10ofRods
Verified Anthropologist
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- Jun 27, 2019
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About the cameras: they either have to send wireless signals (so expensive infrastructure needs to be set up because once the public has the idea that a place is on camera, it should be on camera - no major breakdowns in service) OR they have to store the info in the camera (which is much cheaper).
People storing information at home can usually place a camera within range of their on wifi network. Each park could have its own 24 hour hub for this, but that becomes a target for thieves.
At colleges, the hub is in the police station. Colleges have conferences and extensive planning to decide how to do this, because many in the public assume that cameras mean real time monitoring and that someone will come to help them if things go wrong. SO, one of the bigger expenses is the staff to monitor the cameras. The more cameras, the more staff needed.
At my college, the real time monitoring enabled police to capture a young man with a rifle on the athletic field, whose stated intention was to "shoot up the school" (he had been shooting at objects not people, so far). We are, however, out of budget to add more monitors (we have one person who watches 16 monitors, each of which changes to a different camera every 10 seconds or so, unless the person monitoring chooses to watch someone - we're working at getting more sophisticated software that would allow a monitor to choose a "route" to watch a particular person - facial recognition software would help, but we don't have the funds for that and it would need to be written into public education policy to do it).
Most regular security cameras at stores only hold about 48 hours of information, so by the time ML was officially missing, that window of opportunity would have been gone. Since it's so expensive to install and maintain, the public needs to know that sometimes dollars can be better spent elsewhere.
People storing information at home can usually place a camera within range of their on wifi network. Each park could have its own 24 hour hub for this, but that becomes a target for thieves.
At colleges, the hub is in the police station. Colleges have conferences and extensive planning to decide how to do this, because many in the public assume that cameras mean real time monitoring and that someone will come to help them if things go wrong. SO, one of the bigger expenses is the staff to monitor the cameras. The more cameras, the more staff needed.
At my college, the real time monitoring enabled police to capture a young man with a rifle on the athletic field, whose stated intention was to "shoot up the school" (he had been shooting at objects not people, so far). We are, however, out of budget to add more monitors (we have one person who watches 16 monitors, each of which changes to a different camera every 10 seconds or so, unless the person monitoring chooses to watch someone - we're working at getting more sophisticated software that would allow a monitor to choose a "route" to watch a particular person - facial recognition software would help, but we don't have the funds for that and it would need to be written into public education policy to do it).
Most regular security cameras at stores only hold about 48 hours of information, so by the time ML was officially missing, that window of opportunity would have been gone. Since it's so expensive to install and maintain, the public needs to know that sometimes dollars can be better spent elsewhere.
