Just because you are paranoid
Doesn't mean they aren't watching you
I understand that France is going to use CCTV cameras with artificial intelligence to analyse behaviour at the 2024 Olympics, attempting to identify potential risks, based on people’s behaviour.
I wonder if they are working with the police in London, said to be the city with the most cameras per capita in the world. I wonder if those cameras are making a real difference in crime prevention, or in obtaining convictions. There are some interesting stats in this report from AOAV.
Cameras work well in certain areas, such as retail. That’s because it is fundamentally a closed and unambiguous environment. People go shopping for a purpose. They are in the building for a purpose. It becomes quite easy for an AI to be trained to study a variety of things, not just deterring or catching criminals.
I have seen fascinating examples of behaviours of couples or groups of people, that can alert staff to something dodgy going on, but also alert salespeople that someone is approaching an ‘Open to Buy’ position, or perhaps wants assistance. AI with cameras can be used to aid store design to improve security and increase sales.
But like anything, it can be wrong. Facial recognition is still far from mature, and given that it uses facial characteristics to identify people, it can also try to look at facial expressions, to identify emotions. There are some common characteristics, for example, a thief looking around the store to see if anyone is watching them before they take something off the shelf and hide it in their bag. But someone could be equally looking around them to find a store assistant or the person they are shopping with.
There are anecdotal stories of an AI being told that terrorists sometimes wear a particular type of clothing and the risk of heuristic bias interpreting that because someone wears that type of clothing, they may be a terrorist. Given the diversity of ethnicities in Paris on any given day, let alone during the Olympics, getting it wrong could be disastrous. But on the other hand, we want to feel safe. I don’t know about you, but seeing an armed gendarme on every street corner can be both reassuring and intimidating.
It would be nice to see more information about the positive effects of using AI and CCTV together in the real world. I’d like to see some statistics showing that it is reducing crime, and making cities more livable.
I found this interesting article on Calipsa. “UK CCTV and crime prevention statistics: your FAQs answered”
Here are a few interesting factoids:
There is a security camera in Britain for every 13 people.
Where cameras are actively monitored there is a crime reduction of around 15%
Crime was reduced by 37% overall when used in car parks. I thought that was funny because when my car was broken into in an Auckland Council car park and I asked for access to the footage, it turned out that the cameras were only monitoring the ramps and exits, but not the car parking area itself.
Several US cities including San Francisco, Oakland and Berkley have imposed bans on the use of facial recognition from CCTV cameras. I assume the key reasons are that they are not very successful in recognising women, or people with dark coloured skin.
Will the cameras in France make people safer? I hope so, at the very least in deterring crimes. We’ll find out.