Movement Sensors a Less Invasive Alternative To CCTV

holy_calamity writes "Researchers at Mitsubishi say cramming buildings with movement sensors, not cameras, is a safer and less invasive alternative to CCTV. They covered their office building with 215 low-cost sensors to watch over their colleagues and show how it works. A video shows how a user can see people's movements on a map of the building in real time. Data from the sensors is much easier to handle than video footage, and it can easily be searched." The Surface-like UI is pretty neat too.

Comments

Better link:

[choas]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VvDxDGiFa8Q

Re:Better link:

[kshade]

Bravo, a first post with a youtube link and no Rick Astley!

I agree.

[aleph42]

It may seem like a bad idea at first (cheaper == more sensors), but at least this will force them to *really* anonymise the data, and only keep what they need for the security part.

So probably more sensors, but less abuses.

Re:I agree.

[daveime]

Yes, I can just imagine the investigation into the theft of some office supplies.

Management : "Who did it ?"
Security : "Well, we've narrowed it down to anonymous blobs #1,#245 and #777"
Management : "Your P-45 will be ready in an hour"

Re:I agree.

[aleph42]

Quick reminder of the situation:

CCTVs are progressing in a lot of place meeting little to no resistence over privacy concern. But once the police have their hands on a video feed, they can:

1) Track *all* registration plates automatically (right now in London, you couldn't do a 100m in your car without the police nowing it).

2) Soon track you based on face recognition, which seems to be very actively researched. Add this to the fact that certain shooping-mall already forbid you to wear anything on your head (so you can't hide your face to the camera), and you are in for a real Orwellian nightmare.

And of course, it's always possible for them to place the camera for one purpose, letting public opinion completly unaware of what is really done with the feed later, when a new technology is discovered or put into use.

To those who will say I'm being paranoid, or that they have nothing to hide: tell that to the activists who were arrested right before crashing a republican convention, as a result of months of police surveillance (the following link is for the guy with the dot-printer bike; can't find the other one right now: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/10/bikes-against-bush-a.html )

An other (now publicly admitted) example is how phones of pacifists were tapped during Viet-Nam.

And of course now there is the Church of Scientology:
- "I've got nothing to hide"
- "Then you've never had the gut to piss the COS"

Re:I agree.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, what is really needed are video cameras in areas of police work, such as jails, police cars, etc. to ensure that police are correctly doing their jobs, without brutality, unnecessary force, etc. After all, if they 'aren't doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to hide' works both ways, doesn't it? :-)

And this would be a good idea for politicians too. We must have video cameras of all of their meetings, both public and private to ensure accountability, transparency, etc. I mean, after all, if they 'aren't doing anything wrong,then they have nothing to hide', right? :-)

Re:50/50

[martin_henry]

...could be easily hacked into, or disabled, or misdirected. Unlike a camera?

Effectiveness

[Woundweavr]

I'm all for privacy, but lets be real. There's no way that motion sensors provide comparable data to video. Tracking movement, while still invasive to privacy, is just short of useless in terms of security. You can't tell if someone is shoulder surfing, or taking that framed picture of Chuck Norris off someone's desk, or judo chopping their boss from motion sensors. Indeed, the identity of the person on the screen is unknown as well. If two people walk towards each other and pass each other in the hall, that would be essentially identical to them walking up to each other and turning around - identity obfuscated.

Interesting tool for traffic analysis, sure. Alternative to security cameras? Not so much.

Re:Effectiveness

[esocid]

RTFA: They will mainly use motion sensors and place cameras in strategic locations so they can go back and track a particular person if they need to. It doesn't seem like a good implementation for a method of time-sensitive tracking to me, plus in a crowd situation it's pretty useless. I may be wrong but it sounded like it was more a way of studying movement behaviors rather than pure individual tracking.

Actual video footage is far better for tracking...

[Assmasher]

...and identification purposes, and is also easy to search. The author is either unfamiliar with modern surveillance or chooses to ignore the realities of video analytics.

Cool, but not perfect

[PlatyPaul]

1.) You can't tell activity without a paired set of video cameras (i.e., legitimate night access by staff versus corporate sabotage). From TFA:

Users can select a certain path on the map - for example from the office drinks machine to the front door - to call up motion and video data from the path at a particular time and reveal who used the route. [emphasis mine]

So, you still have video cameras around and constantly capturing - this just narrows when you'd be looking at them.

2.) You can't tell if that snake of moving lights is one person or more than one (i.e., someone piggybacks on a legitimate user's door swipe and is effectively invisible as long as they're close enough). So, you can't tell if you should be looking at that video or not. Maybe human heat signature detectors instead?


It's a nice concept in general, and I support it, but I wouldn't call it an "alternative to CCTV".

Energy saving

[esocid]

"It has large implications for energy savings," Ivanov adds, saying that heating or air-conditioning use could be informed by the data."

This is one thing I've always wondered about. Why in the hell do office building needs to keep the lights on 24/7? I'm not sure if it has something to do with how the power grid operates, but if not then motion sensors connected to the lights and AC would be a great idea imho. Lower (or raise) the temp a little to save energy, and shut off most lights when the building is not in use.

Re:Energy saving

[PlatyPaul]

I'm not sure where you're working, but over here we have motion sensors on all lights in offices, hallways, and bathrooms (with adjustable sensitivity and null-motion persistence). The same can be said for places I've interned - larger companies seem to be particularly "on the ball" for the savings and good eco-karma.

For temperature, it might be more efficient to keep that boiler lit than having to reignite every day....

Re:Energy saving

[flyingfsck]

Electricity use for lighting in North America is only about 1% of the total. Most electricity is used by heavy industry, steel mills, aluminium smelters and the like. So even if all tungsten bulbs are replaced with twirly-whirlies, it will make practically no difference. In a large office building, most lights are fluorescent already and the cost of adding more light switches outweighs any energy savings. Also, lights (even fluorescents) produce mostly heat and little light. In areas where buildings need to be heated most of the year, turning the lights off do nothing to the overall energy bill.

Even in my home, if I turn all the ligths off, I use less electricity made with hydro/nuclear/wind power and more natural gas in the furnace, so overall turning the lights off generates more smoke than leaving them on.

Each year, during the daylight savings changes, the energy companies declare that they noticed no difference whatsoever in electricity use - that should be a clue.

Re:Energy saving

[TubeSteak]

Electricity use for lighting in North America is only about 1% of the total. Most electricity is used by heavy industry, steel mills, aluminium smelters and the like. So even if all tungsten bulbs are replaced with twirly-whirlies, it will make practically no difference. If that was true, then why do local utilities ask for rate hikes in response to decreased usage from conservation?

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2007/03/22/toronto-hydro-conservation.html
That's one article from last year, but similar articles pop up all the time.
When everyone uses less natural gas/heating oil/water/electricity, rates go up.
It pisses people off to no end, because they forget that their utility's profit margin is enshrined in law.

Re:50/50

[trolltalk.com]

I just want to know if my laser pointer can blind them, like it can a CCTV.

Re:Actual video footage is far better for tracking

[Jhon]

Actually, I think this would complement video quite well. You use this system to see WHATS happening -- click a button -- and see WHO is making it happen.

Alien

[MadUndergrad]

Did that video remind anyone else of that scene near the end of Alien where they're crawling around in the tunnels on the Nostromo? I kept waiting to see a much faster moving dot closing in on the guy...

Anti-headgear discriminazis

[tepples]

Add this to the fact that certain shooping-mall already forbid you to wear anything on your head (so you can't hide your face to the camera) Has anyone tried to sue the operators of these malls on grounds of discrimination? People in some faiths must cover at least part of their heads, and people undergoing some kinds of cancer treatment lose their hair and need to cover up the chrome-dome with some sort of cap or hat.

Re:50/50

[mfh]

The fact that you have a UID of 56 and still don't have excellent karma says something about the quality of your opinions. Your intarweb is broken... my karma is Excellent.

Re:It's driving me crazy.

[jmpeax]

You don't need to use Linux for it to render correctly.

Firefox

Re:50/50

[PlatyPaul]

Well, since they're likely to be using IR sensors, all signs point to no.

It does, however, mean that you can mess with them using a blowdryer, cranking up the building temperature, reflecting sunlight on it, or fiddling with the direction of the heat ducts nearby. Other measures exist for alternate detector types (like using a white noise generator to mess with ultrasonic devices).

Too Many Voyeurs

[hyades1]

We're getting to the point where decisions made on what kind of surveillance is permitted in public and quasi-public spaces must become a moral and ethical question that goes to the heart of what we mean by democracy. If the need for security is so urgent, how can it be argued that surveillance cameras shouldn't be allowed in washrooms? Is there a better on-site location to do final assembly of a weapon than one where privacy is guaranteed?

My personal belief is that every public area protected only by occasional foot patrols and the commitment of average people to act responsibly is a metaphorical middle finger shoved in the face of all fascists and their terrorist enablers.

Well done.

[Rob T Firefly]

This is safe now, because Robert Redford is now far too old to squeeze into a neoprene wetsuit.

Re:Use your head, don't just parrot the article

[jdigriz]

The obvious question is why not both? The problem with CCTV is that it's space-inefficient. It records a whole lotta nothing. By pairing a cctv with a motion sensor, it can turn on the recording just when something interesting is happening. Or if they still want to record the whole time, the motion sensors can be used to tag interesting time codes on the tape, so you know where to fast-forward to without having to watch the whole damned thing. Heck, I can do this with my iSight and Evocam http://www.evological.com/evocam.html

Re:50/50

[orangesquid]

That's why I pounce and dash around instead of walking at work. Plus, it keeps the boss from asking about the TPS reports.