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Medicine

Drones Take Italians' Temperature and Issue Fines (securityweek.com) 88

wiredmikey writes from a report via SecurityWeek: Authorities in Italy are using Drones equipped with heat sensors to take the temperature of citizens and send the information to a drone operator, who has a thermal map on his hand-held screen -- shining orange and purple blobs. The hovering drone emits a mechanical buzz reminiscent of a wasp and shouts down instructions in a tinny voice. "Attention! You are in a prohibited area. Get out immediately," commands the drone, about the size of a loaf of bread. "Violations of the regulations result in administrative and criminal penalties," the drone says. "Once a person's temperature is read by the drone, you must still stop that person and measure their temperature with a normal thermometer," Matteo Copia, a police commander, said. Copia says the local police force has received new powers that allow it to check people's temperature without their knowledge or permission.
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Drones Take Italians' Temperature and Issue Fines

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  • by Chris Hiner ( 4273 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @07:55PM (#59930758) Homepage

    Exterminate!

  • It's amazing to me that they were so quickly able to develop this technology AND deploy it within such a small timewindow.

    Almost as if they had already developed it AND were using it.

    • Re:That's amazing! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @08:35PM (#59930878)

      Thermal cameras have been a thing for nearly 100 years.

      • Well that's just a little bit of an exaggeration.

        • Well that's just a little bit of an exaggeration.

          Actually, no [wikipedia.org], parent post *is* right:

          The first advanced application of IR technology in the civil section may have been a device to detect the presence of icebergs and steamships using a mirror and thermopile, patented in 1913.[5] This was soon outdone by the first true IR iceberg detector, which did not use thermopiles, patented in 1914 by R.D. Parker.[6] This was followed up by G.A. Barker's proposal to use the IR system to detect forest fires in 1934.[7] The technique was not truly industrialized until i

      • They still can't read someones temperature with the level of accuracy required to be 100% accurate. Joggers will be warmer than others. How much is too much? My body temperature normal runs slightly lower than the average, so I could have a mild fever and read normally with the guesstimates that IR cameras provide. This will get shot down in court. I think it's really just a scare tactic to try to get the edge people to comply with staying home.
        • "How much is too much? My body temperature normal runs slightly lower than the average, so I could have a mild fever and read normally with the guesstimates that IR cameras provide. This will get shot down in court. "

          What court? People wear masks, nobody knows who they are.

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          The Drone reads you and then summons the police to detain you and gather more reliable evidence.


            "Once a person's temperature is read by the drone, you must still stop that person and measure their temperature with a normal thermometer," Matteo Copia, a police commander, said.

        • Forget joggers - what about cooks, bakers, welders, or anyone else that works in a hot environment?

        • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          From https://thermogears.com/guide-... [thermogears.com]

          The thermal imaging cameras, with their infrared detector arrays, are capable of offering accuracy with temperature sensitivity up to 0.1C, which is useful in detecting more accurate information.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The temperature tech has been a thing since the SARS years.
      Airports and looking at every person moving past a fixed detection system. For the people travelling how did not know to stay cool.
      The next part was the drone. As in looking for people gathering, telling people what to do.
    • It's amazing how easy it is to sell technology that you have just a barely working faked proof of concept of when governments are desperate to buy anything.

      batteries etc. think about it. if you had such good heat cameras would you use them on the drones and not at grocery stores and such?

      yes I'm saying that it doesn't work as well as how they claim, it's just a pr tool and a tool to suck money from the italian government.

      slap one of those thermal imaging phones on a drone and there you have it, a device tha

    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      It's amazing to me that it's amazing to you. Turn in your geek card.

  • You Are Fined 1 Credit For A Violation Of The Verbal Morality Statute

  • On the other hand, Benito Mussolini must be smiling in Hell.
    You have my sympathies, Italians.
  • If you're moving at a speed above a walk, you'll be above 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, just FYI. So basically a huge portion of people outside would get false flagged.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      WWW walking while warm.
    • And people in too much clothing.

      You know: Insulation.

      This whole thing will be primarily a state terror tool in 3... 2... 1... I'm kidding, it already is!

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Fever is normally described as having a body temperature 100.6 degrees F or higher, and for covid19 they were saying 100.4 degrees F.

      More than 100.4 F indicates a probable infection. I'm their drone thingie will be using Metric like the rest of the world outside the US; might check for a bit higher, such as 38.3 degrees celsius (101F)

      Most people will Not have a 100.4 degrees F jogging or even running.

    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      I pulled this off a med website, but it's bullshit to treat everyone the same when some people have normal temps a degree high/low. I've always run a full degree lower than avg., so at 99.6 I have a full blown fever.

      "Although a fever (pyrexia) could be considered any body temperature above the normal temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (98.6 F or 37 C), medically, a person is not considered to have a significant fever until the temperature is above 100.4 F (38.0 C)."

  • Italians are an image conscious lot and this simply a plot to hide all the obese people.

    Fat, sweaty ( probably ugly! ) and outside? You're fined, now get off home!!

  • Time to check out how good the RF shielding is on that flying loaf of bread.

  • If I had a badge and was being paid to fly these shit things around town I wouldn't last a day before being fired or arrested.

  • so it's a prohibited area in the first place?

    so the thermal thing is .. well I'm intrigued. where the f***k are they buying thermal cams good enough to do that that they can just slap on a drone and don't need a calibration device on the screen or anything?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Most of them are self calibrating these days, they have a shutter that automatically covers the lens with a calibration target ever 30 seconds or so.

      The issue is not calibration, it's resolution and accuracy. Thermal cameras are just not sensitive or accurate enough to really tell when someone has a slightly elevated temperature. They would have to be so bad that a visible light inspection would probably make it obvious that they were sick anyway. Sounds like security theatre.

    • ...and don't need a calibration device on the screen or anything?

      This is what's bothering me. How are they calibrating it? How are they filtering out reflected temperatures? Thermography is significantly different from photography.

    • well I'm intrigued. where the f***k are they buying thermal cams good enough to do that that they can just slap on a drone and don't need a calibration device on the screen or anything?

      A couple of hundred $$$ gets you a thermal camera that self calibrates, auto scales and is largely software limited so the seller can up-sell you on the next model which allows you to do set things such a thermal range limits and emissivity. These things are no where near as expensive as they used to be. They don't need to be 1080p, they can be crappy things stuck on a cheap gimbals with a telescopic lens and you can easily judge someone's temperature (external temperature) compared to others.

      Critically, th

  • by Lexicon ( 21437 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @11:11PM (#59931310) Homepage

    We already know from studies in Iceland and Greenland that up to 50% of people with COVID-19 are asymptomatic. These infected can spread the disease but have no temperature, and are already considered to be one of the primary reasons this disease spread for so long and so widely without earlier detection.

    Even among the symptomatic, not all have a temperature. There is a plethora of other diseases that can cause temperatures, and over the counter drugs can reduce the temperature of infected without curing the disease.

    Attempts to control this disease via temperature checks is a dangerously inaccurate approach, trust in which puts people at risk.

    • That study was using self reported symptoms. Tell me what is your temp right now?
      They didn't follow up to see if they developed symptoms later.
      No one is claiming this is enough to solve the problem by itself. But it quite clearly helps to find some infected people.
      • No, it doesn't. At all! Not even a single one!
        All it does, is find false positives to terrorize and false negatives to ignore.

        And irrational fear based delusion of total(itarian) control is the only reason it exists at all. It is a symptom of mental illness. And making the handling of Corona actually worse tok, because those resources, time and effort could be used for a sensible, better-working solution.

        Why are you siding *with* totalitarian state terrorism anyway? Are you a Nazi?

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      We already know from studies in Iceland and Greenland that up to 50% of people with COVID-19 are asymptomatic.

      If they manage to keep the other 50% at home, then they will still reduce the rate of spread.

  • Man, I hated those things in Half Life 2.

  • Not really (Score:4, Informative)

    by mridoni ( 228377 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @03:06AM (#59931748)

    This is not "Italy", this is a small village inhabited by 10,000 people, whose "police commander" (a glorified civil servant with a uniform) has probably watched one too many SF movies and decided to make the news. BTW: the drones were acquired in December 2019 and are normally used to intercept zoning code violations, their usage for this kind of activity has not been sanctioned at regional or national level.

  • https://ibb.co/svC2ZwZ [ibb.co] Now ... any more jokes about Tony? Iâ(TM)m all hears, amuse me. Alessio, Florence, Italy
  • I'm honestly glad that people are doing something, because when I leave the house these days only to go shopping for food do I now see quite a few joggers running through the empty streets and they do not keep 2m distance from me, but always run past me in touching range as if to challenge me. I changed sidewalks when I came past a guy who sat outside of his house reading a book on the sidewalk. It seems we have some people out now who feel rather attracted by the situation and who seek trouble rather than
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  • "He bit him? With a thermometer in his mouth?"
    "Ah. Not exactly. There, in fact, you have rather discovered the reason for his biting."

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