Surveillance Is Smarter
The Las Vegas strip and the City of Chicago have been in the news lately as locations where video surveillance systems are being beefed up in public places. In both cases, technology has contributed to making the new systems both more affordable and more effective, and both initiatives have been driven in part by concerns about Homeland security.
It appears the technical capabilities of video surveillance systems are developing in lockstep with the increasing need of security professionals in government everywhere to be even more vigilant. In the case of video (and also many other technologies), the systems are smarter and more things are possible. Technology makes managing a flood of video information more manageable, allowing systems to provide only the most important video — that requiring a response — to the person who needs to respond in real-time.
Not surprisingly, we continue to hear complaints about privacy and “spying.”
Let’s move toward documenting the success of these systems in lowering crime and dealing with terrorist threats. Then we can better cost-justify their existence and answer the critics, even as we all get used to being watched.