18 May 2006
Written by Rainer
Finnish surveilance goes hi-tech
The airport of Helsinki has equipped an automated Hi-Tech CCTV which can recognize “suspicious behaviour”, luggages left alone, excessive queues, etc.
“The system can alert staff to events which may need further investigation without the need for every camera to be observed by staff. For example, suspect packages or vehicles left unattended will be flagged up and staff alerted. Similarly if the system detects queues growing beyond a pre-defined length in the security zone staff will be alerted of the need to open another lane”
This is of course nice way of saving money and will be more vigilant than a human monitoring 500 different cameras, but how does it actyally recognize suspicious behaviour or long term parked parked cars vs. abanded ones. Does the system read the licence plate and then run it against passenger lists or what? How does it recognize and abandoned suitcase? And how do they differ for example from a sleeping person or the “buggy” of janitor?
The system raises many safety and privacy issues but luckily the people responding to the flagged threats are still human and luckily the Helsinki-Vantaa airport actually hires security staff with higher intelligence and better manners than an average GI-Joe SecurityGuard posesses.
Also this raises a question of what will happen in a case of computer down time?-which eventually will happen- Will the monitoring system work at all or do they have to send patrols with “live eyes”? Will the monitoring system cause false searches for people with the “suspicious behaviour” like has happenend in London. The success persent of the system isn’t mentioned anywhere. Thread in /. raises few good questions as well.
Getting rod of the feckers who wants to blow themselfs and other people for any higher cause is always good but how much can we automate in their detection without causing trouble for normal travelers, be it in airport, bus/metro/trainstation or in an shopping mall? Do we really trust or want to trust on decisions made by a computer based on pre-programmed clauses?
categorised as » Finland, Tech
ShortURL for linking: http://lime.rahina.info/?p=39
2 Comments currently posted.
Jakob says:
rahina says:
I don’t know of Stockholm but at least in the centre of Helsinki (and in other major cityes) all the areas are covered with video surveilance.
For example when Sten Christersen (if I recall his name correctly) killed two polices the police was able to trace him down just by following the surveilance footage. It has been used to trace down other criminals as well. Of cource not all of it is set up by the goverment, but by shops, hotels, etc… but they will provide the footate to police if they wish so.
On the other hand, these cameras are not controlled/monitored by “intelligent surveilance system” who would make decisions and send gorillas on the way. And I hope it won’t be connected to that kind of system. (skynet, or orwell recollection to anyone?)
In general, I’m very suspicious (pun intended) of this type of schemes, and I’ll tell you why.
Any automated monitoring system has an inherent flaw: it is only as good as the criteria it’s analyzing. Even if a system had an incredibly high success rate – say that only 1% of “suspiscion predictions” are incorrect – the very size of the area or number of people surveilled will mean that more innocent than guilty people are tracked and hounded. If 100.000 people pass through the airport in a year, the 1% fail rate I hypothesized above will mean that 1000 innocent people will be badgered by guards for no reason.
And of course it’s likely that the system, in order to be sensitive enough to detect the Real Bad Guys™, will have to be much broader set than that. So make that fail rate number closer to 50% than 1%. That’s 50.000 people having to answer questions and feel singled out by the guards. You’d better have some very well trained people making the calls behind the scene.
And I’m guessing Helsinki airport has significantly more than 100.000 people passing through it’s halls per year…
Shit, I don’t even like the fact that they have cameras in shops. I honestly don’t think expensive surveillance systems are going to make us more secure, they just spread paranoia and fear. I’d rather just queue ten minutes longer then feel like I’m on display. If the langers can’t make their check-ins in time, they don’t deserve to fly!