Fujitsu Tech Can Track Heavily Blurred People In Security Videos 45
itwbennett writes Fujitsu has developed image-processing technology that can be used to track people in security camera footage, even when the images are heavily blurred to protect their privacy. The company says that detecting the movements of people in this way could be useful for retail design, reducing pedestrian congestion in crowded urban areas or improving evacuation routes for emergencies. An indoor test of the system was able to track the paths of 80 percent of test subjects, according to the company.
LOL@ Use-case (Score:3)
Like any retailer would be interested in protecting the privacy of their shoppers identity while still wanting to track them.
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They seem to have several plausible shopper-related motives for tracking people, sort of like in Minority Report, but it doesn't take a Nobel-worthy leap of the imagination to see where this technology might be used to further eradicate personal privacy.
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People who don't want to be tracked should not go out in public.
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I was being a smart-ass.
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OK.
</sarc>
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This is an utterly asinine statement. Being tracked constantly and often surreptitiously is a current social AND rights issue. What you're saying is just rolling over and asking to be kicked in the nuts by anyone with the desire to simply do harm. No thank you.
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Google "sour casm."
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Google "bite me."
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I did and it gave me links to "sour casm" and stuff.
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The monitoring of subway stations is probably a direct result of the sarin attack at Tokyo station. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]. Of course the usual Orwellian arguments will apply, but try finding garbage cans in the subways...it really freaked out a lot of people.
Re:LOL@ Use-case (Score:5, Informative)
actually i worked for a company that provided path information (it's really really important) and privacy was absolutely key. they went to a lot of trouble in the design of the software so that, if they were ever compelled, even by a court order, to "identify individual X", they would LITERALLY be unable to comply and, to avoid contempt of court, would need to go to some technical lengths to explain why. they didn't use images (because they don't work) - instead they used GNURadio to do GSM passive decoding and signal-strength detection. and no, you *can't* track the person themselves, nor can you get their telephone number, nor can you decode their phone conversations, nor can you decode their SMS messages (not "and track 1000s of phones on affordable commodity off-the-shelf hardware at the same time"). they also track bluetooth and wifi, but again, the mac addresses are hashed (with salting) *before* being stored on disk. the reason for this kind of paranoia is really really simple: they ABSOLUTELY DO **NOT** wish to be involved in privacy and identification issues. it would destroy their reputation. so they made damn sure it simply could not happen, even if they were compelled by a court order.
anyway - first important thing: the definition of a "path" (and why it's critical). a "path" is, as the word suggests, the places that an individual goes to, and how they got there, how long it took, and how long and where they were stationary. key factors critical for shopping mall owners to be able to provide to their retailers: (1) how many unique shoppers went into *their* store (broken down by time and date is also helpful). (2) how long each unique shopper spent in their store. (3) also useful to know is where they went *before* going to another store. it's therefore necessary to weed out "passers-by", and duplicates (losing the path then picking it up as a *separate* person, repeatedly) is *especially* bad as it completely mucks up this all-important information that the retailers, it turns out, really really like to have once they know it's available.
think about it: this information is really, really important. in attracting retailers, without this equipment (or anything like it), the conversation is "come to our retail park, we have 6 million visitors a year". the retailer isn't interested in that. *with* the equipment (or anything like it), the conversation goes further, "and the unit we would like to interest you in gets 15,000 unique visitors per day if occupied by someone with your type of retail profile, especially because there's a macdonalds / starbucks within 100 / 50 metres and we know that that gets better numbers for you". *that's* powerful stuff, and it allows the shopping mall management to pick (and test, and research) interesting combinations of retailers that will make the whole mall a lively and attractive place to be, instead of being boring, half-empty of both retailers and customers (the other half being tired, stressed and exhausted), and doing a dis-service to everyone who bothers to go there.
so anyway i had to be up on the "competition" so to speak, because we frequently got questions coming in from clients being pitched the "visual tracking" technology.
first flaw in visual tracking technology: balloons, signs, pigeons, dogs, baby strollers - anything that moves in uncontrollable ways that is big enough to block people: you're hosed. pigeons etc. are fun because they randomly block out huge areas directly in front of the camera if they get close enough. even "other people" is enough to block "other people". even identifying "people" from children, babies, animals - this is hard enough as it is and requires enormous CPU resources... the number of people in some of these malls is *enormous* - tens to hundreds of thousands.
second flaw in visual tracking technology: it's intrusive. put a camera in a shopping mall and people automatically get edgy. it changes their "behaviour", which is precisely what you do not want. the last thing you want in
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Re:LOL@ Use-case (Score:4, Insightful)
instead they used GNURadio to do GSM passive decoding and signal-strength detection. and no, you *can't* track the person themselves, nor can you get their telephone number, nor can you decode their phone conversations, nor can you decode their SMS messages (not "and track 1000s of phones on affordable commodity off-the-shelf hardware at the same time"). they also track bluetooth and wifi, but again, the mac addresses are hashed (with salting) *before* being stored on disk.
I think it would still be possible to deanonymize that path data. If you make a credit card purchase, the information about time and place of the credit transaction can be associated with whatever id you use hashed or not. The path data has information that someone was standing at the cash register at that time and place. With the credit card information (or even just loyalty card information) you know who it was and can associate that with the entire path through the mall. Similarly, if they walk past a Starbucks and their smartphone associates with their WIFI, now if you have access to Starbuck's information you can deanonymize it from that. Or it could be deanonymized with the security cameras.
I don't see then how it could be subpoena-proof if you store the actual path, regardless of however you anonymize it. They can subpoena your data together with other data to get what they want.
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I think it would still be possible to deanonymize that path data. If you make a credit card purchase, the information about time and place of the credit transaction can be associated with whatever id you use hashed or not.
you're assuming that the data collection rate is of the order of seconds. if you check the GSM spec for cell tower ping times, make some educated guesses on average phone usage including SMS, GPRS and call usage, and so on - bear in mind that this is a *passive* system as it is illegal to interfere with mobile phone operation - and also bear in mind that the positional accuracy is somewhere around a 20 metre radius - and then think about the number of people in any one store i think you'll find that statis
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Well, I still think the data can be deanonymized. I don't need to make any assumptions other than what you've told us.
the places that an individual goes to, and how they got there, how long it took, and how long and where they were stationary. key factors critical for shopping mall owners to be able to provide to their retailers: (1) how many unique shoppers went into *their* store (broken down by time and date is also helpful). (2) how long each unique shopper spent in their store. (3) also useful to know is where they went *before* going to another store.
Even if the time resolution is 5 minutes, and the spacial resolution is only enough to identify which stores I visit, that is enough to identify me. If I go to the mall, stop by and get a coffee, wander around for a while, then make another purchase in another store, using my credit card both times, I may very well be the only person who made purchases at those two stores within a 5 minute w
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Even if the time resolution is 5 minutes, and the spacial resolution is only enough to identify which stores I visit, that is enough to identify me. If I go to the mall, stop by and get a coffee, wander around for a while, then make another purchase in another store, using my credit card both times, I may very well be the only person who made purchases at those two stores within a 5 minute window at each store. Each purchase makes it more likely to be unique. Now if I put on dark glasses and a baseball cap and stop by Victoria's Secret to buy some lingerie for my mistress, with cash, it's possible to link that to me via your path data.
you had me concerned for a minute! but then i thought about it, and i realised that if you take a venn diagram of the set of credit card purchases (assuming a subpoena has obtained full details), and a venn diagram of the set of paths (from WIFI or other method), what you get if you take the AND of those is no more than what was obtained from the credit card details.
in other words, your privacy has already been violated by a subpoena for the *credit card* details in ways that a subpoena for the pat
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bottom line is: i really don't see how visual tracking is going to work out any time soon, especially given that face-blurring helps destroy critical information needed to rejoin paths if the tracking is ever lost, and especially given that the CPU usage is so enormous that you would need a supercomputer in the back office and a massively-upgraded power line to run it. no - don't expect visual tracking to be hitting a shopping mall near you in the immediate future.
Excellent post, one question, obviously people are of similar sizes and proportions, but with some spatial features (everyone has a top of a head and shoulders) along with clothing colors, couldn't you do without the face?
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The retailer is not inherently interested in either protecting or violating privacy, so the choice is purely one of net expenditure. You can either raise the costs of violation and hope that you can catch them or can lower the costs of protection.
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I don't think you understand. Bigfoot is screwed now.
shoplifting (Score:2)
A system like this could be used to automatically track people who have shoplifted to either get tailed by security or kicked out of the store (and possibly charged with trespassing). It also wou
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and think of the law suits each they kick you for based on a video from when you where a minor
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Where would Wal-Mart get such information and how would they verify it, especially the "heavily blurred" SSN?
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I am sure.
Entities like Wal-Mart are not on the list of valid recipients of Social Security Numbers for shoplifting.
The Wal-Mart story has no credibility.
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A system like this could be used to automatically track people who have shoplifted
That would require matching an image with an identity which this system does not do. All it does is track a person not identify them.
I'm pretty consistent (Score:3)
Every other month or so I need something like fish sauce, olive oil, etc, and then they can track me wandering aimlessly down the aisles, if they had microphones they'd hear me muttering "dammit, why don't they label the aisles better" and "dammit, where's the damned kimchi"
Staples like tomato sauce, chicken stock, etc are bought a couple times a year at Costco.
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Actually, we knew that already using our video tracking system.
Tracking identifying (Score:2)
All it can do it identify that a person entered at one point followed a certain path and exited at a certain point. It can not identify who that person is. It is useful to see where to place certain items for easier access to popular items. I knew the tinfoil had brigade would get it wrong.
False Argument (Score:2)
Not surprising (Score:1)