Video surveillance: privacy and data protection guaranteed
Video cameras have us in their sights in many places. Can the privacy of citizens and data protection be guaranteed? Yes - through intelligent video surveillance, as a new development by the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation shows.
The new Baden-Württemberg police law allows video surveillance in preventive police work in three cases: at crime hotspots, at "endangered objects" and at public events if there is a threat of terrorist attacks. This will also enable the use of intelligent systems for the first time, which can greatly facilitate the work of the person behind the screen. "I am convinced that intelligent video surveillance is an important security instrument, both preventively and repressively, and is very good from the point of view of data and privacy protection," Strobl said when he recently visited the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation (IOSB) visited in Karlsruhe.
In a real-life application, intelligent technology is to be tested and further developed in parallel with conventional video surveillance - the model project is being implemented in Mannheim. "Privacy is an important concern for us. Our approach is to technically enforce the required data protection and protection of personal rights. As a result, we are convinced that these systems will gain acceptance," explained Jürgen Geisler, Deputy Director of Fraunhofer IOSB.
People and scenes are pixelated
Markus Müller, spokesman for the Civil Security business unit at Fraunhofer IOSB, explained how intelligent video surveillance works. "With conventional surveillance technology, every person is captured and stored in the highest resolution during everyday operations. Our intelligent video surveillance offers the possibility of 'cascaded anonymization'. In this process, irrelevant areas, scenes and persons are completely hidden or pixelated by the technology, for example," said Müller.
If an algorithm detects something suspicious, then the system focuses the image and an alarm is sent out to a human operator. "To do this, we are developing procedures to detect, for example, assaults or parked and orphaned objects," says Müller. The software can identify patterns of action.
Video data is deleted after a certain time
"If everything is pixelated and the camera technology only focuses for the police officer when something happens - a fist punch, for example - then that is privacy protection. Because the pixelated data should finally disappear after a certain point in time," explained Baden-Württemberg's Interior Minister Strobl.
Intelligent video evaluation procedures can also provide support in an investigation after the fact, provided that the legal basis for authorization exists in the Code of Criminal Procedure. For example, so-called soft biometric features such as body size, accessories or hair color are sometimes known from a perpetrator. "These characteristics can usually be altered, and their low discriminatory power makes them unsuitable for identification," Müller explained. However, automated searches for soft biometric features in video data can help investigators after a crime has been committed. "In many cases, police officers often sit in front of a screen for endless hours, sifting through countless videos. Our systems facilitate and shorten this tedious work for police officers," says Müller.
ivisX (Integrated Video Investigation Suite for Forensic Applications) provides a solution for criminological video analysis that supports the processing of video mass data in the case of large crowds, enabling crime reconstruction.
Text: Angelika Linos, Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation (IOSB), Press and Public Relations
On the topic of video surveillance, a special edition of the SecurityForum
