- New federally funded software promises
to double the quality of fuzzy video surveillance camera footage, gratifying
crime fighters but raising concerns among privacy watchdogs.
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- Developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
in Tennessee, the Video Imaging Tool for Aiding Law Enforcement, or VITALE,
samples multiple frames of surveillance footage, compiles information on
the subject from different views, and then fuses the data together to sharpen
the image.
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- "A lot of law enforcement agencies
come to us for technology they don't have," said Oak Ridge National
Laboratory spokesman Ron Walli. "We believe this new technology will
make a significant difference in solving crimes that would perhaps otherwise
remain unsolved."
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- Researcher Ken Tobin and his team developed
algorithms to cut back on the visual "noise" of video, clearing
up the fuzzy, snowy stick-up footage familiar to consumers of "reality"
police television programming.
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- The technology has already helped put
one killer behind bars. In July 1995, police in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
were stymied by grainy footage that showed the killing of a convenience-store
clerk during a robbery. The police sent the tape to Oak Ridge where, using
a prototype version of VITALE, researchers clarified the image. A suspect
was subsequently arrested and convicted.
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- The Oak Ridge software package is not
in commercial release yet, but law enforcement officials hope to be using
a beta version by the end of the summer. Beyond law enforcement, the technology
has medical-imaging and satellite-technology applications as well, Farrell
said.
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- But Barry Steinhardt, associate director
of the ACLU, suggested that the technology is not likely to stop there.
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- "What happens if other government
agencies get hold of these videotapes, and use the images and information
recorded not of criminals, but innocent private citizens?" Steinhardt
asked.
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- "It's part of a rush of technology
that is making surveillance more and more commonplace and affordable,"
Steinhardt said. "We are going to have to resign ourselves to either
all be living in glass houses, or we need to introduce some regulatory
legislation."
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- The ACLU has definite ideas about such
legislation, according to Norman Siegal, executive director of the New
York Civil Liberties Union. The group wants laws to limit the amount of
tape recorded, distributed, and stored, and also wants individuals notified
when they are being taped.
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- To demonstrate the near-ubiquity of public
surveillance cameras, the NYCLU mapped the locations of 2,397 surveillance
cameras visible on the streets of Manhattan.
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- "We need to take an active, not
passive, role in deciding how surveillance technology can be used in public,"
Siegal said.
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- "Technology is driving us. We need
to get hold of technology."
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