Date: 6/3/07
Author: 
Source: Australian IT

THE next time you walk by a shop window and take a glance at your reflection, look around because you might not be the only one watching.

The never-blinking surveillance cameras, rapidly becoming a part of daily life in public and even private places, may be sizing you up as well - and they may get a lot smarter soon.

Researchers and security companies are developing cameras that not only watch the world but interpret what they see.

Some cameras may be able to find unattended bags at airports, guess your height or analyse the way you walk to see if you are hiding something.

Most of those in use today are used as forensic tools to identify crooks after the fact.

But the latest breed, known as "intelligent video", could transform cameras from passive observers to eyes with brains that are able to detect suspicious behaviour and, potentially, prevent crime before it occurs.

Surveillance cameras are common in many cities, monitoring tough street corners to deter crime, watching over sensitive government buildings and even catching speeding drivers.

Cameras are on public buses and in train stations, building lobbies, schools and shops, and most feed video to central control rooms, where they are monitored by security staff.

The innovations could mean needing fewer people to watch what they record. It also makes it easier to install more in public places and homes.

"Law-enforcement people in this country are realising they can use video surveillance to be in a lot of places at one time," says Roy Bordes, who runs a security consulting company in Florida and is a council vice-president of ASIS International, a US organisation for security officials.

Some advancements have already been put to work.

Cameras in Chicago and Washington can detect gunshots and alert police and Baltimore has installed cameras that can play a recorded message and snap pictures of graffiti sprayers or illegal dumpers.

Bordes says the gaming industry uses camera systems that can detect facial features, and casinos use vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers who have been flagged before.

In London, one of the largest users of surveillance, cameras provided key photos of the men who bombed the underground system in July 2005 and four more who failed in a second attempt just days later.

But the cameras were only able to help with the investigation, not prevent the attacks.

Companies that make the latest cameras say, if used broadly, the new systems can make video surveillance much more powerful.

Cameras could monitor airports and ports, help secure houses and watch over vast borders to catch people crossing illegally.

Intelligent surveillance uses computer algorithms to interpret what a camera records.

The system can be programmed to look for particular things, such as an unattended bag or people walking somewhere they don't belong.

"If you think of the camera as your eye, we are using computer programs as your brain," says Patty Gillespie, who is branch chief for image processing at the US Army Research Laboratory in Maryland.

The military funds much of the smart-surveillance research.

At the University of Maryland, engineering teacher Rama Chellappa and a team of graduate students have worked on systems that can identify a person's unique gait or analyse the way a person walks to determine if they are a threat.

A camera trained to look for people on a watch list could combine the person's walk with facial-recognition tools to make an identification.

A person carrying a heavy load under a jacket would walk differently than if unencumbered and this could help identify someone hiding a weapon.

With two cameras and a laptop computer set up in a conference room, Professor Chellappa's team demonstrated recently how intelligent surveillance works.

A student walked into the middle of the room, dropped a laptop case, then walked away.

On the laptop screen, a green box popped up around him as he moved into view, then a second focused on the case when it was dropped.

After a few seconds, the box around the case went red, signalling an alert.

In another video, a car pulled into a parking lot and the driver got out, a box springing up around him.

It moved with the driver as he went from car to car, looking in the windows instead of heading into the building.

In both cases, the camera knew what was normal and alerts were triggered when the unknown bag was added and when the driver didn't go directly into the building.

Similar technology is used by marines in Iraq and by the subway system in Barcelona, according to US surveillance software maker ObjectVideo.

ObjectVideo uses a "tripwire system" that lets users set up virtual perimeters monitored by the cameras.

If someone crosses that perimeter, the system picks it up, sends out an alert and security staff can determine if there is a threat.

Company spokesman Edward Troha predicts the technology, designed primarily to protect borders, ports and other infrastructure, could be adapted to help prevent retail theft or guard private houses.

The Jacksonville Port Authority uses ObjectVideo software as part of its measures to watch the perimeter of the Florida port that handles 8.7 million tonnes of cargo and thousands of cruise ship passengers each year.

The surveillance system sends real-time video from anywhere at the port to patrol cars.

Still, industry officials say the technology needs to improve before it can be widely used.

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