Technology At What Cost?

Jul 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By CHARLIE PIERCE

Polls tell us that individuals are not only willing to give up pieces of their privacy for the sake of feeling more secure, they embrace the idea. However, when faced with the actual instruments of invasion — the cameras, lenses, and other devices — these same individuals cry in outrage.

Twenty-five years ago, hiding a camera was as simple as putting it in plain sight and hoping that no one would notice. The camera weighed 1 to 3 pounds, was a minimum of 8 inches long, and it was square and obscene in its obvious presence.

With the advent of the pinhole lens, we were suddenly able to put a camera above a false ceiling or behind a wall and look through a 1/8-inch hole to see our intended actors.

Cameras and related equipment have taken on new purpose with physical design and technical advancement in the modern era. Manufacturers now work from four perspectives. First, they create a visually sensitive unit that has no need for the sun or any of its byproducts. Secondly, they want to create a viable, working, electronic eye with enhanced digital features that enable it to outdo the human eye and mimic the thought process required to distinguish between images. Third, they want to create a unit with the ability to transmit images quickly and without hassle, wires or support amplifiers.

Finally, the camera manufacturers' ambition is to define the outer perimeter of the unit in such a way as not to be offensive to the average person and to attract as little attention as possible.

It is said that the average person working or living in a city environment in the United States is recorded by a minimum average of ten independent video systems each day, and the cameras are becoming more sensitive and less visible.

With the introduction of digital attributes, cameras have become less intrusive. With software being built into the cameras themselves, attributes that used to be expensive, clumsy and unpredictable are now common.

A major problem of past and current years has been pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ). If cameras are set up improperly, operators find they can look into the windows of neighboring apartment or housing complexes — a true and uninvited invasion. Also a true and serious lawsuit waiting to happen! However, technology provides the ability to block out the windows, doorways, and/or any other portion of a scene that we do not want monitored with the help of blocking software. A proven technology, you will find it built into a limited number of controllers, multiplexers, and other such equipment. The software allows a properly authorized manager to literally pick and choose what portions of an image are to be blocked. The best part is that those portions that are blocked will survive panning across the image … zooming into or away from the specific areas. It's a wonderful advancement designed to protect the industry's credibility and the individual's privacy.

In our industry … right now, as you read this, we have three basic formats of cameras. Some 95 percent of these are digitally enhanced analog cameras that the manufacturers proclaim to be digital. In fact, however, these cameras are digital wannabes. Then we have the 5 percent (and growing fast) IP Network and IP Network Smart cameras. These next generation cameras are a bit larger than their analog counterparts, but their operation, sophistication and affordability are well worth looking at. With a single IP smart camera, I can set up a street scene and effectively transmit or record multiple images from the same chip, thus giving the effect of two or three cameras without the cost. What three scenes? Driver, car, license plate … all tied together in a single digitally transmitted signal. With IP Network cameras, each camera is its own server.

There is software that, when incorporated with video images, will distinguish the movements of a person with a guilty or nervous system from one who is just stopping by to shop. Are you being watched or monitored? How do you move in a store … will it attract the attention of a programmed image-maker? Software has been developed and tested that helps retailers determine what part of their marketing displays are being looked at.

How far we have come is not so much the issue. The issue is how much farther are we willing to go … as an industry … as individuals … as a free nation? Do we go all the way? At what point do we quit, take down the world's window and lock the door? One thing is certain: Technology won't hold us back.

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About The Author

CHARLIE PIERCE is an industry consultant and owner of “LeapFrog Training & Consulting (LTC),” a full-service training center specializing in CCTV seminars.

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