Video surveilance – one of the keystones of modern-day private and public security – is now being advanced a few notches. Ohio State’s James Davis, assistant professor of computer and information science, is working on a new type of video surveillance that uses body heat to detect human movement.
An innovation-in-progress for thermal surveillance is the identification of human intent (such as breaking into a building or car). However, that technology will not be available in the first version of the thermal surveilance system, which will be released in two or three years.
Though the price tag is expensive – a range of $12,000 to $60,000 per camera – the technology will not be limited only to military and law enforcement use. As of now, the sale of the cameras appears to be completely private, meaning any person with the will and the money can purchase one.
Americans have always valued security and exceedingly more so over the past few years. Regular video surveillance systems have been used in a plethora of businesses and institutions. They help stop criminals, or at least help bring them to justice after the crime has been committed.
At the same time, video cameras have been known to impose on many people’s sense of privacy – another highly-held value which is often balanced on the opposite side of the scale from security.
Thermal technology’s most obvious application is its advantage over normal video surveillance in being able to accurately produce images at night. Its other, less-advertised, potentially dangerous and certainly controversial application is the ability to create a like product – the thermal imaging camera, which can produce the same heat-based images, but through walls.
Thermal scanning through walls itself is not completely new – it is already in use, for instance, by firefighters to see through heavy smoke and walls during rescue operations. However, this technology alone – or worse, combined with the developing technology of a camera to identify intent and specify action – turns surveillance into spying – which, while possibly insuring security, goes above and beyond in taking away from personal privacy.
Already the government is pushing privacy norms to fight terrorism by increasing phone taps and Internet use surveillance. Imagine the possibilities the government could have with this technology. With the terrorism push, Attorney General John Ashcroft could make it legal to place thermal scanners in homes of “suspected terrorists,” which is an increasingly loosely-defined term. This could potentially put 24-hour visuals of innocent peoples’ lives out of privacy and into the eyes of security personnel.
Or worse – if criminals decided to go high-tech, they could purchase thermal cameras to ascertain when people left their homes to better aid thieves in finding the best break-in times, or simply use the cameras to become thermal “peeping toms.”
While thermal surveillance does have the potential to increase security, in the hands of the privately wealthy, it could be used for unparalled success in criminal and indecent activity. In the hands of the government, it may be the straw that breaks the public’s back in breaching personal privacy.
