There are four million CCTV cameras in the UK but most of them are useless for fighting crime.
Cameras watch us on buses trains and at airports but their effect on reducing crime has been negligible.
That's because they simply record huge amounts of film and virtually none of it is ever viewed.
It just gets put on a disc and stored and never looked at again unless the police want to check it while investigating a crime.
But a new generation of CCTV cameras is being tested which will not only film you but assess and analyse everything you are doing.
They make an assessment of your age, gender, the colour of your clothes and other factors to assess whether you are at risk.
Changing your seat on a bus, standing on the stairs or loitering too close to the driver could trigger the computer to think you are a threat.
Pictures will be beamed back to a central control room where a computer will filter out the pictures and highlight the ones where there is the biggest crime risk.
Instead of watching a bank of screens security analysts will just need to watch three or four which the computer has highlighted for them to watch in "real time."
If the security officer thinks there is a threat they could appear on a screen in a bus or train and tell you: "We've got our eye on you."
Or the CCTV film could be relayed to the nearest police patrol car and a police officer would appear on the screen with the same message.
These smart CCTV cameras are already being tested and are set to become the latest weapons in fighting crime on public transport within the next five years.
The software for the cameras is being developed at the new £25 million Centre for Secure Information Technologies at Belfast University.
Dr Paul Miller, Research Director of Intelligent Surveillance Systems, said there had been a "lost decade" of massive investment in CCTV cameras.
"Current CCTV cameras operate in a very passive way. They simply collect enormous amounts of data but very little is watched in real time.
"The system will instantly give every live feed a score, based on factors such as time of day, crime statistics for the location, a threat assessment of the people shown and so on. The score will determine where each feed is placed in the queue for the controller's attention," said Dr Miller.
"We aim to develop a system which will make crime-free buses, trains, stations and airports a reality."
A camera at a bus stop would analyse everyone in the queue and make a judgement whether it was a risky group. Factors such as whether the stop was in a high crime area and whether it was late at night would be included.
The passengers would be assessed again on the bus with help from simple metal detectors on the doors and driver microphones picking up any shouting or disturbance
Dr Miller rejected the idea that the cameras were an invasion of privacy and said they would encourage people back onto the buses.
"It reduces the amount of surveillance because it only looks at what is appropiate. It is protecting privacy in many ways, " he said.
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Originally Posted by CivilRadiant
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