[Infowarrior] - UK considers monitoring streetside conversations

[Richard Forno]

The Sunday Times      November 26, 2006

Word on the street ... they¹re listening

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2471987,00.html

POLICE and councils are considering monitoring conversations in the street
using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras, write Steven
Swinford and Nicola Smith.

The microphones can detect conversations 100 yards away and record
aggressive exchanges before they become violent.

The devices are used at 300 sites in Holland and police, councils and
transport officials in London have shown an interest in installing them
before the 2012 Olympics.

The interest in the equipment comes amid growing concern that Britain is
becoming a ³surveillance society². It was recently highlighted that there
are more than 4.2m CCTV cameras, with the average person being filmed more
than 300 times a day. The addition of microphones would take surveillance
into uncharted territory.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned that a full public
debate over the microphones¹ impact on privacy will be needed before they
can be introduced.

The equipment can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of 12 factors,
including decibel level, pitch and the speed at which words are spoken.
Background noise is filtered out, enabling the camera to focus on specific
conversations in public places.

If the aggressive behaviour continues, police can intervene before an
incident escalates. Privacy laws in Holland limit the recording of sound to
short bursts. Derek van der Vorst, director of Sound Intelligence, the
company that created the technology, said: ³It is technically capable of
being live 24 hours a day and recording 24 hours a day. It really depends on
the privacy laws in a particular country.²

Last month Martin Nanninga of VCS Observation, the Dutch company marketing
the technology, gave a presentation to officials from Transport for London,
the Metropolitan police and the City of London police about the CCTV system.
Nanninga is to return next year for further discussions.

³There was a lot of interest in our system, especially with security
concerns about the Olympic Games in 2012. We told them about both our
intelligent control room and the aggression detection system,² Nanninga
said.

In Holland more than 300 of the cameras have been fitted in Groningen,
Utrecht and Rotterdam. Locations include city centres, benefit offices,
jails, and even T-Mobile shops. The sensitivity of the microphones is
adjusted to suit the situation.

Police and local council officials are still assessing their impact on
crime, although in an initial six-week trial in Groningen last year the
cameras raised 70 genuine alarms, resulting in four arrests.

Harry Hoetjer, head of surveillance at Groningen police headquarters,
recalled an incident where the camera had homed in on a gang of four men who
were about to attack a passer-by. ³We would not normally have detected it as
there was no camera directly viewing it,² he said.

Last Friday a Sunday Times reporter visited the office of Sound Intelligence
in Groningen to test the system. The reporter stood in the control centre
with a view of an empty room on one of a bank of monitors. Van der Vorst
entered the room, out of sight of the camera, and began making aggressive
noises.

The camera swivelled to film him and an alarm went off in the control room,
designed to alert police to a possible incident. ³The cameras work on the
principle that in an aggressive situation the pitch goes up and the words
are spoken faster,² said van der Vorst. ³The voice is not the normal flat
tone, but vibrates. It is these subtle changes that our audio cameras can
pick up on.²

Public prosecution services can use them in court as evidence. The Dutch
privacy board has already given its approval to the system.

According to a spokesman for Richard Thomas, Britain¹s information
commissioner, sound recorded by the cameras would be treated under British
law in the same way as CCTV footage. Under the commissioner¹s code of
practice, audio can be recorded for the detection, prevention of crime and
apprehension and prosecution of offenders. It cannot be used for recording
private conversations.

Graeme Gerrard, chairman of the chief police officers¹ video and CCTV
working group, said: ³In the UK this is a new step. Clearly there is
somebody or something monitoring people speaking in the street, and before
we were to engage in that technology there would be a number of legal
obstacles.

³We would need to have a debate as to whether or not this is something the
public think would be a reasonable use of the technology. The other issue is
around the capacity of the police service to deal with this.²