September 16, 2015
I recently had the privilege of being asked to sit on a panel discussion about the future of Video Content Analytics (VCA) and body-worn cameras with Mr. Steve Ward, the CEO of VIEVU and Steve Russo, Director, Public Safety Solutions, for IBM . This is an area that holds great future promise for law enforcement information gathering. The ability to analyze large amounts of video data on a very timely basis could be the key to prevention at all levels of the crime spectrum. Functions such as facial recognition, shape recognition, object detection, data recognition and dynamic masking all done in near real-time could radically change how police agencies deploy and manage video collection assets including body-worn cameras. The technology won’t have its detractors, however. The concept of law enforcement gathering data from video sources such as body-worn cameras, rapidly analyzing it for criminal activity and intelligence, and then rapidly applying it to police operations will raise many concerns for the general public and civil libertarians. This doesn’t mean that agencies shouldn’t pursue this technology..They should, however, do so deliberately and with a specific strategic agency goals in mind.