The Future of Surveillance
March 12, 2013
It seems ironic that video search is still terrible, but video-tracking of individuals is becoming very good. Scarily good, we learn from InfoWorld’s, “Nowhere to Hide: Video Location Tech has Arrived.” The International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkley, with funding from a U.S. intelligence agency, is quickly making progress on a project that should interest us all: They are devising a way to build location-centric databases by analyzing videos and photos posted online. This will allow users to determine where other videos and photos were shot, even when posters do not include any identifying information.
With this method, the development of which is being funded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, visual and audial clues are analyzed and compared to samples for which the location is known. Something as seemingly neutral as a train whistle in the background has been used to pinpoint a location (Tokyo, in this case.) So far, 14 percent of the time, researchers are able to determine the location in which a video was shot to within 33 feet. Naturally, they intend to keep working on that percentage.
Reporter Bill Snyder, who visited the Institute, writes:
“Jaeyoung Choi, the lead researcher on the project, downloaded thousands of videos from Flickr that contain embedded geographical information. That data may include location tags (aka geotags), visual cues such as textures and colors, time stamps, and sounds such as birdsong. The attributes of a test video are then compared against these profiles, and its location is estimated. As more videos with embedded geographical information are downloaded, the researchers will use them to train the software to recognize more and more locations.”
Like a lot of technology, this development offers potential for both weal and woe. Combined with ever-improving and increasingly available facial recognition software. . . the capability is staggering. While it is true that such a tool could help our agents rid us of terrorists, it could also be used by repressive governments to target protesters. What happens when organized crime gets a hold of this? So much for witness protection. Or how could giant corporations use this? The possibilities are endless.
Now, I am not one to say we should hold up progress because of the potential for problems. We couldn’t if we wanted to. But, as Snyder concludes, our society needs to have a serious conversation about this “tagging of America,” before the technology surges way ahead of the public’s awareness.
Cynthia Murrell, March 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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