Community Security With Widely
Available Information Technology
We
contend that a community will have a strong ability to prevent crime only if
some residents keep watch on what happens around their houses with the aid of
their own home computers, inexpensive and commercially available cameras, and
free software. Under this scheme, residents would view their surroundings using
cameras as their eyes and home computers as their brains Community safety
would thus be realized by the voluntary cooperation and altruism of ordinary
citizens using widespread technology.
A
community with some residents keeping occasional watch around their houses has
the potential to inhibit crime. In days gone by, there were many communities
like this. However, in our times, individualism has become increasingly common,
resulting in a lack of eyewitnesses to crimes in our communities. At the same
time, security camera systems are now widely used and have an important role in
reducing crime and identifying suspects. As for the typical usage of the
security cameras, many problems seem to arise from the fact that they are
introduced only for the benefit of their owners. One problem is that it is
expensive to obtain a complete surveillance of an owners property. A second
problem is that the typical system usually keeps watch only inside the owners
property, so it cannot help with the overall safety of the community. A third
problem is that neighbors may have concerns about their privacy if their
property is under surveillance by someone elses security system. We argue that
these problems may be solved if the camera systems are introduced within an
altruistic community-minded framework.
We
contend that a community will have a strong ability to prevent crime only if
some residents keep watch on what happens around their houses with the aid of
their own home computers, commercially available and affordable cameras, and
free software. Many types of software for capturing video images are available;
however, we could not find any that were available at no cost and would be
suitable for the concept of community-wide security. Therefore, we have
developed an application that provides the minimum functions needed, and currently
distribute it free of charge through our Society for e-JIKEI Network website (http://www.e-jikei.org/index_e.htm).
The software, written in English and in Japanese, selects relevant pictures
from a security camera and saves them to a hard disk (Fujii,
Yoshiura, Chigira, &
Hagiwara, 2004). Our community-wide security concept, and the e-JIKEI Network
system that embodies it, have been discussed from the viewpoints of social
science (Fujii, Yoshiura, &
Ohta, 2005a) and homeland security (Yoshiura, Fujii, & Ohta, 2005b).
If
the concept of the e-JIKEI Network is accepted, the security of the whole
community would be covered, with the voluntary cooperation of the many
residents who use the system. The main features of the e-JIKEI Network Project
can be summarized as follows. Each constituent element of the network is
voluntarily introduced and maintained by each citizen not for personal benefit,
but on behalf of the entire community. Each element watches not the interior of
a property, such as a house or shop, but around the outside of the property.
All of the tools and resources provided through our web site are offered free
of charge. Most types of commercial cameras can be used in the system. The role
of mass media is very important; the e-JIKEI Network Project has already been
heavily covered by newspapers, TV and radio, even though only preliminary
experiments have been conducted in and around the city of Kiryu.
Finally, we assume that the formation of a watch system covering the whole
community can contribute to national security.
The
first version of our free software, called Dairi EYE
standard, has been formally released. Its features are very limited, but they
adequately cover the essential functions for community-wide security:
If
the system of security cameras connected to computers and the Internet spreads
nationwide, it could result in a powerful and flexible sociotechnical
infrastructure whose participants help reduce crime through the use of software
that is easy to install and upgrade. This infrastructure offers an important testbed for both social research and application
development. In the near future, more intelligent functions could be achieved,
such as detecting ambiguous motion, sending alerts to the police, and the
comparison of facial images with the photos of known criminals. In serious
crimes, such as kidnapping, improved rates of rescue and apprehension might be
possible, if the majority of citizens give the police permission to access
their individual surveillance systems. A country with many local communities
having this facility could obtain improvements in homeland security. In this
realm, our project (Yoshiura, Fujii,
& Ohta, 2005b) complements others, such as the
more usual security camera systems and the US Home Guard (http://www.ushomeguard.org/),
in which ordinary citizens register and then keep watch over critical
infrastructure facilities from their homes, with the use of internet cameras.
The
technology required to realize the e-JIKEI Network is not novel, but it was not
available a decade ago. Today, the realization of the e-JIKEI Network will be
much easier and its functionality stronger and more varied. For example, since
the concept of the Network is that citizens should remain vigilant and not miss
crimes that may occur right in front of their houses, automobile-based (and
even wearable) systems might also be desirable. The performance of computer
systems in cars is increasing rapidly; in the near future, keeping watch from
cars will be quite feasible.
Although
the e-JIKEI Network Project is in its early stages, some applications have been
introduced into settings of realistic practice. For example, the city of Kiryu has decided to introduce the e-JIKEI Network in all
40 public schools of the city within the next two years. In this introduction
in schools, the e-JIKEI Network was introduced as an inexpensive,
high-performance security camera system. However, we proposed that the system
introduced in schools could also be used as an example for parents who would,
in a united effort, watch the school district by installing the system in their
homes. The Gunma Housing Supply Corporation has introduced the e-JIKEI Network
in an exclusive residential district with 200 new houses. They have asked the
homeowners who reside at important positions to use the system for the security
of the whole district.
We
have conducted many experiments in cooperation with a variety of other
partners, such as the Kiryu Police Department, the
city of Kiryu, and the NPO Higumi.
Through the experiments, it has been proven that the system is easy to realize
with widely available modern technology and that the e-JIKEI Network is
efficient for crime prevention. When citizens have been informed of the
potential effects of using available technology for crime prevention, each
person will need to think carefully about whether and how to adopt the system
and participate in its use. Moreover, improved technology in the near future
will make it much easier to realize the e-JIKEI Network. Every person could
have multiple cameras, controlled by high-performance computers, integrated in
locations such as their cars, houses, and cell phones. Based on the e-JIKEI
Network concept, people would have the ability to keep watch themselves, if
they chose to participate, with very little additional cost. This means that
each citizen will have strong monitoring power and will have to be responsible
for it. Sooner or later, careful consideration and clear decisions by all
citizens will be required.
In
promoting the concept of the e-JIKEI Network, privacy protection will be a
serious and delicate issue. We have generated user guidelines as part of the
conditions of use for the software, in which careful consideration of privacy
issues is required. The users of the software are asked not to view the
pictures obtained from the system unless they have a valid and pressing need to
do so, so as to prevent them from accessing information about neighbors
behavior unnecessarily. If the concept becomes more widespread across the
nation, new laws will be required for defining the rights of, and constraints
on, the owner of each system, including their access to the large volume of
information obtained.
In
the e-JIKEI Network, no one can control the whole system, since each element in
the system is under the strict control of an individual citizen. In other
security camera systems typically in use today, however, such as those in
London, a small number of owners have the ability to control the entire system.
Thus, the society that introduces the e-JIKEI Network is a society controlled
not by a single organization or person but by every citizen. In such a society,
it is very difficult to commit a crime without being reported. We are currently surveying citizens to find
out how they compare the responsibility of watching what happens around their
houses with the risk of privacy violations. It is in this context that we are
now commencing tests on the true value of our community-wide security concept.
Y. Fujii, Yoshiura, N, Chigira, Y, & Hagiwara, K. (2004). Community security
platform for individually maintained home computers: The e-Vigilante Network
Project. In Proceedings of the 21st IEEE Instrumentation and
Measurement Technology Conference (pp. 891-894). New York: IEEE.
Y. Fujii, Yoshiura, N, & Ohta, N. (2005a). Creating a worldwide community
security structure using individually maintained home computers: The e-JIKEI
Network Project. Social
Science Computer Review, 23(2), 250-258.
Y. Fujii, Yoshiura, N, & Ohta, N. (2005b). Using the security
camera system based on individually maintained computers for homeland security:
The e-JIKEI Network Project. In Proceedings of the
22nd IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (pp. 101-105).
New York: IEEE.