Modern Day Towers and State of the Art Cameras
Surveillance cameras are one of the about ubiquitous and recognizable technologies used to watch us as we movement virtually our daily lives. Networks of cameras are installed by government agencies and by local businesses, just the distinction blurs with the evolution of real-time crime centers that access both public and private video feeds. Camera technology is growing in composure: some cameras are capable of 360-degree video or infrared vision. Some models can be equipped with real-time face up recognition or license plate recognition software. Since many are also being connected direct to the Internet, the camera networks have likewise proven easy targets for malicious attackers.
Recognizing the Types of Cameras
Here is a visual guide to some of the types of surveillance cameras you may run across day-to-day. This is non an exhaustive listing, and it'southward important to notation that some cameras may comprise multiple features described below.
Bullet cameras
Photograph by Mike Katz-Lacabe (CC By)
Bullet cameras are compact and tube-shaped. The camera, lens, and housing are all packaged inside in a cylindrical-manner body. These cameras confront i direction and sometimes have infrared LEDs for employ in low lite. Bullet cameras are used both indoors and outdoors.
Dome cameras
Dome cameras within the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and outside a storefront in Union Square
Dome cameras are typically used for indoor surveillance, and are oftentimes mounted on ceilings. The camera's dome shape is designed to go far difficult to tell which direction the camera is facing. Dome cameras come up with many optional features. Some have infrared light for nighttime vision, some have tamper-resistant features, and some have varifocal lenses, allowing operators to adjust the focal distance of the camera lens.
PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) cameras
Nearly surveillance cameras are fixed cameras—they face up simply one direction. PTZ cameras are remotely controlled, and allow the operator to pan (move left or right), tilt up and or downwardly, or zoom closer or farther abroad in order to follow people every bit they movement. This lets operators zoom in on specific areas or rails specific movements. The cameras can also run patterns or turn to a preset position.
Mobile Surveillance Towers/Poles
A 'Mobile Utility Surveillance Tower' at San Diego Comic-Con and a mobile surveillance pole in New Orlean'south French Quarter
Non all surveillance cameras are static. Law enforcement agencies oftentimes acquire mobile surveillance units, such as manned towers that tin can be raised 25-feet in the air and unmanned trailers that can extend a pole with PTZ cameras in all directions. These systems are often used to establish situational awareness at public events and in high-traffic commercial areas.
Thermal cameras
FLIR dual-sensor thermal camera at the White House with pan-tilt-zoom capabilities
Most video captures images in the natural light or infrared spectrums. Thermal cameras tin besides capture video of a person'south movements based on body temperature. These cameras are not always distinguishable from conventional security cameras, even so the brand name FLIR is oftentimes a tell-tale sign that the camera is capable of thermal imaging.
Automated license plate readers
Photo by Mike Katz-Lacabe (CC BY)
Automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) are computer-controlled photographic camera systems that capture license plate numbers, besides as photographs of the vehicles and sometimes drivers and passengers. ALPR cameras include fixed cameras, often mounted on traffic lights, telephone poles, or other locations. They also include mobile cameras, which are typically attached to police force patrol cars. Some agencies have mobile ALPR trailers that they can motion to targeted locations.
Read more than about automatic license plate readers.
Data Sharing
Cameras often broadcast footage over the Cyberspace, allowing operators to monitor security camera feeds remotely. In some cases, surveillance systems are paid for and operated by the cities themselves. Only in other cases, residents and businesses share surveillance camera footage with police officers.
In 2019, EFF obtained a dataset of surveillance cameras maintained past the San Francisco Commune Chaser's Role. Click here to launch in a new window or read the weblog postal service.
Many law enforcement agencies have begun private security camera registration programs (sometimes called "SafeCam"), whereby residents and business owners can provide bones data most the cameras they ain and where they are located. So, when a law-breaking is reported, law may search their database of cameras and contact the possessor direct to obtain the footage. Some examples of this program include the Philadelphia Police Department (PA), Fultondale Police Department (AL), and the San Francisco District Attorney's Office (CA). The Phoenix Law Department refers to its program as the "Virtual Block Watch."
In San Francisco, the Union Foursquare Business organization Improvement District launched an outdoor security camera program in 2012 with but six privately owned cameras. Now information technology is a surveillance network of 350 cameras, all of which share footage with the police. According to news reports, grant coin pays for around xc% of the cost for the cameras in Wedlock Square, and business organization owners who wish to participate pay the residual.
Real-Time Crime Centers
Fresno Law Department's Real-fourth dimension Crime Middle. Source: Fresno PD Annual Report 2015
Several cities feed video surveillance into monitoring headquarters, ofttimes referred to every bit "domain awareness centers" or "existent-fourth dimension crime centers." Some hope to expand the footage they collect through their own surveillance cameras by also tapping into footage taken by private individuals and businesses.
In New Orleans, for example, video feeds from more than 300 street-facing surveillance cameras are fed into a $5 one thousand thousand loftier-tech monitoring center created in 2017. The footage is monitored 24/7. The mayor's office has continued installing additional cameras, and has expressed interest in integrating private cameras with the monitoring centre. The city's automatic license plate readers also feed into the RTC center.
Nearly 100 surveillance cameras—24 PTZ cameras, 17 dome cameras, and 54 license recognition cameras are being installed on 64 power poles in Birmingham, Alabama. The cameras will be monitored by the Jefferson County Metro Area Crime Center. The license plate recognition photographic camera data will exist uploaded to the FBI'south Criminal Justice Information Services, and the city will obtain the content from the FBI'southward portal. Although a proposed ordinance requiring all establishments with liquor licenses to install cameras that feed into the monitoring eye was abased in the face of opposition, several bars accused of violating liquor laws have entered consent decrees with the metropolis's Alcoholic Beverage Command board, requiring them to practise just that.
The San Diego Law Department hoped to gain access to footage from public and private cameras in real fourth dimension as part of the "Operation Secure San Diego" surveillance program. As of 2014, the plan was riddled with software compatibility issues, and officers had difficulty viewing footage in existent time because the department's police cruisers did not have a 4G connection. The urban center has since adopted a new partnership with Full general Electric in which street lights are equipped with cameras and microphones.
Emerging Issues
On its confront, video surveillance technology is already pervasive. But beyond the privacy concerns of police enforcement'due south widespread admission to historical and real-time video footage lies the threat of information technology being accessed past malicious hackers. Since camera networks are typically connected directly to the Internet, they pose easy targets for these bad actors.
For example, ii-thirds of D.C.'s police surveillance cameras were attacked by hackers days before the 2017 presidential inauguration equally function of a ransomware attack, causing more than 100 of the cameras to go night.
In 2015, EFF learned that more than a hundred ALPR cameras were exposed online, oft with totally open Spider web pages accessible past anyone with a browser. In some cases, anyone could open a browser window and view a camera'due south live video stream and witness the plate captures in existent time. Nosotros were able to rails the cameras to their sources in five dissimilar instances. Similar ALPR vulnerabilities were discovered in Boston by DigBoston and the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
When combined with face recognition, surveillance camera networks raise boosted privacy and ceremonious rights concerns—peculiarly considering confront recognition data is prone to error. Amazon'southward face recognition tool, Rekognition, is amidst the real-time video face recognition products currently being piloted by police departments around the land, as well as the FBI.
Read more near face recognition technology.
Face up recognition, however, is simply one form of automatic video analysis being deployed with surveillance cameras. IBM, for case, offers a sophisticated belittling software that it claims can identify anomalies in public spaces (such as abandoned packages) and track individuals based on their clothing, glasses, or facial pilus. Amazon peddles a auto-learning product dubbed "DeepLens," a deep-learning enabled video camera for developers that tin can exist integrated with some other of its car-learning products, "SageMaker," to increase the inter-operability of various data analytics programs from the videofeeds.
In short, the proliferation of surveillance cameras has rapidly reduced our ability to maintain anonymity in public spaces; and the advent of automatic face recognition and other tracking technologies just accelerate this threat to privacy.
Well-nigh recently updated February 2, 2019
Source: https://www.eff.org/pages/surveillance-cameras
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