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CCTV monitors classrooms at one in 14 schools, according to a survey. The poll of teachers also found that almost a quarter feared there might be more cameras hidden around the campus that they did not know about. Most said their schools were fitted with surveillance cameras. Almost 80 per cent said there were cameras at the entrance and more than 7 per cent said there were some in classrooms. Nearly 10 per cent of teachers polled by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said there were cameras in the lavatories.  Big brother is watching you: One in 14 schools...

Njection.com has added several new features allowing visitors to view where Red Light Cameras, Speed Detection Cameras and Speed Traps are located anywhere in the world. Njection.com uses Microsoft Virtual Earth Map Controls to display the location of Speed Traps and Red Light Cameras worldwide. Users with an Internet connection can view, contribute and rate where these speed traps are located. In addition, a heat map can be displayed showing what time of day those areas are monitored and will display them visually on the map when those areas are monitored. The map displays a color-coded system for better readability....

Public surveillance video mushrooms despite lack of evidence it works After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, local governments across the country set aside concerns over privacy and installed surveillance cameras in public streets and plazas. Now — even after a damning report by the head of London’s extensive surveillance network and with little evidence that the systems work — police in many cities are trying to add thousands more cameras to their networks. “‘Cameras Everywhere’ continues to be the best description of the trend in the video surveillance market,” security market analysts J.P. Freeman Co. said in a...

Underage drinkers who attempt to buy alcohol may be thwarted by the technology that police use to identify suspected criminals. A supermarket chain is introducing face recognition cameras to prevent staff mistakenly selling cigarettes and alcohol to under-18s. Face recognition: Will be used to stop underage drinkers buying alcohol The biometric technology is being piloted by Budgens at one of its London branches. If successful, it could be rolled out across the country to create a database of youngsters who try to buy alcohol. The system alerts a cashier if it 'recognises' someone who has previously been unable to prove...

<p>The makers of a small, digital camera that attaches to the barrel of a gun say the device would have ended any dispute about what happened in the Sean Bell shooting.</p> <p>Now, a former Bronx homicide prosecutor who helped develop the Pistol Cam wants the NYPD to consider putting the audio and video gadget on its service weapons.</p>

Roger Goodell is fully prepared to crack down again on the New England Patriots if his meeting with Matt Walsh uncovers a tape made of the St. Louis Rams’ final walkthrough practice before the 2002 Super Bowl. “Taping a walkthrough is much different from what I punished them for,” the NFL commissioner said Thursday at a meeting of a group representing the Associated Press Sports Editors. After more than two months of negotiations, lawyers for the league and Walsh, the former New England employee, finally reached agreement Wednesday on terms that will allow him to talk Goodell. They include an...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two men attempting to board a plane to China with nearly a dozen sensitive infrared cameras in their luggage were arrested on Saturday, a federal official said. Federal agents stopped the pair on the jetway as they were preparing to board the flight to Beijing. The men had been in the United States for about a week, said Rick Weir, assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. Yong Guo Zhi, a Chinese national, and Tah Wei Chao, a naturalized U.S. citizen, were arrested...

The Maryland House of Delegates voted 90 to 45 yesterday to pass the governor's speed cameras legislation, allowing police departments to install roadside cameras to ticket speeding motorists in work areas, school zones and residential neighborhoods across the state. The Senate has passed a similar bill. If the two chambers agree on a final version, Maryland would join the District in using cameras to enforce speed limits. In Maryland, speed cameras are legal only in Montgomery County. The legislation would allow the state's 23 other jurisdictions to use the technology.(snip) The speed camera bill, which was proposed by Gov. Martin...

Red-light Cameras Increase Crashes, Florida Researchers FindRather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health conclude. (Credit: iStockphoto/Sue Smith) ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2008) — Rather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes and are a ticket to higher auto insurance premiums, researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health conclude. The effective remedy to red-light running uses engineering solutions to improve intersection safety, which is particularly important to Florida’s elderly drivers, the researchers recommend. “The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work,”...

Big Brother may soon be watching - at your local playground. NYPD and Parks Department officials say it's only a matter of time before parks throughout the city are equipped with crime-fighting surveillance cameras - as many other parts of the city currently are. "It's not a matter of if we are going to use the technology but when we are going to use this technology," Deputy Parks Commissioner Kevin Jeffrey said during a recent City Council hearing on park safety. Jeffrey said the key issues are finding funding and the best technology available to guarantee prosecution. The comments came...

D.C. police are now watching live images from dozens of surveillance cameras posted in high-crime parts of the city, hoping to respond faster to shootings, robberies and other offenses and catch suspects before they get away. Since August 2006, the city has installed 73 cameras across the city, mostly on utility poles, at a cost of about $4 million. But until recently, officers were using them mainly as an investigative tool -- checking the recordings after crimes were committed in hopes of turning up leads and evidence. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said she thought the department wasn't making the...

New super-cameras will mean no hiding place for drivers who smoke, eat or use a phoneBy RAY MASSEY - More by this author » Last updated at 01:05am on 29th December 2007  Digital speed cameras which capture drivers smoking or eating at the wheel are being introduced nationwide in a new move to hammer motorists.  Drivers will also face fines, bans and even jail for infringements such as driving without a seatbelt, using a hand-held mobile phone or overtaking across double white lines. The hi-tech DVD cameras, which have instant playback, will also be used to provide photographic evidence...

<p>In the era of computer-controlled surveillance, your every move could be captured by cameras, whether you're shopping in the grocery store or driving on the freeway. Proponents say it will keep us safe, but at what cost?</p> <p>The ferry arrived, the gangway went down and 7-year-old Emma Powell rushed toward the Statue of Liberty. She climbed onto the grass around the star-shaped foundation. She put on a green foam crown with seven protruding rays. Turning so that her body was oriented just like Lady Liberty's, Emma extended her right arm skyward with an imaginary torch. I snapped a picture. Then I took my niece's hand, and we went off to buy some pretzels.</p>

LONDON - Residents of big cities like New York and London must accept that they are under constant watch by video cameras, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. Bloomberg, holding talks with his London counterpart Ken Livingstone, said such measures as London's "ring of steel" — a network of closed-circuit cameras that monitors the city center_ were a necessary protection in a dangerous world. "In this day and age, if you think that cameras aren't watching you all the time, you are very naive," Bloomberg told reporters at London's City Hall. "We are under surveillance all the time" from...

LAPD Senior Lead Officer Gabriel Ahedo believes that the city's installation of lunch-box-sized security cameras over the last six years has discouraged graffiti and illegal dumping. One location, Cohasset Street and Radford Avenue in North Hollywood, saw a sharp decrease in graffiti thanks to the camera, which plays a recorded warning -- "Stop! It is illegal to vandalize this area. . . . Leave now" -- in addition to taking photographs triggered by a motion detector, Ahedo said. "It's made the area a lot safer and seems to deter taggers," he said. City officials eager to show their support for...

Security is being beefed up at the site of last week's bridge collapse after 16 people were arrested for trespassing and hindering the investigation, Minneapolis police said Wednesday. Authorities are adding cameras, motion detectors and other technology that will alert police to intruders, Capt. Mike Martin told reporters during a news conference. "The most important part is: Maintain the honor and the dignity (of the scene)," Martin said. He said the state Department of Transportation is assuming control of security in the area, which is considered a death-scene investigation site. Five people are confirmed dead in the collapse of the...

Filmmakers, photographers and civil liberties advocates are protesting proposed rules that would require permits and $1 million insurance policies for people trying to film or take pictures in one of the world's most photographed cities. New regulations drafted by the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting would require a permit for any type of filming or photography that involved “an interaction among two or more people at a single site for 30 or more minutes.” Permits would also be required for five or more people using a tripod for more than 10 minutes. The rules would be nothing new...

A hundred cameras will soon monitor cars moving through Lower Manhattan; beginning phase of London-style surveillance system... Developing... That's it. No siren.

LONDON - In a bunker beneath London's bustling Piccadilly Circus, guards monitoring a grid of closed-circuit televisions spot something unusual. A suspicious package has been left behind amid the crush of tourists. Moments later, a Hare Krishna picks up the abandoned cooler, which is filled with religious documents - not a bomb. Civil libertarians warn of the damage to personal privacy. But polls show broad public acceptance, even if the cameras more often capture a couple in loving embrace than a terrorist about to wreak havoc. Britain has more than four million closed-circuit security cameras, more than any other Western...

LONDON -- In a bunker beneath London's bustling Piccadilly Circus, guards monitoring a grid of closed-circuit televisions spot something unusual. A suspicious package has been left behind amid the crush of tourists. Moments later, a Hare Krishna picks up the abandoned cooler, which is filled with religious documents _ not a bomb. Civil libertarians warn of the damage to personal privacy. But polls show broad public acceptance, even if the cameras more often capture a couple in loving embrace than a terrorist about to wreak havoc. Britain has more than 4 million closed-circuit security cameras, more than any other Western...

Talking" closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras which allow operators to shout at people behaving badly are to be installed across England, the government announced Wednesday. The scheme lets local council workers in a control centre monitor pictures from the cameras and talk to them if they feel they are doing something wrong. The cameras were piloted in Middlesbrough, north-east England, where they have been used to reprimand vandals and litter bugs, but now loudspeakers are being fitted to cameras in another 20 areas. Britain has some 4.2 million CCTV cameras and the government's privacy watchdog, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, warned last...

The San Francisco Police Commission on Wednesday night approved Mayor Gavin Newsom's request to add surveillance cameras at eight additional high-crime street corners. The 25 new cameras will be added to the 33 already in place at 14 locations. After a four-hour City Hall hearing that drew more than 100 people, the commission voted 5-0 to approve the cameras, with two members absent. Members, though, conceded that they do not yet know whether the anti-crime cameras are effective. They expressed disappointment that the mayor's office had not provided more information about whether the existing cameras have deterred crime. "I'm willing...

December 5, 2006 A Loop 101 photo enforcement case that captured national attention and called into question the accuracy of Scottsdale’s freeway speed cameras won’t ever get its day in court. Scottsdale and the man accused of traveling a record 147 mph in a 2006 Hyundai Sonata family sedan reached a plea agreement less than a week before the case was to go to trial today. Lawrence Pargo, 27, of Goodyear, agreed to plead guilty to one count of criminal endangerment, one count of reckless driving and one count of excessive speeding at 102 mph in Scottsdale City Court, according...

As TxDOT monitors weather conditions to determine whether to put crews on standby, it has new considerations this winter. De-icing roads in any inclement weather now includes more than 20 miles of new toll roads, much of which is elevated. "We're interested in seeing how drivers react to icy conditions on these new sets of roads. We're keeping an eye on how driving patterns are in bad weather," Marcus Cooper with TxDOT said. TxDOT'S Central District office will be checking weather conditions in an 11-county area around Austin. Speaking of toll roads, people who are driving on sections of the...

REVELLERS planning a night out in the Netherlands this weekend should keep their voices down. To prevent fights breaking out, surveillance cameras in the city of Groningen have been adapted to listen out for voices raised in anger. Microphones attached to the cameras feed the sound signals to software that can detect voices that are aggressive in tone. "Aggressive people tend to tense their larynx, and the sound made by their vocal cords is distorted," says Peter van Hengel of developer Sound Intelligence, a spin-off of the University of Groningen. This means that high frequency vowel sounds span a broader...

"I'm just a regular guy- an ‘Average Joe' trying to get along in life and I don't want anybody taking my stuff or my kids stuff for that matter." A Tucson burglar made a bad career move... when he broke into the home of a Tucson security specialist... with cameras rigged up all over his house. Dan Standage is legally blind, and when he's away... his security cameras keep an eye on the home front. His vigilance paid off this week... when his cameras clearly caught a burglar poking around his home. The video speaks for itself. It shows a...

They are meant to reduce crime by helping police spot problems. By the end of the year, 40 cameras will cover 31 locations in the area. It's part of a plan first announced in January by Dallas Police. Grant money will cover the 840-thousand dollar price tag for the cameras. Police will monitor the cameras from their headquarters and City Hall. Some residents feel apprehensive about the surveillance, seeing it as an invasion of privacy. But others say the cameras could help curb petty crime and random violence.

Hundreds of drivers who ran red lights while making turns at intersections newly monitored by cameras have not been issued tickets because of a loophole in the photo-enforcement ordinance. "The way the current city ordinance is written, turns are excluded, even if they are illegal turns," said Houston police Sgt. Michael Muench. Traffic officers reviewed more than 1,000 violations caught on camera during the first two weeks of the program, the police department reported. A third were thrown out, many because the driver was making a right or left turn while running the light, Muench said. Muench was unable to...

A desperate motorist tried to escape a speeding fine by blowing up the roadside camera which snapped him, a court heard on Wednesday. Engineer Craig Moore, 28, took the drastic action because he feared he would lose his job as a result of the ticket. He returned to the roadside camera in the Manchester area and used explosive material, once used to make bombs and now common in the welding industry, to destroy the device. But the motorist didn't realise his actions were recorded by the camera itself. It is understood that pictures recovered from the camera hard disk show...

June 24, 2006 -- Camera phones are becoming the frontline defense for women to stop subway perverts in their tracks, experts say. Self-defense pros say the power to humiliate flashers and gropers by exposing their overexposure with a snapshot is an even more powerful weapon for women than a can of Mace or kick in the groin. "The simplest thing that someone can actually do with zero training is to employ public humiliation," said Rudy Zadwarny, 50, who teaches martial arts and women's self-defense. "These guys try to do it when they think no one knows it." To those ends,...

In an unprecedented proliferation of public spying, government is casting its watchful eye on millions of ordinary Americans through largely unregulated surveillance cameras trained on public spaces throughout the nation. A Scripps Howard News Service tally found that at least 200 towns and cities in 37 states now employ video cameras - or are in the process of doing so - to watch sidewalks, parks, schools, buses, buildings and similar community locales. That number excludes the approximately 110 other municipalities, including Knoxville, that use traffic cameras to catch speeders and red-light runners. But despite their proliferation and potential for altering...

Glenn Maxwell vividly recalls the only whale-watching cruise he ever took, two years ago off Puerto Vallarta. As waves rocked the boat, he says, scores of the giant mammals leapt clear of the water. Alas, Maxwell's memories of his Mexican adventure are better than his snapshots. Knowing a photo opportunity when he saw one, the Detroit computer programmer took dozens of pictures with his $500 Olympus digital camera. But each time he pressed the button, the camera paused, the whale flopped back in the ocean, and, Maxwell says, "I only got sky or sea."

DALSA Semiconductor has today announced that it has developed the worlds first sensor with a total resolution of over 100 million pixels. To be more specific this single sensor, developed for astronomy, has 10,560 x 10,560 pixels, 111 million in total. The active area of the sensor measures approximately four by four inches and has a 9 µm pixel pitch. This sensor has been developed in conjunction with Semiconductor Technology Associates for the US Naval Observatory.

Canon to stop making single-lens camera TOKYO - Japan's top camera maker, Canon Inc., will stop developing new single-lens reflex film cameras as more people abandon film for digital, company officials said Thursday. The Tokyo-based Canon's move followed a similar move by its closest Japanese rival, Nikon Corp., which announced earlier this year it would stop making seven of its nine film cameras and concentrate on digital models. Canon will continue making film cameras already on the market as long as their demand remains. Whether to withdraw from the film camera business will be "decided appropriately by judging the market...

BRITAIN’S most senior policeman Sir Ian Blair is facing a race relations dilemma after the release of figures that reveal almost half the number of people arrested in relation to car crime in London are black. Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has signed off a report by his force’s traffic unit which shows that black people account for 46% of all arrests generated by new automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras. The technology allows car registration plates to be scanned and automatically run through databases to determine whether a vehicle is stolen, uninsured or has not had its road tax paid....

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is filing a formal complaint with chamber officials regarding what he considers an “unethical” broadcast of an interview with him by a CNN reporter Tuesday. ROLL CALL reports: In an incident that could have repercussions for TV journalists’ access to the chamber, Stevens is furious with CNN correspondent Joe Johns for an interview conducted outside the weekly GOP policy luncheons, but far away from the usual bank of TV cameras set up for such interviews next to the storied Ohio Clock.

In an attempt to tackle gun crime in the UK, researchers from Loughborough University are developing an innovative identification system that will use CCTV cameras to spot individuals carrying concealed firearms. Starting in June, the three-year multi-environment deployable universal software application (Medusa) project aims to develop intelligent software that can detect a person carrying a concealed weapon in real time. While it is difficult to predict if someone is carrying a gun before crime occurs, Professor Alastair Gale, head of Loughborough University's Applied Vision Research Centre and leader of Medusa, said there are a number of cues the CCTV operator...

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists. Now UAVs may be landing in the United States. A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring. "We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United...

From Anchorage it takes 90 minutes on a propeller plane to reach this fishing village on the state's southwestern edge, a place where some people still make raincoats out of walrus intestine. This is the Alaskan bush at its most remote. Here, tundra meets sea, and sea turns to ice for half the year. Scattered, almost hidden, in the terrain are some of the most isolated communities on American soil. People choose to live in outposts like Dillingham (pop. 2,400) for that reason: to be left alone. So eyebrows were raised in January when the first surveillance cameras went up...

RFID: Europe Wants to Tag You From the desk of Elaib Harvey on Sun, 2006-03-12 20:45 Am I the only one who is a tad concerned about the new RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) Policy for Europe? I hope not. This year data retention legislation was introduced by the European Parliament and now we have the execrable Viviane Reding at a major conference in Hanover burbling about the Commission’s new consultation on the electronic tagging technology. Given that Commission Press Releases are normally bland to the point of ennui the following is quite something, “But their power to report their...

New Yorkers, get ready for your closeup. The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday. .. The NYPD also has applied for $81.5 million in federal aid to install surveillance cameras, computerized license plate readers and vehicle barriers around lower Manhattan, Kelly said. .. But don't expect the NYPD to install its cameras without battling the New York Civil Liberties Union. The watchdog group's associate legal director, Chris Dunn, questioned the...

(United Kingdom) A motorist has been fined after being caught by a speed camera taking both hands off the wheel to apply make-up while driving near a north Wales town. Pwllheli Magistrates Court heard on Wednesday how Donna Marie Maddock, 22, from Mold, was travelling at 32mph in a 40mph zone earlier this year. She was using an eyeliner with one hand and a compact in the other. Maddock was fined £200 after admitting careless driving. The court heard she was banned last week for drink-driving. Magistrates heard that it was an Arrive Alive mobile anti-speeding van, equipped with a...

You might expect to see cameras taking pictures of beautiful scenic shots at a park. But installing surveillance cameras to prevent lewd behavior would be a first for the city. Last year, nearly 300 people were cited for indecent exposure in various Metro parks. So common are the complaints, it's earned Cedar Hill a reputation. "This is about families taking their children to feed the ducks in the afternoon and being accosted by men doing things that you and I wouldn't even talk about on TV,” said Metro councilman Michael Craddock. But that hasn't stopped the talk at city council...

Testing of Chicago's new speed surveillance SUVs began recently, just as the Illinois State Police debuted their own anti-speeding plan based on high-resolution cameras. The cameras enhance the productivity of troopers who are writing tickets by 16 times, the State Police said. Police in Chicago -- and elsewhere in the state of Illinois -- are dramatically expanding the deployment of stealth cameras to catch alleged speeders. The cameras may be a massive invasion of privacy , however, according to some legal experts who are calling for precautions to be taken with the surveillance data. By Gene Koprowski

George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984 opens with a surveillance helicopter chopping its blades menacingly through London, peeking inside apartment buildings. The protagonist, a conscience-stricken state worker with no way to blow the whistle, goes home to a "telescreen" watching and reporting his every word, move and even mood. The totalitarian state apparatus of Orwell's bleak vision was patterned after the world's Communist parties. But many of today's 21st-century Democrat and Republican politicians see no problem with the kind of permanent police dragnet envisioned in the novel. While Orwell's homeland of the United Kingdom is still the most-surveilled on Earth,...

Tuesday night the Santa Monica City Council has given the green light for a new video surveillance system at the 3rd Street Promenade and the Santa Monica Pier. City officials say they decided on the plan after suspicious people took pictures of some of the facilities there. "Some men were videotaping in a manner that was inconsistent with tourist photography. They were photographing access roads and security structures," said Chief James Butts with the Santa Monica Police Department. The system will go online as soon as the cameras and recording system are installed.

Mayor Daley on Monday embraced a radical plan to require every licensed Chicago business open more than 12 hours a day to install indoor and outdoor cameras. "Block clubs, community organizations want cameras. ... They can't walk down the street. ... Their kids have to go around a corner away from the gang-bangers. You can't walk to church. You can't get on the CTA. ... Cameras really prevent much crime. Cameras also solve a lot of crime. The terrorist attacks in London were solved by cameras. The whole incident was solved by cameras," Daley said.

Red light cameras spy on Americans. Same with speed cameras. Many cities have cameras on street corors to spy on us all. But this doesn't threaten our liberety? But NSA uses computers to scan for keywords on know calls FROM a terrorist to an oprative in the US that's a threat...oh my... OK what do you all think. Or should I use the plural "all you all"

TOKYO : Japan's Konica Minolta, one of the world's leading photographic equipment manufacturers, said on Thursday it would stop making all cameras because the market had become too competitive. The company plans to slash 3,700 jobs or about 11 percent of its global workforce by 2007 under a restructuring package that will also see part of its business making high-end digital cameras sold off to Sony. Konica Minolta will also gradually stop making camera film by 2007 to focus on its more profitable optics and medical imaging activities. "In today's era of digital cameras... it became difficult to timely...

Minneapolis' "photo cop" should be the one getting the red light, civil rights advocates said Thursday on behalf of a cited motorist. Daniel Alan Kuhlman, a Minneapolis resident ticketed Aug. 11, claims the system meant to catch red-light runners is unconstitutional and violates state laws, according to a motion to dismiss the case filed in Hennepin County District Court by American Civil Liberties Union volunteer attorneys. Minneapolis' ordinance states it is the owner of the car who drove through the red light who is guilty of a petty misdemeanor — the cameras record license plates, but not drivers' faces, the...