Why London's Spy Cams Don't Spook Bombers

So we now know that terrorists look up at London's bazillion-camera surveillance network, and yawn. Why aren't they spooked by the electronic eyes? Well, one reason the system can't really prevent crime (or terror) is because it's almost impossible to tell, in real time, what the cameras are actually seeing. In other cities -- and in lots of corporate locations -- the cameras are all digital, and networked together. Which means they can use deploy some pretty slick crime-fighting software on the spynet, to spot suspicious behavior automatically.

In London, however, only a fraction of the cameras are digital. And only fraction of those are networked together. So the only way to watch what the cameras are watching is to plant a security guard in front of a monitor bank. And most folks can only stare at six to eight video feeds, for about twenty minutes, before they start to lose focus.

But a bunch of different software tools can make that work less mind-numbing -- and more useful. Here's what I wrote in the *New York Times *about one video analysis program, from 3VR:

*Every time someone passes in front of a camera connected to the system, the software logs a separate "motion event." The time and location of the event - along with a still picture - are sent to a security guard's desktop computer. The guard can then browse through these pictures instead of staring at a bank of black-and-white monitors showing images that are constantly changing, waiting for something to happen. If a picture catches the guard's eye, he can click on it to see the video of the scene. *

*The system shows more than what the cameras see. Often, it can tell who the cameras are watching, too. The
3VR software assigns an identification number to every person a camera spots, and establishes a profile based largely on the geometry of the person's face. Whenever the face is captured from a different angle or in a different light, the system creates another mathematical model.
Each time a person is taped, another model is added to the profile, increasing its accuracy. *

Once the profiles reach a certain critical level of detail, it becomes fairly simple to search the
"motion events" to find out where someone has been - essentially the same as entering a name on Google. The video forensics made possible by such software can be valuable;
similar technology was used to trace the suspects in the [7/7] London terrorist bombing. But 3VR can be set up to do more than retrace a person's steps. The system can also set off an alert almost instantly if someone on a watch list enters a building or a restricted area.

Get the idea? Spycam-happy cities like Chicago, last time I checked, were about to deploy this kind of software. New York City is slowing working on a similar approach. The Pentagon was quietly testing its own city-watching network. And 3VR is now working with a bunch of financial institutions, to prevent check fraud and catch bank robbers. I don't think anyone talking about it publicly, but I understand the system has already caught some fairly serious crooks. Which goes to show that these cameras can be crime-fighters, if outfitted properly.