Review nº 14

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Source: www.economist.com
Date of publication: October 23rd 2008


Review nº 14: Article ‘If looks could kill’


It seems that in a few years the reality described in the story “The Minority Repor” by Philip Dick will come true. Since new sophisticated surveillance technology is being improved, in a few years sciencs fiction films will be our real life. But that, as perfect as it seems, may be dangerous. This topic is discussed in the article ‘If looks could kill’ from The Economist newspaper.
As monitoring surveillance cameras is tedious work, many people would like to develop intelligent computerised surveillance systems. The need for such systems is stimulating the development of devices which can both recognise people and objects and also detect suspicious behaviour. Human gaits, for example, use special object-recognition software to lock onto particular features of a videa recording and follow them around, correlating those movements with consequences, such as the throwing of a bomb, allows the creation of computer models reasonably reliably. Some intelligent surveillance systems are able to identify the context in which behaviour is probably threatening. As object-and motion-recognition technology improves, researchers are starting to focus on facial expressions and what they can reveal. The Human Factors Division of America’s Department of Homeland Security is running what is called Project Hostile Intent. This is a system that scrutinises fleeting “micro-expressions”, easily missed by human eyes. As terrorists are trained to conceal emotions what is said by researchers fhat is even better, because accentuate micro-expressions. However, signals which seem to reveal hostil intent change with context. Supporters of this technology argue that it avoids controversial racial profiling because only behaviour is studied. This is a sticky issue, because cultures, and races, express themselves differently. That could resut in a lot of false positives and consequent ill-will. Another programme called Future Attributable Screening Technology or FAST, is being developed as a compliment to Project Hostile Intent. An array of sensors, at a distance of a couple of meters, measures skin temperature, blood-flow patterns, perspiration, and heart and breathing rates. In a series of tests a number of “innocents”, though, were snagged too. The result of using “pre-crime” technology will inevitably be that too many innocents entangled, but supporters argue that human security agents will always remain the final arbiters.
This article features the new systems of surveillance technology being developed, which in short will be used. I personally agree to the specialists who argue that many false positives can put innocents on trial and this will lead to a state of social scare spread al around. But supporters argue that human security agents will take the last decisions.
To sump, new and more intelligent and precise surveillance technologies are really needed nowadays and so that they are being created. But it can be dangerous if we overrelay on computers to analyse human behaviour, because innocents could be taken as criminals.