AI-powered cameras become new tool against mass shootings
AI-powered cameras become new tool against mass
shootings
Paul Hildreth peered at a display of
dozens of images from security cameras surveying his Atlanta school district
and settled on one showing a woman in a bright yellow shirt walking a hallway.
A mouse click instructed the
artificial intelligence-equipped system to find other images of the woman, and
it immediately stitched them into a video narrative of where she was currently,
where she had been and where she was going.
There was no threat, but Hildreth’s
demonstration showed what’s possible with AI-powered cameras. If a gunman were
in one of his schools, the cameras could quickly identify the shooter’s
location and movements, allowing police to end the threat as soon as possible,
said Hildreth, emergency operations coordinator for the Fulton County School
District.
AI is transforming surveillance
cameras from passive sentries into active observers that can identify people,
suspicious behavior and guns, amassing large amounts of data that help them
learn over time to recognize mannerisms, gait and dress. If the cameras have a
previously captured image of someone who is banned from a building, the system
can immediately alert officials if the person returns.
At a time when the threat of a mass
shooting is ever-present, schools are among the most enthusiastic adopters of
the technology, known as real-time video analytics or intelligent video, even
as civil liberties groups warn about a threat to privacy. Police, retailers,
stadiums and Fortune 500 companies are also using intelligent video.
“What we’re really looking for are
those things that help us to identify things either before they occur or maybe
right as they occur so that we can react a little faster,” Hildreth said.
A year after an expelled student
killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida,
Broward County installed cameras from Canada-based Avigilon throughout the
district in February. Hildreth’s Atlanta district will spend $16.5 million to
put the cameras in its roughly 100 buildings in coming years.
In Greeley, Colorado, the school
district has used Avigilon cameras for about five years, and the technology has
advanced rapidly, said John Tait, security manager for Weld County School
District 6.
Upcoming upgrades include the
ability to identify guns and read people’s expressions, a capability not
currently part of Avigilon’s systems.
“It’s almost kind of scary,” Tait
said. “It will look at the expressions on people’s faces and their mannerisms
and be able to tell if they look violent.”
Retailers can spot shoplifters in
real time and alert security or warn of a potential shoplifter. One company,
Athena-Security, has cameras that spot when someone has a weapon. And in a bid
to help retailers, it recently expanded its capabilities to help identify big
spenders when they visit a store.
It’s unknown how many schools have
AI-equipped cameras because it’s not being tracked. But Michael Dorn, executive
director of Safe Havens International ,
a nonprofit that advises schools on security, said “quite a few” use Avigilon
and Sweden-based Axis Communications equipment “and the feedback has been very
good.”
Schools are the largest market for
video surveillance systems in the U.S., estimated at $450 million in 2018,
according to London-based IHS Markit, a data and information services company.
The overall market for real-time video analytics was estimated at $3.2 billion
worldwide in 2018 — and it’s anticipated to grow to more than $9 billion by 2023,
according to one estimate .
AI cameras have already been tested
by some companies to evaluate consumers’ facial expressions to determine if
they’re having a pleasant or unpleasant shopping experience and improve
customer service, according to the Center for Democracy and Technology, a
Washington nonprofit that advocates for privacy protections. Policy counsel
Joseph Jerome said companies may someday use the cameras to estimate someone’s
age, which might be useful for liquor stores, or facial-expression analysis to aid in job interviews .
Police in New York, New Orleans and
Atlanta all use cameras with AI. In Hartford, Connecticut, the police network
of 500 cameras includes some AI-equipped units that can, for example, search
hours of video to find people wearing certain clothes or search for places
where a suspicious vehicle was seen.
The power of the systems has sparked
privacy concerns.
“The issue is personal autonomy and
whether you’ll be able to go around walking in the public square or a shopping
mall without tens, hundreds, thousands of people, companies and entities
learning things about you,” Jerome said.
“People haven’t really caught up to
how broad and deep the technology can now go,” said Jay Stanley, a senior
policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union who published a research paper in June about how the cameras are
being used. “When I explain it, people are pretty amazed and spooked.”
When it comes to the potential for
stemming violence that may be less of an issue. Shannon Flounnory, executive
director for safety and security for the Fulton County School District, said no
privacy concerns have been heard there.
“The events of Parkland kind of
changed the game,” he said. “We have not had any arguments or any pushback
right now.”
ZeroEyes, a Philadelphia-based
company, began testing gun-detection software last winter at Rancocas Valley
Regional High School in New Jersey, which became a client. Since the company
began selling their product this month, it said it’s signed up another four
schools — in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.
The company also brought on a
government agency in New York that it says it can’t name. Co-founder Rob
Huberty said ZeroEyes will be marketing the product to “stadiums, shopping
malls — anywhere with a potential for a mass shooting.”
Even supporters of these systems
acknowledge the technology is not going to prevent all mass shootings —
especially considering how quickly damage is done. But supporters argue they
can at least help reduce the number of casualties by giving people more time to
seek shelter and providing first responders with information sooner.
“This is just one thing that’s going
to help everybody do their job better,” Huberty said.
Both ZeroEyes and Austin-based
Athena-Security claim their systems can detect weapons with more than 90
percent accuracy but acknowledge their products haven’t been tested in a
real-life scenario. And both systems are unable to detect weapons if they’re
covered — a limitation the companies say they are working to overcome.
Stanley, with the ACLU, said there’s
reason to be skeptical about their capabilities because AI is still “pretty
unreliable at recognizing the complexities of human life.”
Facial recognition is not
infallible, and a study last year from Wake Forest University found
that some facial-recognition software interprets black faces as appearing
angrier than white faces.
But the seemingly endless cycle of
mass shootings is compelling consumers to see technology — untested though it
may be — as a possible solution to an intractable problem.
After a gunman killed 51 people in
attacks at two mosques in New Zealand in March, Athena-Security installed
gun-detection cameras at one of the mosques in June. Fahad A.B. Al-Ameri, a
Qatari businessman with no affiliation to the mosque, paid for them because
“all people should be secure going to their houses of worship,” he said.
Of the 50 clients Athena-Security
has, about a fourth are schools, said company co-founder Chris Ciabarra.
“It’s a matter of saving lives,” he
said.
Ivan Moreno is AP’s Milwaukee
correspondent. AP video journalist Cody Jackson contributed from Atlanta.
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