose we agree that privacy is an important value, but not a shield behind which to carry out great harm. We then say that any governmental breach of privacy must be subject to checks and balances, and that absent those checks and balances, what surfaces as the result of a privacy breach may not be used against the individual. Period. At the same time, though, while such information may not be used for prosecution, we apply no such restraint on interdiction. In other words, if you plot to assassinate the president, blow up a school, or release sarin gas in a subway and I as a federal officer learn about it through a means that violates due process and your privacy, I may not be able to use that against you in legal proceedings. But I should definitely be able -- even obligated -- to use that information to stop the attack from taking place. After all, as George Will observed,
"Public safety is the public's business. Public authorities take the lead and some of them work at it full time. However, at all times, and especially in times like these, it is every citizen's business."
Sunday 11-4-01
Washington Post
Next we look at video surveillance, a proliferation in our industry, and a growing part of modern life. Britain, arguably the most well known employer of video surveillance in an urban setting, London, proved the societal value of exploiting CCTV to round up transit bombers in 2005 before they could turn bus and subway terrorist attacks into a campaign. A camera watching over activities that occur in public places is, according to most courts, no violation of privacy. But it is always possible that even publicly available information could be misused for personal gain. If a surveillance technician uses public cameras to stalk a former spouse or to track a future robbery victim on the way to the bank, such action would be wrong and should be punished. This brings us to,
Postulate 2: Any activity taking place in public space is by definition not private, hence subject to video surveillance. But there should be some form of check and balance, as well as an appeal and review process, to keep such surveillance from being misused.
In the final analysis, privacy can be cherished and respected without being sanctified. The same applies to surveillance for the public good. Too much of either, unchecked, creates exploitable opportunity for foul play. But a reasonable balance is possible. It takes work. Calibration in social enterprise requires an infinite capacity for monitoring the dials and making adjustments, normally small adjustments. And when a crisis occasions a major adjustment, that change should come with the safeguards of a built-in sunset provision and unbiased oversight to defend against abuse. Otherwise, as James Thurber once observed, you may as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards.
– Nick Catrantzos
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