DARPA's Automated Video Surveillance Will End Public Anonymity

To be in public is to be on camera, but most video footage is discarded, as only so much can be sorted and analyzed -- until now. DARPA has created a technology that can index and analyze video in real-time, marking the end of anonymity in public places.

In 2008, DARPA, the US military's elite group of pocket protector warriors, began soliciting the tech industry to develop technologies that would allow computers to sort through and index surveillance footage from the military's fleet of drones, satellites, and miscellaneous other super secret spy cameras. This was all part of the Agency's proposed Video Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool (VIRAT) that would be able to describe specific human activities in real-time. This automated index would allow for searchable queries (i.e. "how often did an adult male taller than six-foot get in a car in the early morning between November 1st and December 22nd in this compound in Abbottabad?") or flag behavior such as when someone carries a large package towards a car on the side of a road in Basra, but walked away empty handed.

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I believe its already here in certain citys, perhaps being deployed on a test basis?
What do you think about this?
And how would affect your lifestyle while in public if any?

Originally posted by Humint1
What do you think about this?
And how would affect your lifestyle while in public if any?

Its the kind of technology that could be used for good as well as evil.
Example 1 - Shopping mall car parks. The overwhelming vast majority of people walk from car to shops, or shops to car. This technology could flag people walking from car, to car, to car, to car, to car (looking for one to break into).
Example 2 - Rail suicides. From what I've heard, people intent on throwing themself under a train at stations often sit around for quite a while, missing several trains, "testing" the approach of trains and the timing a few times before they finally jump. I suppose this could pick them out as unusual.

reply to post by alfa1


The first point that comes to mind is many places like train depots, airports and such already have CCTV systems, these types here are a whole new breed that would be inter-linked to a mainframe somewhere. That in itself removes the reasoning that "they" will be using it just to record accidents and everday occurrences.