Can Computers Detect Suspicious Behavior?
from the minority-report dept
The arrest earlier this week of most-wanted criminal Warren Steed Jeffs, was a successful use of behavioral profiling. The cops who pulled over the car with Jeffs in it didn't recognize him, but they suspected they had someone big due to his visibly pulsating carotid artery. Upon seeing that, they summoned backup, and eventually realized who they had pulled over. But the problem with this type of security is that it doesn't scale very well. One-on-one encounters are costly and time intensive, and it's difficult to train people in effective behavioral profiling. A group of scientists in Australia are now trying to develop algorithms that recognize suspicious behavior. For example, the computer might be able to identify if someone deliberately left a briefcase unattended, or if that person had an expression of nervousness as they shoved it beneath a chair. The technology hopes to improve on useless facial recognition techniques, which only work with known suspects, and tend to overwhelm security forces with false positives. Sadly, in all likelihood, this new approach, apart from being several years off, would likely run into many of the same problems.