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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 3 sepTember 2019
AI-powered cameras become new tool against mass shootings

By IVAN MORENO game,” he said. “We have
Associated Press not had any arguments or
Paul Hildreth peered at a any pushback right now.”
display of dozens of images ZeroEyes, a Philadelphia-
from security cameras sur- based company, began
veying his Atlanta school testing gun-detection soft-
district and settled on one ware last winter at Ranco-
showing a woman in a cas Valley Regional High
bright yellow shirt walking a School in New Jersey, which
hallway. became a client. Since the
A mouse click instructed company began selling
the artificial intelligence- their product this month, it
equipped system to find said it’s signed up another
other images of the wom- four schools — in Pennsyl-
an, and it immediately vania, Georgia, Tennessee
stitched them into a video and Florida.
narrative of where she was The company also brought
currently, where she had on a government agency
been and where she was in New York that it says it
going. can’t name. Co-founder
There was no threat, but Rob Huberty said ZeroEyes
Hildreth’s demonstration will be marketing the prod-
showed what’s possible uct to “stadiums, shopping
with AI-powered cameras. In this July 30, 2019, photo, Paul Hildreth, emergency operations coordinator for the Fulton County malls — anywhere with a
If a gunman were in one School District, works in the emergency operations center at the Fulton County School District potential for a mass shoot-
of his schools, the cam- Administration Center in Atlanta. ing.”
eras could quickly iden- Associated Press Even supporters of these
tify the shooter’s location student killed 17 people at schools on security, said ford, Connecticut, the po- systems acknowledge the
and movements, allowing Marjory Stoneman Doug- “quite a few” use Avigilon lice network of 500 cameras technology is not going
police to end the threat las High School in Parkland, and Sweden-based Axis includes some AI-equipped to prevent all mass shoot-
as soon as possible, said Florida, Broward County Communications equip- units that can, for example, ings — especially consider-
Hildreth, emergency op- installed cameras from ment “and the feedback search hours of video to ing how quickly damage
erations coordinator for the Canada-based Avigilon has been very good.” find people wearing cer- is done. But supporters ar-
Fulton County School Dis- throughout the district in Schools are the largest tain clothes or search for gue they can at least help
trict. February. Hildreth’s Atlanta market for video surveil- places where a suspicious reduce the number of ca-
AI is transforming surveil- district will spend $16.5 mil- lance systems in the U.S., vehicle was seen. sualties by giving people
lance cameras from pas- lion to put the cameras in estimated at $450 million The power of the systems more time to seek shelter
sive sentries into active its roughly 100 buildings in in 2018, according to Lon- has sparked privacy con- and providing first respond-
observers that can iden- coming years. don-based IHS Markit, a cerns. ers with information sooner.
tify people, suspicious be- In Greeley, Colorado, the data and information ser- “The issue is personal au- “This is just one thing that’s
havior and guns, amass- school district has used Avi- vices company. The overall tonomy and whether you’ll going to help everybody
ing large amounts of data gilon cameras for about market for real-time video be able to go around walk- do their job better,” Huber-
that help them learn over five years, and the tech- analytics was estimated ing in the public square or ty said.
time to recognize manner- nology has advanced rap- at $3.2 billion worldwide in a shopping mall without Both ZeroEyes and Austin-
isms, gait and dress. If the idly, said John Tait, security 2018 — and it’s anticipated tens, hundreds, thousands based Athena-Security
cameras have a previously manager for Weld County to grow to more than $9 bil- of people, companies claim their systems can de-
captured image of some- School District 6. lion by 2023, according to and entities learning things tect weapons with more
one who is banned from Upcoming upgrades in- one estimate . about you,” Jerome said. than 90 percent accuracy
a building, the system can clude the ability to identify AI cameras have already “People haven’t really but acknowledge their
immediately alert officials if guns and read people’s ex- been tested by some com- caught up to how broad products haven’t been
the person returns. pressions, a capability not panies to evaluate con- and deep the technology tested in a real-life scenar-
At a time when the threat currently part of Avigilon’s sumers’ facial expressions can now go,” said Jay Stan- io. And both systems are
of a mass shooting is ev- systems. to determine if they’re hav- ley, a senior policy analyst unable to detect weapons
er-present, schools are Retailers can spot shoplift- ing a pleasant or unpleas- at the American Civil Lib- if they’re covered — a limi-
among the most enthusi- ers in real time and alert se- ant shopping experience erties Union who published tation the companies say
astic adopters of the tech- curity or warn of a potential and improve customer a research paper in June they are working to over-
nology, known as real-time shoplifter. One company, service, according to the about how the cameras come.
video analytics or intelligent Athena-Security, has cam- Center for Democracy and are being used. “When I Stanley, with the ACLU, said
video, even as civil liberties eras that spot when some- Technology, a Washington explain it, people are pretty there’s reason to be skepti-
groups warn about a threat one has a weapon. And in nonprofit that advocates amazed and spooked.” cal about their capabilities
to privacy. Police, retailers, a bid to help retailers, it re- for privacy protections. When it comes to the po- because AI is still “pretty
stadiums and Fortune 500 cently expanded its capa- Policy counsel Joseph Je- tential for stemming vio- unreliable at recognizing
companies are also using bilities to help identify big rome said companies may lence that may be less of the complexities of human
intelligent video. spenders when they visit a someday use the cameras an issue. Shannon Floun- life.”
“What we’re really looking store. to estimate someone’s nory, executive director for Facial recognition is not
for are those things that It’s unknown how many age, which might be useful safety and security for the infallible, and a study last
help us to identify things ei- schools have AI-equipped for liquor stores, or facial- Fulton County School Dis- year from Wake Forest Uni-
ther before they occur or cameras because it’s not expression analysis to aid in trict, said no privacy con- versity found that some
maybe right as they occur being tracked. But Michael job interviews . cerns have been heard facial-recognition software
so that we can react a little Dorn, executive director of Police in New York, New there. interprets black faces as
faster,” Hildreth said. Safe Havens International Orleans and Atlanta all use “The events of Parkland appearing angrier than
A year after an expelled , a nonprofit that advises cameras with AI. In Hart- kind of changed the white faces.q