Law-enforcement technologyFBI mulling use of video recognition technology
The Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) is considering the use of video recognition technology to identify suspects in videos and still images based on facial and behavioral recognition. The proposed smart-video technology would scan crime scene footage against records of people, places, and objects to highlight possible suspects and their whereabouts.
Demonstration of a Japan-developed video recognition system // Source: thatotherweirdguy via youtube.com
In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, hundreds of law enforcement officials manually reviewed video footage to identify possible suspects, focusing on physical traits and movements. Once potential suspects were identified on video, footage was released to the public to aid in identifying the suspects.
NextGov reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now considering the use of video recognition technology to identify suspects in videos and still images based on facial and behavioral recognition. The proposed smart-video technology would scan crime scene footage against records of people, places, and objects to highlight possible suspects and their whereabouts.
The FBI issued a contracting notice on 30 October 2013, inviting contractors to submit written project proposals. “The FBI is currently undertaking a major issue study of video and digital image processing and video/digital image analytic capabilities to identify current capabilities, assess gaps, and develop a roadmap for the FBI’s future video analytics architecture,” according to the notice.
The Boston Marathon bombing has forced law enforcement to invest in sophisticated video surveillance, especially at large events. Sunday’s New York City marathon was monitored by a camera network which could monitor nearly the entire route in real time, according to the New York Times. About 1,400 private-sector cameras were also prepared to be used if needed.
In April 2013, NextGov reported that the FBI surveyed vendors about available technology to archive video from multiple publicly and privately operated cameras. The “study was a result of the need to figure out how to analyze the ton of video that was submitted in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing, where it took an army of analysts to sift through the video data to find the guys who looked suspicious or carried a backpack,” said Paul Wormeli, executive director emeritus of the Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute, a government-funded organization. The technology being sought would be able to group images, designs, and behaviors across multiple media sources to help law enforcement track possible suspects or common behaviors that may lead to a suspect.
Jay Stanley, an analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) speech, privacy, and technology project, is concerned that the technology will eventually be “applied to video — images taken by drones, by street cameras, by cameras worn by police officers, or by Google Glass (which is uploaded to the company),” according to his blog on the ACLU’s site. “Why not get copies of all that video, store it in Utah, and swim through that data too (aided, of course, by face recognition technology to instantly pull up every video in which you’ve ever appeared),” Stanley said, referencing the NSA data warehouse being built in Utah.
For now, the FBI is simply exploring options to track suspects more effectively and efficiently. The legal implications are yet to be discussed by legislators. Stanley, however, equates the proposed technology to that of the NSA’s spying programs in that the full implementation of the technology will allow law enforcement to solve investigations without respect of legal rights. “It is also possible that the government is compiling some data not for the purposes of any kind of immediate scrutiny, but in order to build up a sea of information to have on hand just in case analysts want to ‘swim through it’ on a particular investigation. That would let them skip the trouble of having to go to a judge and request approval for specific data — in essence, a shortcut around the Constitution.”
Wormeli considers the FBI’s initiative as a necessity that must be explored. “The FBI would be judged to be incompetent if it did not explore the potential for video analytics and learn what is available as they determine what should be employed to help them analyze this mountain of data,” Wormeli said.
