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The future of law enforcement surveillance technology

Have you ever read George Orwell's 1984 novel? Written in 1949 long before the invention of the Internet or the World Wide Web, it imagines a world in which thoughts are crimes and the state knows everything about its citizens.

ContentsVirtual watchmenPrivacy expectationsPolice footageFacial recognition CCTVShots firedSurveillance technology is here to stay

It's a classic piece of literature that resonates more than ever today as technology increases. This is because your local police authority may know more about you than you think.

Without too much surveillance, local police can access powerful surveillance technology, including ubiquitous CCTV cameras, Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs), and GPS tracking devices for cell phones.

But what about future surveillance camera technology? Here's everything you need to know.

The virtual watchmen

Newark Council New Jersey uses a program called Citizen Virtual Patrol that allows home visitors to stream video from video cameras installed throughout the city. It's like a private, crowd-funded, resident-funded CCTV collection. Here are the finds you can get.

Such technology can reduce crime, as people around the world can monitor live feeds from public places, informing law enforcement in real time of what is happening.

Members of the Virtual Citizen Patrol who have seen a crime unfold on camera can also testify to crimes anonymously.

Expectations of privacy

However, let's look at the matter another way. People have high expectations of privacy and may start monitoring their lawful behavior in public places. This private CCTV must comply with existing privacy laws. He cannot inspect people's houses.

It also cannot capture who is entering and leaving a house or apartment, as people expect to be able to receive guests unsupervised. License plates of parked cars should also be blocked if the information is made public for people to view, along with any other private behavior.

Such a network could be a boon to criminals who could use the live stream to find out when someone has gone on vacation and could rob their house.

Remember Click here if you are interested in more watch trends from 2021.

Police images

On the front roof of the car, there are small, flat cameras that take a picture of the license plate as it passes by and translate it into simple letters and numbers. And this is combined with geodata. For each car, at each observation, this data is entered into a database.

If you look down the street and see police officers recording license plates day in and day out, you might wonder why they do this.

Some police departments question whether it is worth noting down license plates when they have this technology. It is not illegal for the police to record the license plates of cars parked in public, whether they are in a parking lot or in a public park.

LPRs help find stolen cars and cars that could have been used in a crime.

It's easy to see where this technology could go in the future. You could have a tracking system built into each car that lets the police know where each car is at any given time.

CCTV with facial recognition

CCTV is also becoming so sophisticated that it includes elements of facial recognition. It is now used in the City of London. Not only would the police know where each car is at any given time, but they could also cross-reference it with CCTV to determine who was driving.

This could end the practice of husbands, wives and other loved ones lying about who was driving the vehicle to avoid driving bans and penalties.

In the vast majority of these cases, the state would be able to prove perjury relatively easily with this new type of surveillance camera.

States have different laws on how long we keep this data. In New Hampshire, for example, if a car isn't related to a crime and doesn't look like much, you can take it down in three minutes. Other states set a 24-hour limit, and many states set limits, and they set limits that reject the image of a large database.

Shots fired

The ShotSpotter is a sensor that detects the sound of gunshots. It is trained to detect "loud, impulsive noises" between 120 and 160 decibels.

When it hears a noise, it sends an alarm to ShotSpotter's headquarters. At ShotSpotters HQ in California, the alarm is ringing.

When ShotSpotters hears a sound, such as a gunshot, ShotSpotter will send a message to a nearby police officer. He tells them exactly what they heard. This could include the number of shots fired. He deploys an officer to the scene of the alleged shooting and activates all nearby security cameras.

What do people think of ShotSpotter? Many people think that this type of technology could be used to listen to people since cars listen all the time.

But "always-listening devices are becoming ubiquitous in our lives without too much of a backlash."

Amazon Echo and Echo dot devices that deploy their Alexa voice assistant are always listening. They have now sold hundreds of millions of units.

ShotSpotter would like to point out that it cannot hear conversations, only loud noises and sudden sounds. Nevertheless, critics say it is a form of police surveillance.

Surveillance-tech is here to stay

The reality is that surveillance camera technology is here to stay. Every day, police surveillance technology helps them catch more criminals, keeping them within a budget that is continually stretched.

From facial recognition to LPR software to detect where a car is when it passes a speed camera, sometimes it feels like we are already living in the future.

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