Getting San Fran Surveillance Right

Surveillance cameras mounted at First and Mission Streets in San Francisco

Big news. Despite doing many things wrong, San Francisco has still managed to reduce non-violent crime by an average of 24% in areas where they deployed surveillance cameras. Yet, a main objective to reduce violent crimes has yet to be accomplished. But, what would it mean if the city did everything right? That question wasn't addressed in a substantial piece in the SF Chronicle today, but the statistics the article provides are making for some pretty interesting food for thought.

The article cites a recently released study that shows that San Francisco's surveillance program has failed in its primary goal of reducing homicide and other violent crime, although it has succeeded in reducing such lesser offenses as burglary, pickpocketing and purse-snatching. While this statistic is important, it should be noted that San Francisco's cameras are not monitored in real time, but rather the footage is ordered by investigators only after the crime is reported; privacy controls prevent city police from monitoring the city's surveillance cameras in real-time. The privacy controls are so stringent, in fact, that I recently wrote about a man forced to spend 69 days in a San Francisco jail waiting for access to surveillance video footage that ultimately exonerated him. The city can and should be doing much better.

Protecting Privacy With Technology vs. Non-Use

There is very little excuse these days for deploying city surveillance and then not monitoring cameras or granting police and attorneys access to footage that helps convict or exonerate. That's because identity protection and search engine technology exists today that enables police to actively monitor and query city surveillance systems without sacrificing privacy. The ACLU recently wrote about one example of this kind of technology from 3VR Security, and these kinds of approaches are getting better every day. Had San Francisco deployed its surveillance system with this kind of privacy protection technology, it would not have been necessary for the city to take the extreme step of locking police out of its surveillance infrastructure.

The Value of Image Quality and Data Storage

In San Francisco, image quality and data storage are two other major concerns. The cameras the city purchased and installed for $700,000 in 2005 are high-resolution, but produce only three frames per second and thus the footage appears choppy (movies are shot at 24 frames per second), making it difficult to identify even license plates – forget about trying to recognize a repeat car thief or vandal. Again technology may provide an answer for the city. Instead of storing everything and an equally poor frame rate and video compression level, why not use face and license plate detection algorithms to smartly track and store relevant information when, and only when, it is detected. Intelligent approaches that separate what is important from what is not have been proven to dramatically improve both the quality and storage longevity of surveillance archives.

A Fully Integrated Platform

Traditional surveillance systems often require an army of people to patrol the system and report suspicious activity to a security manager. However, by using networked systems that apply analytics and reporting, municipalities can service security functions of hundreds with an army of one. By incorporating the latest innovations in face recognition, license plate recognition, video motion alarms and other new technologies to make systems more effective and efficient, municipalities can vastly improve the results of their security systems. As John Honovich points out in a recent contribution to Government Security News, "cameras enable officers to assess and respond over much greater areas at much lower cost. Even in the U.K., famous for its mass public deployment of surveillance cameras, video surveillance costs are only one one-hundredth of police costs."

Creating A Better Solution

Ultimately, video surveillance is nothing new and many cities are capturing hours and hours of footage on a daily basis. However, that endless volume of footage must be managed to be valuable, and even if a surveillance system features the highest quality cameras, the best image resolution, and a fully integrated network, the resulting video footage isn't going to be useful unless it can be stored, analyzed and searched – in real time. Search and analytics would dramatically improve the usability of the footage and make the surveillance network that much more effective in achieving its objective of crime reduction.

With the right ingredients, municipal surveillance has the potential to significantly counter criminal activity, but it takes that correct formula and a scientific approach to have such results. Despite its inefficiencies, the San Francisco municipal surveillance system isn't a disaster by any means. If Newsom can bolster its allotment of the 2009 budget and add the aforementioned features into the existing infrastructure, San Francisco has the opportunity to have one of the largest municipal surveillance systems out there operating smoothly, meeting and perhaps even surpassing expectations.

Newark Uses Cameras to Deter Crime

Amidst reports of cameras not doing anything at all to deter crime, Newark opened its new Surveillance Operations Center last week, and released a report claiming that murders and rapes had declined since the installation of cameras in its high violence areas in 2007. The city's mayor also talked about a recent armed robbery that was thwarted thanks to the cameras. As I've said before, just having cameras doesn't do anything, but having usable footage helps close cases and deliver arrests, which typically helps to deter crime in the long run.

Why Fuzzy Footage Is Useless

The fact that even with several minutes of video footage the police are stilling calling a suspect in a recent Palm Springs robbery Hispanic or African American is a prime example of why poor quality surveillance systems are a huge waste of money. Even if they catch this guy, the video evidence will not be enough to prosecute him.

Here's hoping he cracks and confesses during the interogation.

Cameras Don't Cut Crime, People Do

Here's a news flash: more cameras doesn't necessarily mean less crime. It's true - the presence of surveillance cameras alone will not deter crime. The consistent use of footage caught by those cameras to successfully prosecute criminals, on the other hand, may, eventually. Everyone knows that the presence of cameras or even extra policemen is not a deterrent in and of itself; criminals need to fear that they will be caught and that, once caught, they will be punished.

In other words, surveillance cameras may not be the solution, but they are a key part of it. In downtown Seattle, for example, where the aim is to make it more difficult for the open-air drug market to exist, installing cameras on dark and hidden alleys once left to drug dealers immediately creates a less safe atmosphere for drug deals. In London, where a senior police official recently denounced the "deterrence" factor of surveillance cameras, investigators did use CCTV footage to catch suspects in the 2005 terrorist bombing. And Scotland Yard has said that rather than throw surveillance cameras out altogether, they need more sophisticated equipment that turns surveillance footage into actionable data.

Meanwhile, this guy had an interesting take on the whole thing that brings into play the ongoing privacy vs. security debate. I'm not sure if I agree or disagree, but it's a thoughtful, well-written take.

Storeowner Posts Video on YouTube to Catch Thief

The owner of a computer store outside of St. John's, Canada has uploaded surveillance video to the popular online video website YouTube in an effort to catch a thief.

A screengrab from the YouTube video shows a man leaving the Computer Depot M.D. store with a computer component.

Using video surveillance content on the world’s most popular video distribution platform to catch a thief – smart.

No Place to Hide for Camera-shy Criminals

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20080121035546155C224410

CCTV cameras, commissioned by the Tshwane Metro Council three years ago, have helped to reduce crime and traffic violations in the inner city. And now the council is hoping to get public support to extend their range into neighboring areas.

“We have 68 cameras and we are negotiating with business and CIDs (city improvement districts) to expand the coverage,” said Tshwane Metro Police spokesperson William Baloyi.

In contrast to many stories where video surveillance has not been effective, Tshwane, South Africa is having nothing but success. The township’s city council credits video cameras for capturing 640 incidents that led to 45 arrests, 129 tickets for driving offences, and the capture of 2 car thieves and three robbery suspects—all from just 68 cameras.