How can the UK's place as one of the most CCTV-surveilled nations in the world be improved upon? Why, with more surveillance technology of course. So say engineers at the shiny new Centre for Secure Information Technologies in Belfast, Northern Ireland, dedicated to investigating technologies that improve personal security - whether that's out in the street or online. One focus is improving security on Britain's buses using software that predicts violent behaviour from what's captured on the CCTV now common on the vehicles. "Despite massive investment in CCTV, the impact on antisocial and criminal behavior is negligible because very little video is ever analysed," says CSIT director Paul Miller. "So we're trying to find a set of behavioural events that will allow CCTV to become active and alert operators to potential trouble."
Audio of people shouting at the driver and video of them loitering on the stairs of a double decker, or causing other people to move seats, could trigger an alert to be sent to a local police, for example. This kind of research is a busy research area, New Scientist has written before about attempts to have cameras recognise violence or possible suicide attempts. The latter is in use on London's underground train network.
It's all too easy to take a snarky view of this kind of encroaching surveillance technology, but pity the poor bus driver. In Leeds, Yorkshire, for instance, the Health and Safety Executive reports bus drivers being threatened with knives, air guns, fireworks - and even samurai swords. CSIT's on the case there, too: another input to its smart alerting system will be a metal detector concealed in the bus door frame.