by: Katie Smith
Last Monday, I attended the Georgia Intelligent Transportation Society’s annual meeting and had the opportunity to hear Dave Wilkinson, President of the Atlanta Police Foundation, speak about Atlanta’s new Video Integration Center. The system is part of Operation Shield, a program that seeks to link communications among the public and private sectors. The Video Integration Center is staffed by officers and will use software to track suspicious behavior in Midtown and Buckhead using video surveillance. The current plan is to record the video and then store it for 30 days for use in investigations and crime prevention. While the system only has 100 cameras now, the goal is to integrate the thousands of public and private cameras throughout the city (i.e. traffic cameras, parking garage cameras, etc.) into one comprehensive network. Wilkinson did not have details on how the city planned to store so much data or a timeline on the integration of more cameras, and the project was only officially announced to the public last week. Check out the AJC article below for more details. What do you think about this project? Is it a violation of privacy?
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/atlanta-increases-surveillance-of-1183905.html
As computer capabilities grow, our world is becoming more data intensive (and smart), and less “private”. For instance, most of our online activities and choices are already being recorder by companies that sell Ad space (like Google). I think privacy can be a concern for some people, but in this application people should also be held responsible for their actions on “public” (not private) space. I think this is a great application for safety in urban core areas, but I do expect some political backlash.
I worry about social justice issues with this. I think most Georgians would be perfectly fine with cameras in public places that are perceived as “dangerous,” but would balk at the idea of cameras nearer their homes. If you’re going to start surveilling people, you need to do it uniformly.
It seems to me that the root of this and other privacy issues is about trust in the data manager. The initiative should be fine with me if I trust that the Atlanta police will use video surveillance to improve safety by my own standards, that they will not single anyone out for surveillance without lawful cause, and that they will keep a tight hold on the video footage so that no one else can use it for commercial or nefarious purposes.