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Law Enforcement & Public Safety(a subtopic of Applications)
Good Places to StartAI Technologies for Homeland Security: Papers from the AAAI 2005 Spring Symposium, ed. John Yen and Robert Popp. Technical Report SS-05-01. American Association for Artificial Intelligence, Menlo Park, California. "After September 11, 2001, preempting terrorist acts,and providing for the security of citizens at home and abroad have become top priorities for the United States and many other nations around the globe. To achieve these goals, an overwhelming amount of information needs to be absorbed, processed, interpreted and analyzed in a timely fashion. Various AI technologies can be of great utility in addressing these challenges. For example, multiagent systems can support information sharing and collaboration among analysts, data mining techniques can discover and extract hidden patterns about terrorist activities buried in large data stores, social network analysis can help assess and predict terrorist intentions and behaviors, and knowledge representations and ontologies can facilitate information fusion, knowledge sharing and semantic understanding. However, using AI technologies to provide for the security of citizens and the homeland raises many complex issues, for example:
Abstracts of the papers can be accessed from the AAAI Digital Library. ... and check back for the abstracts from the AAAI 2006 Fall Symposia: Capturing and Using Patterns for Evidence Detection. "Pattern-based analysis of data plays an increasing role in several important applications. In crime prevention (including securities trading, tax fraud, and homeland security) it is being used both to detect evidence of criminal events and to predict threatening activities before they completely mature. In marketing it is being used to assess trends in the aggregate sentiments of populations as well as the preferences of individuals. In epidemiology it is used to assess health trends in populations and provide early warning of epidemics. In these applications the data is typically incomplete and becomes available incrementally over time, and it can often support alternative interpretations, so assessing the quality of the evolving evidence among a set of competing hypotheses is critical. This symposium will bring together researchers from diverse backgrounds, including machine learning, data management, graph theory, link analysis, information retrieval, privacy, automated reasoning, and knowledge representation, to promote advances in acquiring and using patterns for detecting and managing evidence in data." Surveillance Society - New High-Tech Cameras Are Watching You. 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? By James Vlahos. Popular Mechanics (January 2008). "Liberty Island's video cameras all feed into a computer system. The park doesn't disclose details, but fully equipped, the system is capable of running software that analyzes the imagery and automatically alerts human overseers to any suspicious events. The software can spot when somebody abandons a bag or backpack. It has the ability to discern between ferryboats, which are allowed to approach the island, and private vessels, which are not. And it can count bodies, detecting if somebody is trying to stay on the island after closing, or assessing when people are grouped too tightly together, which might indicate a fight or gang activity. 'A camera with artificial intelligence can be there 24/7, doesn't need a bathroom break, doesn't need a lunch break and doesn't go on vacation,' says Ian Ehrenberg, former vice president of Nice Systems, the program's developer."
The Element of Surprise - To help combat the terrorism threat, officials at Los Angeles International Airport are introducing a bold new idea into their arsenal: random placement of security checkpoints. Can game theory help keep us safe? By Andrew Murr. Newsweek Web Exclusive available from MSNBC.com (September 28, 2007). "Security officials at Los Angeles International Airport now have a new weapon in their fight against terrorism: complete, baffling randomness. Anxious to thwart future terror attacks in the early stages while plotters are casing the airport, LAX security patrols have begun using a new software program called ARMOR, NEWSWEEK has learned, to make the placement of security checkpoints completely unpredictable. ... Randomness isn't easy. Even when they want to be unpredictable, people follow patterns. ... The ARMOR software is the real-world product of an idea that began as an academic question in game theory. USC doctoral student Praveen Paruchuri sought to find a way for one 'agent' (or robot or company) to react to an adversary who has perfect information about the agent's decisions. Using artificial intelligence and game theory, Paruchuri wrote a new, fast set of algorithms to randomize the actions of the first agent. ... Soon ARMOR will begin jumbling the placement of the bomb-sniffing canine patrols too, says Butts. Other potential uses are too secret to talk about. [James] Butts says that the new random placement 'makes travelers safer' and even gives them 'a greater feeling of police presence' by making the cops appear more numerous." The 'Numb3rs' Don't Lie [radio broadcast]. NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday, with Ira Flatow (October 5, 2007). "[17:15] Flatow: Mm-hmm. Let’s talk a bit about something that you write about in the book. You write that - it has to do with the war on terror. And we know that the government has all kinds of data mining that it’s doing. And you write that machine learning is, quote, 'perhaps the single most important tool within the law enforcement community’s data mining arsenal when it comes to profiling, enhanced catching or preventing criminals and terrorists.' Can you tell us what machine learning is? Dr. Devlin: Okay. That’s - actually, the center that I direct at Stanford is actually the world’s leader in doing that thing. It’s where you - it’s a branch of what was known as artificial - still is known as artificial intelligence. It means you have a computer program which you present lots of data, it could be data about - an obvious one is can you determine the profile of someone entering the country who’s likely to be a terrorist? ..." Artificial Intelligence for Homeland Security. Guest Editors' Introduction by Hsinchun Chen, University of Arizona, and Fei-Yue Wang, University of Arizona. IEEE Intelligent Systems (September / October 2005; Volume 20, Number 5). Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'? Biometric Device May Have the Answer. By Jonathan Karp and Laura Meckler. The Wall Street Journal (August 14, 2006; page B1) / also available from post-gazette.com (Biometric device analyzes travelers' intents; August 16, 2006). "At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer, scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain, sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones. With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses, the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses -- blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions. The trial of the Israeli-developed system represents an effort by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to determine whether technology can spot passengers who have 'hostile intent.' In effect, the screening system attempts to mechanize Israel's vaunted airport-security process by using algorithms, artificial-intelligence software and polygraph principles. ... Here is the Cogito concept: A passenger enters the booth, swipes his passport and responds in his choice of language to 15 to 20 questions generated by factors such as the location, and personal attributes like nationality, gender and age. The process takes as much as five minutes, after which the passenger is either cleared or interviewed further by a security officer."
The State Of Surveillance (cover story) - Artificial noses that sniff explosives, cameras that I.D. you by your ears, chips that analyze the halo of heat you emit. More scrutiny lies ahead. By Catherine Yang, with Kerry Capell and Otis Port. BusinessWeek Online (August 8, 2005). "Tomorrow's surveillance technology may be considerably more effective. But each uptick in protection will typically come at the cost of more intrusion into the privacy of ordinary people. For now, the public seems to find that trade-off acceptable, so scientists around the world have intensified efforts to perfect the art of surveillance, hoping to catch villains before they strike. ... Despite the many failings of biometrics, the federal government is encouraging scientists to fashion them into covert surveillance tools. Face recognition -- the most obvious way to track people because it's how humans do it -- is still dogged by problems matching images that may be distorted by a smile or ill-placed shadow. ... Another hope is that certain characteristic movements may be recognizable at a distance. Taking a page from Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research body credited with inventing the Internet, funds work on software that could identify individuals by their strides. ... Ever since September 11, the U.S. government has been striving through the power of software to extend its investigatory net over an elusive enemy lurking among the populace. The idea is to rifle through multiple databases using algorithms that categorize and rank documents -- ranging from airline manifests, car rental records, and hotel guest lists to credit, court, and housing records compiled and sold by private companies such as ChoicePoint. In this way, machines might recognize relationships among human beings that humans themselves can miss. This is just one of many measures that trigger a Big Brother alert."
Homeland Security as Catalyst - Innovative software firms are answering the call from U.S. government agencies for advanced analytics to help combat terrorism and criminal activity. What's the potential of this software for strategic business applications? By Jesus Mena. Intelligent Enterprise Magazine (July 2004). "Ever heard of NORA? Or how about these guys: InferAgent, CopLink, NameHunter, Bladeworks, and Sentinel? These ominous-sounding fellows are products from tiny software firms that are developing some of the most advanced analytic technologies today for homeland security. Some provide solutions for the conversion of garbled text into knowledge discovery. Others tend to the unearthing of associations of individuals to actions, locations, and events from hundreds of thousands of internal and external records. Still others offer innovative methods for detecting fraud, categorizing foreign names, and virtual, remote analysis of data or text from any database in the world for agencies such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC)." Improving the search for intelligence. By Paul Marks. New Scientist (February 12, 2007 | Issue 2590: pages 22 - 23; subscription req'd). "Detective Gary Williams was investigating a rape last year when his leads dried up. From the victim's statement, he knew there had been a witness to the crime, he even knew his name, but the person had not come forward and could not be found at their registered address. So Williams, of South Yorkshire Police in the UK, turned to a smart search engine the force had begun trialling only 2 hours earlier. With just the name of the witness, the Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) [developed by Autonomy of Cambridge, UK,] trawled the force's database. ... In the US, for example, a number of police forces, including the Los Angeles Police Department, now use a system called Coplink, which connects all their databases together. The system, developed at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Arizona in Tucson, allows investigators to find out whether people have been arrested or interviewed in other areas, information that was not available to them before. ... IDOL uses statistical techniques to return information and phrases related to, but not necessarily including, the search terms entered. ... The system harnesses a probability theory developed by Thomas Bayes, an English cleric and mathematician, in the 18th century. ... Autonomy is now extending the system to telephone calls. It has combined IDOL with speech-recognition software to create a voice-to-text system that translates calls made to the police into searchable statements."
Cyber detective links up crimes. By Duncan Graham-Rowe. New Scientist News. (December 5, 2004. This article also appears on page 25 in the December 4, 2004 issue of New Scientist Magazine as: Neural networks to catch serial killers.) "Many more crimes might be solved if detectives were able to compare the records for cases with all the files on past crimes. Now an artificial intelligence system has been designed to do precisely that. Working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it could look for telltale similarities in crime records and alert detectives when it finds them. Developed by computer scientists Tom Muscarello and Kamal Dahbur at DePaul University in Chicago, the system uses pattern-recognition software to link related crimes that may have taken place in widely separated areas whose police forces may rarely be in close contact. Called the Classification System for Serial Criminal Patterns (CSSCP).... The neural network the DePaul team uses, called a Kohonen network, is particularly good at finding patterns in a set of input data without any human intervention, Muscarello says. Some neural networks require an operator to 'train' them to find patterns in data sets -- but this requires foreknowledge of the pattern." BSc (Hons) Forensic Computing. Designed by Dr. Giles Oatley, Senior Lecturer, School of Computing and Technology, University of Sunderland "The degree provides an understanding of criminology, types of forensic data and appropriate analysis techniques, and how to operationalise findings in decision support software based upon advanced artificial intelligence technologies and 'industry entrance level' computer programming skills. This degree is unique among the UK, and spans the disciplines of criminology (with some aspects from forensic psychology), chemistry / pharmacology and computing. This broad range is necessary for this challenging and quickly growing area of analysis of forensic data. With the popularizing of this subject by such TV programs as 'CSI-Miami' and the emphasis from the Home Office upon technology-based solutions, this degree course will provide the tools necessary for a very interesting and enriching career." Readings OnlineAI in the news column in AI Magazine: Big Brother Logs On. By Ivan Amato. Technology Review (September 2001). "Feeling exposed? Watchful technologies could soon put everyone under surveillance. ... Now, similarly, police departments, government agencies, banks, merchants, amusement parks, sports arenas, nanny-watching homeowners, swimming-pool operators, and employers are deploying cameras, pattern recognition algorithms, databases of information, and biometric tools that when taken as a whole can be combined into automated surveillance networks able to track just about anyone, just about anywhere."
Big Brother to Watch Over Island. By Mark Baard. Wired News (May 4, 2004). "If you have ever seen the cult '60s British television program The Prisoner, in which captured Cold War spies live on an island under constant surveillance, you can imagine what life may soon be like on Ayers Island, on the Penobscot River near the University of Maine. In coming years, visitors to Ayers Island , the site of an abandoned paper and textile mill in Orono, Maine, will be spied upon by a comprehensive network of video cameras, motion detectors and sensors. Lurking behind all of those sensors will be an artificial intelligence system that will decide who can be trusted and who is deserving of greater scrutiny."
Computers try to outthink terrorists. By Bruce V. Bigelow. The San Diego Union-Tribune (January 13, 2002). Also available from UC San Diego and from Orincon Corporation International's news collection.. "Once known as 'artificial intelligence' -- a term that many computer scientists disdain -- such technology now is used to detect fraudulent financial transactions, such as money laundering, and to monitor industrial processes for irregularities. It also is used in image processing and facial recognition technology, like the system installed at last year's Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., to scan the faces of ticket holders in search of wanted criminals." PC Precisely Predicts Felony. By David Cohn. Wired News (August 1, 2005). "Police are always trying to get inside criminals' minds to predict their next move. In Yonkers, New York, last week a police computer turned this guessing game into a science by correctly forecasting the time and place of a robbery -- and dispatched officers to nab the perpetrators. Lt. James McLaughlin of the Yonkers Police Department technical support unit used a PC to analyze crime statistics and predict the time and location of a robbery before it occurred." Tucson cops, local software to help in D.C. sniper probe. By Larry Copenhaver. Tucson Citizen (October 23, 2002). "Federal officials asked Tucson police for help in using the system, COPLINK. It allows investigators to feed leads and other data on a case into a computer system, and a software program then provides advanced analytical and search capabilities for investigators. ... HOW COPLINK WORKS: The system digs through databases and reports to pick out connections among suspects, vehicles, crimes, locations and other data. It gives police the capability, with limited information, to find investigative leads they don't get anywhere else. Simply put, it searches separate databases at various agencies and returns information based on a query." >> Photo caption: "Hsinchun Chen shows Tucson police Detective Tim Petersen (right) how to use COPLINK software in January 2001. Chen led a University of Arizona Artificial Intelligence Lab team in developing COPLINK software. ..."
No future for crooks. By Mark Cowan. Evening Mail / available from icBirmingham (October 12, 2002). "Police could soon be detecting crime in the West Midlands before it actually happens in an echo of hit Hollywood movie Minority Report. Police are developing computer software which could predict where crooks strike next. Using the latest in artificial intelligence, the digital detective would examine a criminal's modus operandi and suggest a future pattern of offending. ... The 'Tomorrow's World' idea is the latest development for the ground-breaking Flints II crime-busting computer pioneered by West Midlands Police." Grand Theft Auto Meets Robocop. By Cyrus Farivar. Wired News (June 17, 2005). "An automatic license-plate reader that can scan 500 license plates an hour looking for stolen vehicles underwent its first field tests by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department last week. Using character-recognition technology developed for the Italian Post Office to read postal addresses, four robot eyes in the course of one night queried more than 12,000 license plates, recovered seven stolen cars and resulted in three arrests. ... The system works at 'patrol car speeds,' optimally at about 35 mph. It can scan the plates of vehicles almost anywhere on the road. 'We read them coming at us. We read them going by us. We read them parked,' said Mark Windover, president of Remington-Elsag." Trial by laptop - An electronic judge on wheels delivers instant justice. By Duncan Graham-RoweNew Scientist (April 29, 2000; Issue 2236; subscription req'd.). "There's been a minor car crunch on a city street in Brazil, and the two drivers are screaming and gesticulating, arguing angrily over who's to blame and who should pay for the damage. Suddenly, a van screeches to a halt and out pop a judge, a court clerk and a very special laptop computer. Instant justice has arrived, cyber-style.This is no fantasy. The laptop runs an artificial-intelligence program called the Electronic Judge, and its job is to help the human judge on the team swiftly and methodically dispense justice according to witness reports and forensic evidence at the scene of an incident. It can issue on-the-spot fines, order damages to be paid and even recommend jail sentences." 'Sherlock Holmes' thinks lateral for murder cops. By John Leyden. The Register (July 3, 2003). "Scottish software developers have developed a program to help police consider all the possibilities in the investigation of suspicious deaths. 'Sherlock Holmes' is designed to highlight less obvious lines of inquiry that detectives might overlook. 'It takes an overview of all the available evidence and then speculates on what might have happened,' developer Jeroen Keppens, of Edinburgh's Joseph Bell Center for Forensic Statistics and Legal Reasoning, told New Scientist. ... A knowledge base within the program contains data of various causes of death and evidence that either supports or contradicts a particular explanation for a death. Investigators enter data into the program, which applies this database to indicate the likelihodd of each scenario. Forensic evidence, medical reports and eyewitness accounts can all be fed into the system."
Air Security Focusing on Flier Screening - Complex Profiling Network Months Behind Schedule. By Robert O'Harrow Jr.. The Washington Post (September 4, 2002). "In recent months, the [Transportation Security Administration] hired four teams of technology companies that have honed their expertise in profiling for casinos, marketing companies and financial institutions. Their mission was to demonstrate how artificial intelligence and other powerful software can analyze passengers' travel reservations, housing information, family ties, identifying details in credit reports and other personal data to determine if they're 'rooted in the community' -- or have an unusual history that indicates a potential threat. Now transportation and intelligence officials believe that CAPPS II -- short for the second-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System -- will form the core of a new framework in aviation security: a far more intense focus on people rather than baggage." Using Math to Track Terrorists [September 14, 2007 radio broadcast]. NPR's Science Friday with guest host Joe Palca and guests Hsinchun Chen, director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and Bernard Brooks, professor of mathematics at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. "Are there new weapons in the war on terror? Here's a suggestion. If you want to find a terrorist cell, consider asking a mathematician. Researchers in math, computer science, and criminology met this week to talk about ways in which mathematical techniques can be brought to bear on the problem of counterterrorism. In this segment, guests join Joe Palca for a look at how mathematicians and computer scientists can help track terrorist activity, find connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of data, and help hunt for a needle in a haystack." Testimony of John Roth, Chief of Criminal Division's Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, Department of Justice, before the Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources hearing: Terrorist Financing and Money Laundering Investigations: Who Investigates and How Effective are They (May 11, 2004). "Money laundering constitutes a serious threat to our communities, to the integrity of our financial institutions and to our national security. Behind every dollar of dirty money in need of laundering is a trail of victims.... Money laundering enforcement may be unique, because it requires the participation of a broad spectrum of government agencies as well as the private sector. ... Although the coordination challenges are great, we meet the challenge in a number of ways. The Department of Justice assists in coordination though a number of means. I will name a few of the more formal mechanisms we use. ... - Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN): FinCEN is a valuable component of our efforts to use Bank Secrecy Act information effectively. FinCEN digests and analyzes SAR reports and conducts financial data inquiries for all agencies. Law enforcement especially values FinCEN's ability to use their artificial intelligence capability to 'mine' their data and to develop trends or areas that deserve a closer look. Agents from all the major law enforcement agencies sit at FinCEN and review these reports and law enforcement intelligence products."
Surveillance to detect abnormal behaviour on public transport. PM radio program on Radio National & ABC Local Radio; reported by David Weber (August 1, 2005). "(Professor Svetha Venkatesh, from Curtin's Institute for Multi-Sensor Processing and Content Analysis.) SVETHA VENKATESH: The research institute has been working for some time now on trying to detect patterns in data. The data can be anything, you know it could be camera data or sensor data. And essentially what we're going to be doing with DTI is looking specifically at camera data and trying to see whether we can solve some of the problems with respect to detecting events that happen in a bus that people might be interested in. ... DAVID WEBER: Abnormal behaviours will differ from country to country, from culture to culture I suppose? SVETHA VENKATESH: That's right and that's why we use machine learning so that it can learn from the data that is presented, as opposed to a human defining it."
IT Versus Terror - Preventing a terror attack is invaluable. But even invaluable IT projects need realistic business case analysis to succeed. By Ben Worthen. CIO (August 2006). "Data mining is a relatively new field within computer science. In the broadest sense, it combines statistical models, powerful processors, and artificial intelligence to find and retrieve valuable information that might otherwise remain buried inside vast volumes of data. Retailers use it to predict consumer buying patterns, and credit card companies use it to detect fraud. In the aftermath of September 11, the government concluded that data mining could help it prevent future terrorist attacks. Experts say that the government, and in particular the intelligence community, has come to rely heavily on data mining. A 2004 Government Accountability Office report found that federal agencies were actively engaged in or planning 199 data mining projects. ... The government's data mining projects fall into two broad categories: subject-based systems that retrieve data that could help an analyst follow a lead, and pattern-based systems that look for suspicious behaviors across a spread of activities." Related Web SitesArtificial Intelligence Lab in the Management Information Systems Department at the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management. Be sure to see:
COPLINK - "organizes and rapidly analyzes vast quantities of structured and seemingly unrelated data, currently housed in various incompatible databases and record management systems." CREATE, the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, "is an interdisciplinary national research center based at the University of Southern California and funded by the Department of Homeland Security. The Center is focused on risk and economic analysis of the U.S. and comprises a team of experts from across the country, including partnerships with New York University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison."
Digital Imaging Research Centre, Faculty of Computing, Information Systems and Mathematics, Kingston University. Be sure to see the Surveillance page.
iOmniscient - Intelligent Video Analysis.
Neven Vision - Machine Vision Technology.
ObjectVideo - Intelligent Video Surveillance.
Project 54. "Project54 is an effort by the Consolidated Advanced Technologies Laboratory (CATLab) at the University of New Hampshire. Our goal is the creation and implementation of integration standards for in-car electronic devices. From the point of view of the officer operating a cruiser, the goal of the project is to create a system with a standard and safe user interface that will allow hands-free and eyes-free operation of in-car devices." from the Project54 brochure
 Video Surveillance and Monitoring (VSAM) Technology. "There are immediate needs for automated surveillance systems in commercial, law enforcement and military applications. Mounting video cameras is cheap, but finding available human resources to observe the output is expensive. Although surveillance cameras are already prevalent in banks, stores, and parking lots, video data currently is used only "after the fact" as a forensic tool, thus losing its primary benefit as an active, real-time medium. What is needed is continuous 24-hour monitoring of surveillance video to alert security officers to a burglary in progress, or to a suspicious individual loitering in the parking lot, while there is still time to prevent the crime." This home page for the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute and the Sarnoff Corporation research project provides links to project sites, demos, and more.
Related AI Topics Pages
More ReadingsCase of the best mysteries- solved. By Melissa Adams in collaboration with Claudia Peterman. Daily Pilot / available from the Los Angeles Times (May 18, 2003; no fee reg. req'd.). "Mystery writers and fans have concluded their deliberations and the verdicts are in for some of the best whodunits of the new millennium. ... [M]ystery fans awarded the Agatha to Donna Andrews for 'You've Got Murder.' With a quirky sleuth from cyberspace at the center of the action (which involves tracking down the AWOL programmer who created her), this is one of the most original romps of recent years. Likely to appeal to computer buffs as well as sci-fi fans, it's a mystery novel that blurs the boundaries between artificial intelligence and the intellect that presumably fashioned it." Also see this related article. 'E-Judge' Hits the Streets - Justice Goes High Tech in Brazil. By Antonio Brasil. Special to ABCNEWS.com. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, May 12, 2000. "Currently in a test phase on the city streets of Brazil, the Electronic Judge is part of a new project called Justice-On-Wheels. It's designed to make the judicial process more efficient by sending a judge, laptop in tow, to a minor crime or accident scene to render a decision on the spot after processing case facts. ... Written in Visual Basic, the Electronic Judge processes the simple 'yes' or 'no' answers from the involved parties and eyewitnesses. It then writes a report with possible solutions for the case according to Brazil's legal code. The judge evaluates this report, and if the judge and involved parties agree, settlement is reached on the spot." AI and Law Enforcement. By John Charles. IEEE Intelligent Systems 13(1): January/February 1998, 77-80. "Law enforcement has long been interested in intelligence, although not necessarily artificial intelligence. In recent years, however, AI has been called to service. AI's exceptional capacity to gather and analyze seas of information has made its techniques ideal for solving a variety of crime-related problems. The author discusses some applications of AI in US law enforcement." Bush details broadband goals. By Grant Gross. IDG News Service / InfoWorld (June 24, 2004). "[U.S. President George] Bush, during a speech at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C., promoted nationwide broadband access as a way to help U.S. workers become more productive and improve the country's economy. ... Bush also saw a demonstration from ObjectVideo, a Reston, Virginia, company that uses artificial intelligence software to analyze data transmitted through video surveillance cameras. ObjectVideo's VEW software runs all objects in a camera's view against threat-specific preprogrammed rules, then alerts security officers when an object violates those rules. The technology is a way for the U.S. to protect its borders, Bush said." Robot cameras 'will predict crimes before they happen.' By Andrew Johnson. Independent News (April 21, 2002). "Computers and CCTV cameras could be used to predict and prevent crime before it happens. Scientists at Kingston University in London have developed software able to anticipate if someone is about to mug an old lady or plant a bomb at an airport. It works by examining images coming in from close circuit television cameras (CCTV) and comparing them to behaviour patterns that have already programmed into its memory. The software, called Cromatica, can then mathematically work out what is likely to happen next. And if it is likely to be a crime it can send a warning signal to a security guard or police officer. 'Our technology excels at carrying out the boring, repetitive tasks and highlighting potential situations that could otherwise go unnoticed,' [Dr Sergio Velastin] added." Defense Dept. hopes to enlist AI in war against terrorism. By Therese Poletti. Mercury News / available from SiliconValley.com (August 2, 2004). "The world's most popular search engine, Google, uses artificial intelligence to respond to millions of queries a day. Banks now depend on artificial intelligence to alert customers to odd patterns of credit card use. And many video game developers rely on AI to develop life-like characters. After its own boom-and-bust cycle in the 1980s, the esoteric field of artificial intelligence gradually has developed some real-life uses of software that teach machines to think. And now the war on terrorism is boosting AI research with an infusion of cash. The Defense Department hopes an elite group of AI scientists will develop more tools to help intelligence analysts find terrorists before they strike. At an artificial intelligence conference in San Jose last week, several groups of university researchers presented papers on work they have done in the area of counter-terrorism." Robotics for Law Enforcement. SPAWAR(Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command). "In 1999, the National Institute of Justice funded the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego, to assess law enforcement needs for robots beyond explosive ordnance disposal, and to identify technologies from Department of Defense robotics projects that can help meet those needs. We conducted a web-based survey to establish law enforcement robotics needs." And you can see the results by accessing the papers offered at their site. Data Mining and Domestic Security: Connecting the Dots to Make Sense of Data. By K. A. Taipale. The Columbia Science and Technology Law Review (Volume V; 2003-2004). "New technologies present new opportunities and new challenges to existing methods of law enforcement and domestic security investigation and raise related civil liberties concerns. Although technology is not deterministic, its development follows certain indubitable imperatives. The commercial need to develop these powerful analytic technologies as well as the drive to adopt these technologies to help ensure domestic security is inevitable. For those concerned with the civil liberties and privacy issues that the use of these technologies will present, the appropriate and useful course of action is to be involved in guiding the research and development process towards outcomes that provide opportunity for traditional legal procedural protection to be applied to their usage. To do so requires a more informed engagement by both sides in the debate based on a better understanding of the actual technological potential and constraints." ID System Gets in Face of Criminals - LAPD officers field-test a hand-held computer using facial recognition to identify suspects. Critics raise issues of privacy and reliability. By Richard Winton. Los Angeles Times (December 25, 2004; reg. req'd.) "The potential of the facial-recognition technology could be seen in a recent police stop on Alvarado Street just west of downtown Los Angeles, where police have been testing the cameras. ... As they questioned the pair, Rampart Division Senior Lead Officer Mike Wang pointed a hand-held computer with a camera attached toward the man on the bicycle seat. Facial-recognition software in the device compared the image with those in a database that includes photos of recent fugitives, as well as 78 members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang and 45 members of the 18th Street gang. ... Within seconds, the screen had displayed a gallery of nine faces with contours similar to the man's. The computer concluded that one of those images --- of Jose Hernandez, an 18th Street member subject to the civil injunction --- was the closest match, with a 94% probability of accuracy. ... The LAPD has been using two of the computers donated by their developer, Santa Monica-based Neven Vision. The firm, a pioneer in facial-recognition technology, was looking to have its products field-tested. ... Hartmut Neven, developer of the software the LAPD is trying out, says his system uses an algorithm to translate various parts of the face into complex mathematical patterns employed to develop unique numerical templates." |
