Technological Developments of CCTV

Todays High-definition CCTV cameras have many computer controlled technologies that allow them to identify, track, and categorize objects in their field of view. Video Content Analysis (VCA) is the capability of automatically analyzing video to detect and determine temporal events not based on a single image. As such, it can be seen as the automated equivalent of the biological visual cortex.

 A system using VCA can recognize changes in the environment and even identify and compare objects in the database using size, speed, and sometimes color. The cameras actions can be programmed based on what it is seeing. For example; an alarm can be issued if an object has moved in a certain area, or if a painting is missing from a wall, and if someone has spray painted the lens.VCA analytics can also be used to detect unusual patterns in a videos environment. The system can be set to detect anomalies in a crowd of people, for instance a person moving in the opposite direction in airports where passengers are only supposed to walk in one direction out of a plane or in a subway where people are not supposed to exit through the entrances.

 VCA also has the ability to track people on a map by calculating their position from the images. It is then possible to link many cameras and track a person through an entire building or area. This can allow a person to be followed without having to analyze many hours of film. Currently the cameras have difficulty identifying individuals from video alone, but if connected to a key-card system, identities can be established and displayed as a tag over their heads on the video. There is also a significant difference in where the VCA technology is placed, either the data is being processed within the cameras (on the edge) or by a centralized server. Both technologies have their pros and cons.

 Facial recognition system Is a computer application for automatically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame from a video source. One of the ways to do this is by comparing selected facial features from the image and a facial database.The combination of CCTV and facial recognition has been tried as a form of mass surveillance, but has been ineffective because of the low discriminating power of facial recognition technology and the very high number of false positives generated. This type of system has been proposed to compare faces at airports and seaports with those of suspected terrorists or other undesirable entrants. Eye-in-the-sky surveillance dome camera watching from a high steel pole

 Computerized monitoring of CCTV images is under development, so that a human CCTV operator does not have to endlessly look at all the screens, allowing an operator to observe many more CCTV cameras. These systems do not observe people directly. Instead, they track their behavior by looking for particular types of body-movement behavior, or particular types of clothing or baggage. Critics fear the possibility that one would not be able to meet anonymously in a public place or drive and walk anonymously around a city. Demonstrations or assemblies in public places could be affected as the state would be able to collate lists of those leading them, taking part, or even just talking with protesters in the street.