This week I attended a talk done by Axis Communications about what their cameras can do. The talk was called Data Driven Insights. While I had spoken with an employee before at Loffler Tech Fest, at this event I learned more in-depth how these cameras function not only as video-capturing systems but also as sensors gathering data.
Axis Communications states on their website that they offer the widest range of video and audio analytics, while I don't have much to compare to I was blown away by what they can do with the metadata from their cameras. Based in Sweden but with establishments all over the world, the Axis location in Minnesota is in the Mall of America offices. Their presentation room is full of their wide assortment of cameras and sensors. On the wall they had a TV that showed a camera that tracked planes that flew overhead, their flight numbers, and all information about the flight.
The presentation started out discussing what is possible with metadata. To start I'll define what metadata from a camera exactly is. Metadata is information gathered by the camera's software when recording video footage. Much like how we remember details about a situation and can't exactly recall what happened but remember that a lady was there with brown hair, that's what the metadata is like. It records items its been taught. Axis Communications' cameras have Artificial Intelligence Deep Learning built into them. So they are taught what a car, truck, person, and many other categories. These cameras then send the feed of metadata to the server and computer for further usage.
I was in the room with a wide variety of business professionals, be it employees from Axis or other companies that sell or use the cameras. They seemed widely unaware of this constant feed of information being sent alongside the video provided by the camera. Mostly the presentation was about what could be done in a business setting with this metadata. A very useful tool was shown by Field Sales Engineer Seth Dodge who made a website so an office could see which e-charging parking spots were open. This allowed for the use of the metadata seeing how many cars were in the spots, and informing the server. Another useful capability these cameras have, is that users can create boundaries and track how many cross these boundaries. Mr. Dodge also discussed how a company could use the metadata and store it in a database for further analysis or safe-keeping.
In an early segment of the presentation, the Solutions Engineer Robert Brown discussed the usage of the audio to detect people talking, shouting, or even glass breaking. As a computer scientist and, in this class, a cybersecurity professional, I worried about the audio being a vulnerability. But Mr. Brown covered how only the camera has access to the audio and it is never sent anywhere aside from in the camera hardware. Instead the camera sends the metadata of what it thinks it detected. This is very smart thinking since issues have arisen with devices like Alexa and recording audio for other nefarious reasons.
Naturally everything has its limits and these cameras are limited by the position they're put in. One client asked the presenters if it was possible to track how long a customer stays in a specific section in the store, even if they leave the area and come back. But Axis cameras are limited by their short memories. It would be hard to give a person an ID and remember them in the future. This is a good example of how Internet of Things (IoT) devices still have limitations on their hardware and software. The client stated that it would be great to have the Axis cameras do it themselves, currently they use a third party to calculate these numbers for them.
For some concrete examples of Axis' qualifications, they discussed how they are the company that runs the Mall of America's cameras. Both for security and marketing. These cameras were used during the Katseye performance to track how many cars came during the duration of the performance. The camera count was exact, the mall had people go and manually count the cars too. That information can then be used for further marketing and preparation for other concerts in house.
It is interesting and amazing what is possible with the use of a "simple" camera. Who knows what will be possible in the future with these built-in software updates.
I'd like to thank Seth Dodge for inviting me to attend the talk. I was the only student but still thoroughly enjoyed the talks. Especially the small bit of back-end systems they showed. Axis Communications offers students opportunities to learn about security in the modern world, please take a look at their website. If I owned a company, I would definitely consider them as an amazing option for security.
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- Nicole Golden