150 thousand cameras have already been installed in Russia observations, more than half of them — in Moscow.
Every citizen — a real screen star. Although he himself has no idea about it.
Filmed
Over 60 thousand surveillance cameras have been installed in Moscow, the lenses of which are aimed at streets, squares, train stations, metro entrances, courtyards and entrances of residential buildings. Is it a lot or a little? And it depends on what you compare it with. By Russian standards — the figure is decent, for example, no more than 1.7 thousand surveillance cameras are used in the entire Moscow region. And in total there are about 150 thousand of them in the country today.
By Western standards, Muscovites rarely end up in the camera. There are already about a million cameras in Paris, and they continue to be installed. And the average Londoner is monitored by about 300 security cameras per day. And what is logical — It was from this country that the concept of “big brother” came, who always sees and hears everything, everyone.
When applied to Moscow, Orwell’s image is inaccurate. Muscovites and visitors are watched not by “brothers,” but by “sisters.” Video images from cameras are transmitted to centers located in all city districts. Nothing mysterious, much less sinister. Center — these are several rooms filled with monitors. All operators — women are more attentive and diligent. The work is hard, each one monitoring their area with 48 cameras that send signals to three monitors. That is, there are 16 sectors of pictures on one monitor at once. If there is no dynamics in the observed sector, it is framed by a yellow frame. All attention — movement, the frame in this case turns red.
Well, then… Depending on the situation, the operator calls the police, ambulance, firefighters or rescuers.
— The effect of video cameras in protecting public order is decent, — approves Deputy Head of the Department of Public Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Nikolai Trifonov. — Video systems allow us to quickly respond to crimes: the squad arrives at the scene within 5-7 minutes.
But in informal conversations, police officers advise not to idealize existing systems and not to overestimate their capabilities. There are many complaints about the quality of shooting. Some of the equipment is constantly faulty, some — unsuccessfully installed.
Don’t spit on the lens
But science does not stand still. Programs have already been developed that make it possible to identify certain individuals from a panoramic video stream. Without torturing female operators, you can automatically form a database of portraits of everyone who came into the field of view of a certain camera. The smart program will independently select the best screenshot (picture) and independently find the face of this person in recordings from other cameras.
True, in order for the everyday reality of surveillance to come closer to the plots of Hollywood thrillers, colossal amounts of money need to be spent: spend money on all-weather high-resolution cameras and new programs. But in principle — everything is possible.
In addition, it is not at all necessary to replace all cameras with new ones. For example, in China there is a city of Shenzhen, whose population (13 million) is approximately comparable to Moscow. They have not abandoned the old primitive cameras, which can handle simple tasks quite well. But modern «smart» cameras. 180 thousand old ones provide a panorama, and 20 thousand «smart» they search for criminals using portraits from a database and, in addition, solve a specific Chinese problem: they record townspeople spitting on the ground. The camera resolution allows you to film the spitter from a distance of up to 200 meters. True, there the legislator trusts the technology, camera recording — sufficient grounds for a fine: $2.5.
So far, our cameras have been trusted to punish people with rubles only for violating traffic regulations. There is a project to equip patrols and traffic inspectors with video cameras. According to the information of the first deputy head of the rear department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Stanislav Trushin, two cameras will record the situation in front of the car and what is happening inside the car.
— The police will not be able to erase the video recording, — Trushin promised. If the idea works, amazing videos await us. Recordings of Russian drivers communicating with traffic inspectors will, we believe, be more interesting than filming the Chinese spitting.
There are never too many cameras
In fact, there are many more cameras in the city than officially announced: video surveillance systems are used by almost all organizations. There are many cameras for private individuals. The most advanced ones fix them on the walls of houses or on the supports of street lamps. For example, to see your “shell” on the TV or monitor screen at any time.
Not only thieves and hooligans, but also law-abiding citizens in funny, ridiculous and downright sensitive situations are regularly caught on camera like this. If the camera is poorly positioned (or, conversely, successful, depending on the angle of view: you are filming or you are filming), someone else’s balcony or window gets into the lens. There, even before the video in the style of «home video» at hand.
The market has already responded to the needs of citizens concerned about privacy. Freely available — different models of camera detectors, some of which are capable of revealing a hidden lens. And even when the camera is turned off.
Issue price — from 7,000 to 90,000 rubles. That is, the detectors cost approximately the same as the cameras themselves.
But despite the costs, experts say that in homes equipped with surveillance systems, the number of thefts is reduced by 15-30 percent. Considering that the summer burglary season has now begun in the city, it is perhaps better to put up with unhealthy forms of neighborly curiosity. But the thief will not get through.
How about them
The most inventive in the field of video surveillance — English. This country has come up with talking cameras. The city of Middlesbrough has installed surveillance systems that, in certain situations, begin to lecture people. For example, when the lens of such a camera catches a suspicious person who spends too long on the platform and does not board arriving and departing trains. If the reaction to the warning is inadequate (I wonder, is it possible to adequately respond to a “voice from the sky”?), then the camera calls the police.
In London, they conducted an even more original experiment: they launched a TV channel that broadcast video recordings in real time from 400 surveillance cameras installed in one of the city’s districts. Every TV viewer, seeing something suspicious, called the police.
In Paris, police and city authorities seriously hatched plans to launch unmanned aircraft equipped with video cameras over disadvantaged areas. But the project was abandoned in time: experts warned that the very fact of such flights would provoke residents to new pogroms.
And the Tallinn City Hall installed a 24-hour webcam in the office of the mayor of the capital, Edgar Savisaar. The number of people wanting to look into the mayor’s office was so great that on the first day the system could not withstand the load.