Vidéosurveillance

The vidéosurveillance consists in placing Caméra S of Surveillance in a public place or private to visualize in a place centralized all flows of people within a place open to the public and to prevent flights, aggressions and Sways in the crowd.

With the beginning of the year 2000, the cameras make their appearance of big number in many European cities. London is famous as being the city or an individual is filmed the most in the world.

The use of the vidéosurveillance makes debate as regards Sécurité and of respect of the Private life.

Beginnings

The vidéosurveillance developed initially with the the United Kingdom, in answer to the attacks of the WILL GO. The first experiments in the United Kingdom in the Seventies and Eighties led to programmes of great width to the beginning of the year 1990. These successes led the government to make a campaign near the population, and launched a series of installations of cameras. Today, the cameras in the United Kingdom cover the majority of the downtown areas, and many stations and carparks. A study gave the estimative figure of 400 000 cameras in London and 4 000 000 with the the United Kingdom on the whole.

Other countries as France installed systems of vidéosurveillance. In 1998 the number of cameras in France was estimated at a million including 150.000 in the public domain. These cameras are present in various places such as the airports, the stations, the roads, public transport. These video installations also start to flower in the cities. In Avignon for example, an investigation in connection with the vidéosurveillance revealed that 71% of the probed Inhabitants of Avignon were favorable to the installation of such a system in the carparks. However there exist also associations which militate against any form of monitoring. It is the case of “Smile, you are filmed”, to quote only one of them.

Generalization

The Attacks of September 11th, 2001 in New York or more recently those of July 2005 in London, reinforced the feeling of insecurity which settled in the population these last years. In answer, the solution which obviously is proposed by the States is the generalized monitoring.

All the countries do not use (still) this technology. The difference between each country is marked enough. Some, like Great Britain, have a very developed monitoring system already, in certain cases even more developed than the laws regulating the use of these techniques.

Certain countries set up laws to regulate the installation of the cameras of vidéosurveillance. It is the case of the New Zealand, where relative laws with the installation of cameras were founded. These last envisage in particular the consultation of the people touched by the installation of monitoring electronic.

Goals

The causes of the installation of systems of vidéosurveillance are varied, however public safety as well as the protection of the movable or real goods act as elements headlights in the justification of the vidéosurveillance. In England, the attacks of July 2005 are also an engine for the increase in the number of cameras.

This threat which always was forever really presents created a feeling of insecurity, but the attacks of September 11th, 2001 changed gives it. People became aware that nobody was untouchable.

However the installation of the vidéosurveillance cannot be explained only by the growing insecurity or the protection of the goods. Some other less known reasons of the general public also exist. The installation of the vidéosurveillance allows an improvement of the management of the incidents as well as an increase in the effectiveness and speed of intervention. For example, in the prevention of the suicide or at the time of accidents which could occur on the public highway. It allows thus indirectly, to maintain the premiums of insurances on a reasonable level. The monitoring of the road axes serves to inform in real-time the motorists on the conditions as the traffic.

In Spain, the government installed a system which makes it possible to observe all the Straits of Gibraltar, it to face clandestine immigration. With this tool, the coastguards can locate any boat which sails on the strait, i.e. in a ray of approximately 14 kilometers, of day like night (source). But already from the problems emerge. The zone of the strait nearest to Morocco, is practically impassable but the immigrants go up higher and circumvent the supervised zone.

Secondary goals

In addition to the goals of security of the goods and people for the companies and the trade, new technologies of vidéosurveillance make it possible from now on to carry out the counting of the customers in a shop, or vehicles entering and outgoing of a company, to encrust in the video image the amount with a sales slip or information with a badge or a chart with access, to recognize the number plates automatically vehicles (the access of a carpark without ticket, key or badge allow), automatically to announce an object mislaid, given up or stolen.

The vidéosurveillance also makes it possible to raise the dead angles, quote the example of certain trucks of collecting of refuse which make it possible to the driver to see the movements of the employees to the back of his vehicle, or of the techniques used in the public transport known as of equipment to agent alone (EAS).

In Switzerland

A system of vidéosurveillance exists in the trains without controllers like in the buses downtown of Geneva for example. These installations initially aim at reducing the depredations made against the vehicles. In addition, they make it possible to reduce the flights or other aggressions, but it acts this time, within the framework of the trains, of an average “liability”. It is indeed necessary to press on a button to start a continuous recording what according to the situations is obviously impossible. It is still about a system of dissuasion and not of action. In a near future the support on this emergency button will put in connection (image and its) direct with the police force of the rail.

Cameras are also installed in the districts attended by the prostitutes and it to guarantee their safety. It is the case with Olten within the framework of a pilot project.

At the time of the installation of camera of vidéosurveillance in the trains, the federal council called upon Ordonnance safety reasons on the vidéosurveillance cars CF:

Vis-a-vis the increase in the acts of vandalism and the feeling of insecurity in the stations and the passenger trains , the installation of surveillance cameras is essential. The first experiments made during a pilot project between Lausanne and Geneva show that the vidéosurveillance in the regional trains makes it possible to prevent vandalism and to reduce the acts of violence made towards the travellers. Moreover, thanks to these cameras, the passengers feel safe subjectively more.

Like says it this text, the passengers, in the case of the public transport, “feel safe subjectively more”. That shows that the cameras installed in these fields inevitably do not make safe the places which they supervise but they reassure! The feeling of insecurity is subjective. It varies according to the age group and the state of stain of the places.

The first surveillance cameras intended to monitor the population appeared in the trade, and it to prevent the vol. Thereafter the system was extended to the accesses of the important buildings (embassies, international organizations, banks). But all that always within a “professional” framework.

Use of the vidéosurveillance in the various sectors in Geneva.

In Bienne for example, surveillance cameras were installed in the city for Expo02 and they always seem in function today. Moreover, always in this same city, the political line with launched an initiative lately for the installation of cameras downtown, in order to improve safety. The socialist parties in particular as for them are opposed to this initiative which, according to them, reduced individual freedoms.

Reports

The most measurable effect of the surveillance cameras is not to discourage the crime, but to detect best and continue the authors. Many businesses of crimes were solved thanks to the recordings provided by the surveillance cameras. For example, after the attacks of the subway of London of July 7th, 2005, the recordings of the surveillance cameras were used to identify the person who plants bombs.

The question of knowing if the vidéosurveillance secures or reduces the crimes could not be shown by the independent studies which were led. The British government judged on its side that the effects were effective.

In England

According to an article of The Guardian the English seem well to accept the total monitoring which they live. Certain groups trying to protect their freedoms after a fashion recognize the system effectiveness, by recalling that the vidéosurveillance reaches also the private life of innocent, and that the collected data can the being ill-advisedly. They are obviously minority. In the same article, the author written “we C not cuts has big brother society goal the burgeoning family off little brothers needs closed monitoring. ” , which shows that certain people “worry” about the width which the monitoring is taking.

As regards gendarmerie, the use of cameras on the roads allowed a clear reduction in the excess speeds and accidents. A report/ratio shows that there was a reduction of 68% of the people killed in one of the areas “tests”. And in the majority of the other sites “tests” the number of accidents has also decreased him. Recently, the police force uses a software of recognition of the number plates which made “drastiquement reduce” the number of infringements and which makes it possible to follow a suspect car in the surroundings of crime, for example. An association of motorists, Association off British Drivers (ABD) , notices that the cameras do nothing but “move” the infringements and the accidents, that the full number of accidents does not decrease. It is one of the problems of the monitoring in general; it moves the problems.

In an investigation of ABE (2001), the police force of Newham affirms that the vidéosurveillance reduced approximately 30% criminality, and that this one still dropped by 34% at the time of the installation of the facial recognition. There too, the opponents refute these figures, adding even that criminality appreciably increased. They also perhaps notice that the vidéosurveillance decreases the small offenses near the filmed places, but that in general the number of infringements remains unchanged, criminals going simply where there N are no “electronic eyes”. That shows that the cameras “adapt” the territory which they observe.

In Switzerland

In the trains equipped, vandalism decreased by 60%. The CF, in addition, will continue on the way of the vidéosurveillance.

In 1997, the service of the highways of the canton of Freiburg had equipped its new tunnel, on a1 highway, with 45 surveillance cameras. One of the goals of this system was to supervise the concentration the traffic. But the cameras in the tunnel also made it possible to detect the accidents and to block the access of them.

Vidéosurveillance and Private life

The opponents with the vidéosurveillance point out that the people undergo an invasion of privacy, and that the vidéosurveillance has an impact on the public Liberté S. They also protest that the surveillance cameras do nothing but move the delinquency towards the zones not-equipped, rather than to reduce the crime. Criticisms often associate the vidéosurveillance to the character Big Brother, whom one finds in the novel 1984 of the writer Georges Orwell, in which it described equipment of monitoring in each house, with which the party could control the situation.

The recent increase in the vidéosurveillance in the residential zones also raises questions about the possibility that it can be used like a measurement as Social control, rather than to have a real impact on the crime, especially in the United Kingdom, associated with measurements of “behaviors antisocial” (warning statement ASBO).

In France, the vidéosurveillance obeys a very precise regulation framework. All places open to the public (restaurant, stores, pharmacy…) wishing to be equipped with a device of video monitoring must make a demand for prefecture as a preliminary. The public must be informs by a sign answering quite precise criteria of the existence of a system of vidéosurveillance. The personnel must also be informed installation and the device must be submitted to the work's council if there is one of them. In the places which are not opened with the public one leaves the field of competence of the prefectures then to return in that of the CNIL.

In Switzerland

The use of video cameras at ends of monitoring is subjected to the federal law of June 19th, 1992 on the data protection (LPD; RS 235.1) since the filmed images refer to one or more identified or identifiable people, that the images are the subject or not of a conservation. The treatments carried out (to collect, transfer, view on line or a posteriori, to preserve images, etc) must respect the general principles of data protection.

Moreover each installation must be clearly indicated and this by panels indicating the vidéosurveillance.

However there do not exist laws clearly governing the use of cameras in the public domain. It is competence of the cantons to legislate as regards vidéosurveillance. Therefore, a priori, there will be 26 laws different on the installation from cameras and their use. This absence of jurisdiction prevents certain cities from crossing the step. It is the case of Bienne and Bern which had to give up such an installation, legal basic fault.

In the canton of Vaud, there does not exist yet any law specific to the vidéosurveillance, that it is at the communal or cantonal level, if they are not those on the data protection which makes it possible to avoid the skids. The canton of Freiburg is a pioneer in this field, he recently wrote a memory assistance on the vidéosurveillance in the public domain.

The federal Railroads depend on the Confederation, have a federal ordinance which is clean for them. It establishes inter alia it is possible to install cameras in any place accessible to the public but that this vidéosurveillance must be clearly announced, and the recordings must be removed in the 24 hours, in so far as they are not used with the constitution as evidence. Moreover, the stations are not regarded as public as well as the streets (for example) and are thus controls by the federal law on the data protection.

How the collected data are used?

In Switzerland, the data law stipulates that the collected and recorded data should be accessible only to the authorized people, i.e. the person in charge of the installation.

Moreover these data can in no case to be used at other ends only the protection of people or goods. There can indeed be skids as for the final use of these data. In London for example, the images collected by the cameras of circulation are resold with the radio, so that the latter can give information on the urban traffic.

The use of surveillance cameras must be the legal base object if it is implemented by a public authority, like the CF for example.

Developments which could be worrying?

The first cameras had basic images quality and black and white, without possibility of zoomer, nor to change the visual angle. The modern cameras are color, have zooms, allow a very clear settling, and can record with many details. By controlling these cameras with computers, it is possible to follow movements, it is for example possible to detect movements in a place where there should not be, or on the contrary to focus themselves on an individual and to follow it through the scene. Data processing can make cooperate several cameras to follow it in a whole urban space.

Some critical find that worst possible technological development would be the Reconnaissance of face with cameras high-definition. With this technology, it would be possible to determine the identity of a person, without any police control, and informing it that its identity is being checked and recorded.

This combination of surveillance cameras and recognition of face was already tried, but it appears for the moment ineffective, and generates too many False-positive S.

Recent research relates to the automatic control of the behaviors. The idea which underlies this research is the foreseeability of the human behavior in public spaces. A robber does not behave only one user in the same way. The computer can identify this kind of movement and give alarm.

Systems and monitoring

Current technology

The first portable video camera in the world goes back to 1978. Since technology did not cease evolving/moving, still accelerated by the recent developments of the electronic chips related on data processing and microprocessing.

By the use of amplifier circuits of light, the cameras are able to film day like night today, in outside as in interior.

The generalization of Internet led many companies to develop cameras IP, i.e. consultable and controllable since anywhere in the world.

Nowadays these installations are not limited any more to only one coverage area; they are mobile. These sensors of images can swivel on themselves, controlled by joystick or automatically by a software, and pass from the one to the other, which makes it possible to follow passers by or vehicles on a field of view much broader. In addition there exist many “intelligent” software known as, able to hope the number of vehicles which pass in the field of view, to identify a fixed area and to adapt it so new elements are integrated into it, of reading the number plates and even practicing the facial recognition in real-time.

Three main public categories are counted in which one finds these monitoring systems:

public airports, transport and the stations
public places and carparks. Who will mainly see themselves equipping with traditional systems for the overall monitoring although the airports start to adopt the biometric measures.
highway traffic. Who for its part will privilege the cameras which have the possibility of recognizing the vehicles.

The important private installations relate to the casinos and other gaming rooms which regularly call upon systems of facial identification to recognize the defrauders.

Various types of systems

System on networks IP

This system connects a network of cameras, which can count many units, to a “computer” which digitizes all the data that it records. That makes it possible on the one hand to be able to store an significant amount of images, without loss of quality, while being able to quickly consult them thanks to software of treatment and on the other hand, the fact of computerizing a monitoring system makes it possible to benefit from technologies of communication like Internet. Indeed, several companies praise the merits of their cameras “visible” and gérable since anywhere in the world. The evolution of the mobile phones created the " vidéosurveillance mobile" with the access to the videos via Mobile Internet on PDA or GSM GPRS on telephone GSM equipped with Java.

“Kit of vidéosurveillance”

One understands by “kit” the kind of cameras used in the small stores, for example. It in general gathers one or two cameras and a monitor. These systems are rather used as prevention and do not record what they see. It is to some extent of the cheap vidéosurveillance which is proposed like an inexpensive security solution.

“Traditional” network of vidéosurveillance

The network is still based on an analogical system, with in the majority of the cases a recording limited in the duration. It is one of the oldest methods thus also of most widespread in a great number of establishment.

“Hybrid” system of vidéosurveillance

The hybrid systems integrate the traditional systems of vidéosurveillance based on the analogical cameras and the cameras in network. It makes it possible to easily integrate the two types of systems in place on only one waiter or to facilitate the evolution of an analogical system of vidéosurveillance towards the numerical one, without calling into question existing it, and introducing new functions like the detection of disappearance/appearance of object and the counting of objects or people.

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