Letter to the Editor: Fighting Crime with Cameras

Editor:

Seeing your neighbor robbed in broad daylight, with kids playing outside within feet of the carjacking, is really motivating.

Our neighborhood now exchanges video clips instantly with each other to verify everything from suspicious door-to-door solicitors to package deliveries. We're armed with cameras.

The cameras are private to each homeowner but can be stitched together instantly in a coordinated response within seconds of a crime.

So when a friend of mine in Piedmont saw the recent Patch story on license plate cameras for $1 milllion, he asked me about alternative ways to use cameras to deter and prosecute criminals.

A common burglary pattern in San Mateo County has been for "solicitors" to ring the front doorbell and then to go around back to break-in when there's no answer.  

I had shown my Piedmont friend some examples of the ways our block stitches video events across homes and cameras to determine whether door-to-door solicitors like these are legitimate or not: https://www.camiolog.com/c/z1jvc8r

Burlingame law requires a license to solicit door-to-door. So if police are alerted immediately to suspicious solicitors, then they can act immediately — ideally even before the burglary — to catch suspects on-location, in-the-act, with the evidence most useful for prosecution.

We've often seen solicitors turn away from our home once they see the cameras. The transparency and accountability of cameras is a deterrent.

At Camiolog, we're challenged daily by hard problems in image processing and machine learning to make video cameras smarter. So I know that license plate recognition of fast-moving cars at night is difficult.

It requires expensive, hi-resolution cameras and city networks to connect them. That's why covering Piedmont roads with license plate readers can become a $1 million-plus project.

But we now live in an age of inexpensive cameras, ubiquitous smartphones, broadband connectivity, and powerful cloud-computing. We can "crowdsource" security cameras!

Now, an $85 WiFi camera on your window-sill can become the next generation of neighborhood watch. When citizens can press a button from their phones to notify police instantly with footage from the actual location of the crime, we create a more effective deterrent at a fraction of the cost.

Plus, the privacy and control remains with those protected: the citizens. I'm excited by the libertarian-style, citizen-lead use of cameras as both deterrent and forensic aid.

Carter Maslan
Camiolog 

What do you think of a citizen-controlled network of cameras as an alternative or supplement?

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