In an move that will be inevitable for taxis everywhere, the city of Glasgow is making it mandatory for all taxi cabs to have surveillance cameras. According to The Herald:
Passengers hiring any of the 1000-plus fleet of taxis in Scotland's largest city could soon be caught on CCTV, amid concerns of potential legal action [...]
Entries from August 25th, 2009
Glasgow plans CCTV cameras for taxis
August 25th, 2009 · No Comments · Public-Private Success
Tags: Privately owned CCTV·Taxis
UK: 1,000 public cameras to solve just one crime
August 25th, 2009 · No Comments · Public Policy Failure, Public Surveillance Failure
Detective Mick Neville from the Metropolitan Police is quickly becoming the face of change for public surveillance cameras. After a report stating CCTV cameras were only effective in parking lots, Mick Neville came out and stated that the UK police are not using the technology properly. Now Mick is saying it takes 1,000 public [...]
Tags: Publically Owned CCTV
Armored truck loaded with cameras runs bad neighbors out of town
August 17th, 2009 · No Comments · Public Surveillance Leading Practice
Carrie Porter from The Wall Street Journal is reporting how Peoria Illinois deals with rowdy citizens and drug dealers: shame them with a armored vehicle loaded with cameras.
Police here call it the Armadillo. They say it has restored quiet to some formerly rowdy streets. Neighbors' calls for help have dropped sharply. About half of the [...]
Tags: Publically Owned CCTV
UK Police launch "flying saucer" surveillance camera
August 17th, 2009 · No Comments · No Verdict
The UK Police have created a remote control surveillance camera which has been dubbed a flying saucer. According to the Daily Telegraph:
Similar to a mini-helicopter, the device has four pairs of carbon-fibre rotor blades which support a camera. An operator on the ground controls the vehicle's flight using a hand-held control panel with two joysticks.
The [...]
Salt Lake City public park: cameras displace drug dealers
August 15th, 2009 · No Comments · No Verdict
WKSL out of Salt Lake City Utah is shedding more insight into what happens when surveillance cameras are installed in high crime public parks. According to the first article, four cameras were installed in Pioneer Park to battle the drug dealing problem. The police were looking to achieve three objectives:
• Deter crime
• Document crime
• [...]
Tags: Another Politician Claims Success·Public Parks·Publically Owned CCTV
Laguardia Airport security cameras missed "bomb"
August 12th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Public Surveillance Failure
Bruce Schneier coined the term security theater. Security theater is defined as, "Ostensible security measures which have little real influence on security whilst being publicly visible and designed to demonstrate to the lesser-informed that countermeasures have been considered".
Philip Messing and Murray Weiss from the NY Post wrote about an "fake bomb" incident at [...]
Google's Android: A good fit for smart surveillance cameras?
August 9th, 2009 · No Comments · No Verdict
Could Google's Android be a good fit for the future of smart cameras? Recently Android has made it's way out of the cell phone market and into the fast growing netbook market. Is the next logical leap into smart IP video surveillance cameras?
Back in May, 2009, Vikram Agarwak wrote a program called Watchtower: A Surveillance [...]
Tags:
Norwich, UK: CCTV cameras stop vandalism in the school bathroom
August 4th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Public Surveillance Leading Practice
Surveillance cameras can do a pretty good job at stopping vandalism in certain contexts like public parks. However, the vandalism being performed in this case was against sinks and located in a childrens bathroom. According to Norwich Evening news, the cameras were a “last line of defence” move because of the thousands of pounds [...]
Hollywood, FL: Video clip center of Police probe
August 3rd, 2009 · No Comments · No Verdict
David Smiley from the Miami Herald has an interesting story of how a dashboard mounted camera with audio captured police allegedly framing a DWI suspect.
A video that once again has the Hollywood Police Department investigating allegations of corruption against its officers went undiscovered for months because a DVD filed March in court did [...]
Tags: City Employees Caught On Cam·Police Dashboard Cam·Self Indicting
