Technical teams are working on methods to be able to ID gun crime, via CCTV, without having people to actually monitor the CCTV systems.
This technology while laudable, needs to be used carefully. The ability to read peoples body language from CCTV by “identifying overt and covert perceptual and cognitive clues for behavior” automatically – could be used for great benefits in deterring knife and gun crime. However, this technology could easily be misused.
Once the “gun use” problem has been technically resolved, the next problem would probably be “possession of knives”, after drug deals -which often occur in the street. This would all produce a large amount of technology resources, and knowledge. However the next steps could be people organizing demonstrations, or planning protests. The technology is not wrong nor can it be “evil”, however it can be misused and caution must be taken when planning its implementation.
MEDUSA, or Multi Environment Deployable Universal Software Application, will develop an intelligent software system that can detect gun crime by monitoring CCTV footage in real time. The researchers explain that this will be done by identifying overt and covert perceptual and cognitive clues for behavior known to be associated with gun crime. When such cues are identified, the software will prompt operators.