Pervasive Public Surveillance

Video surveillance has quietly become pervasive. The annual growth rate for sales of video-surveillance equipment is now 15 percent (CAGR)^[7] and increasing. Between government requirements, corporate initiatives, and our own public acceptance of the value of being monitored in the face of terrorist threats, the number of deployments is swelling. There is expected to be $1.6 billion spent on digital video cameras in 2005^[8] in the United States alone.

^[7] http://www.visiowave.com/index.asp?index=intelligentVideo&S=sc13

^[8] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-05-24-world-privacy.htm

Interestingly, the vast majority of surveillance cameras in use today belong to nongovernmental entities. An ACLU study of the number of cameras in New York City, for example, discovered that nearly 90 percent of these cameras were attached to private buildings. The perceived values derived from surveillance have become apparent to many businesses (e.g., protection of property and care of a company's employees or an apartment building's inhabitants). The ACLU makes the point that an effort to restrict government use of surveillance cameras is probably a mute issue given their broad use in nongovernmental sectors.

Two key drivers are pushing us toward widespread deployment of video surveillance systems:

• The cost of the equipment has dropped dramatically while at the same time ease of deployment (i.e., primarily, wireless devices) has risen.

• Increased labor costs, a decrease in properly trained personnel, and a general worry regarding human safety require that we have more "eyes" on business and public property interests.

A manager or owner of a small 24-hour convenience store, for example, cannot afford to employ a security guard just to monitor the access points to the building. It is far more cost-effective to install a couple of wireless cameras and post a few strategically placed signs that alert potential interlopers to the fact that that security/management is watching all the time. Installation of video- surveillance networks is becoming easier and cheaper every daymoving this capability more into the mainstream and beyond the realm of high-value retailers, such as jewelry shops. Any and every store is worth protecting (as is any home or school, for that matter). But just hanging video cameras everywhere is not enough because there simply are not enough humans to intelligently manage and monitor the vast numbers of cameras. In the Inescapable Data world, camera networks become an everyday fact of life, but they must be linked to larger systems (possibly government systems) that can automate image analysis.

A building equipped with a large number of closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras typically has a control room that sports dozens of video monitors. Often, a given TV monitor screen is subdivided into quadrants, each showing a different camera's view. Often, any one quadrant cycles among many cameras. The control room is staffed with one or two control room operators stationed and (hopefully) continuously monitoring the cameras for suspicious activity. However, we all know that it is humanly impossible to sit in front of a TV screen for hours watching the same images flicker past over and over again.

"Black monitoring" replaces this highly inefficient method. Sophisticated new software allows analysis of video images to be more automated. The systems can distinguish normal activities for a given date and time versus suspicious activity. At a minimum, the system can boil down hours of captured video images and dozens of camera feeds by identifying the most high-value scenes and events for closer human analysis. In the future, real-time indexing of images and far more sophisticated search mechanisms will enable security professionals to far more easily focus on evidence-laden video segments.

Chicago has installed a video system to discourage drug and gang activity as well as reduce the number of homicides. In high-crime neighborhoods, police have installed wireless, digital video cameras perched atop light posts. These cameras are protected themselves by a dome of bulletproof glass. Police officers in squad cars driving nearby can access these cameras using WiFi-equipped laptops in real time from their squad cars. The units can be taken down and moved to a new location within a few hours if need be.

The cameras themselves show the level of sophistication this technology has reached. The cameras can rotate a full 360 degrees and can zoom in on scenes up to four blocks away. Furthermore, they can "see" at night using special night-vision capabilities (a significant capability given that a large portion of the crimes occur at night and in low-light conditions). Unlike many video-surveillance cameras that are hidden, these are deliberately conspicuouseach is outfitted with a flashing blue light delivering the message that the city is serious about crime prevention.

The 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston was also the scene of a landmark use of digital video and other surveillance technologies. More than 30 cameras were installed around the perimeter of Boston's Fleet Center where the convention was held. In addition, the coast guard used infrared devices and night-vision cameras in strategic spots around Boston Harbor, plus dozens more cameras throughout the downtown areas.^[9] The digital feeds from these cameras were piped to agencies in Boston and Washington, D.C., so that, while sitting at their desks, security officials were able to zoom in for extreme close-ups. The cameras were sharp enough to pick out facial details or read license plates in some cases.

^[9] http://www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/07/18/surveillance_targeted_to_convention?mode=PF.

Interestingly, convention security officials were also able to leverage some surveillance networks already in place for other purposes. Boston's mass-transit system, the MBTA, had more than 100 cameras already in the area monitoring subway and bus stations. MassPort (the Massachusetts transportation organization) placed more than 900 other cameras at the disposal of security officials as wella dividend that resulted from the massive downtown Boston highway project known as the "Big Dig" and from a variety of other public works projects. In a short order, more than 1,000 additional cameras were at the disposal of the convention officialsInescapable Data monitoring that could be easily repurposed.

Part of the challenge convention officials had was that the Fleet Center is in close proximity to Boston Harbor. This greatly worried officials, who feared potential aggressors might enter the security zone via boats. However, a new coast-guard system named Hawkeye, especially designed for waterway surveillance, joined infrared, radar, and of course, digital video-surveillance cameras, together giving security officials a real-time total view of all harbor activity. So, total surveillance meant watching everything in and around the convention hall, including the vastness of Boston Harbor and the historical zigzagging streets around the convention centera monumental task made easier by Inescapable Data networks and sophisticated digital monitoring techniques.

With thousands of cameras watching us in relatively small geographical areas for the purpose of public safety, we have become a "video connected" society without even asking. Who knows how many of those streams are saved to some disk and for how long? We presume such capture, storage, and later analysis is for our own good. That may or may not be a safe assumption Those thousands of "public" cameras stationed around a major political or sporting event are a small number compared to the building-security cameras already out there and sending their data somewhere.

The Republican National Convention

The Republican National Convention in 2004 also showcased some interesting use of video and networking on the part of protesters.^[10] Organized protest groups used text messaging on their cell phones to send out broadcast messages of where the next protest would be staged. In real time, organizers could communicate with and control a large number of on-the-street protest leaders and participants with a few keystrokes. Essentially, the protest network could be run like a military command and control center, with pervasive communication to each individual in real time using a commonly available device that most people already ownedthe cell phone.

In the past, organizers would have had to use nightly meetings or Web sites to coordinate movementswhich, of course, would not be as responsive or timely as instant text messaging broadcasts to the "troops." Furthermore, in an interesting twist on the "whole world is watching" theme, protesters were encouraged to capture police actions (such as brutality) via their cell phone cameras or PDAs and have those images uploaded to the main protest Web sites (as if having a 1,000 "public" cameras trained on us already isn't enough). Protesters who did not have a camera-enabled phone were encouraged to call their own cell numbers (or use their iPods) to make voice recordings of the events they were witnessingessentially leaving themselves a message. A stunning amount of real-time communication, networking, and collaboration aided the protesters' rapid response to changing conditions (proving that it is not just Big Brother that could be watching).

^[10] http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/27/wired.rabblerousers.ap/index.html.