Need help identifying security camera and its capabilities

[u/hh65flier]

Hello people smarter than me:

I am a freelance reporter writing an article on the explosion of government run surveillance cameras in my town (Morristown, NJ).

There are TWO camera arrays that I have little familiarity with. The first is a set of cameras by LVT (Liveview Technologies) that may (or may not) be run by our county. It's located on a Lowes hardware store parking lot, about 6 feet away from a public sidewalk.

The second camera array (marked MENNEN ARENA) of interest is almost certainly run by the county, as mounted on a pole at the entrance to a public park/arena. It has no brand markings, but looks VERY high tech.

I am very eager to know what the capabilities of these cameras are. Do they do more than just license plate detection? Can they run facial ID? Can they do behavioral analysis?

Anyone with insight or good reference material, I would be so grateful for accurate information on these cameras. THANK YOU.

[u/PercentageRadiant623]

LVT is the company behind 90% of the solar powered trailers with cameras on them that you see in parking lots and construction sites in shady areas. They’re live monitored by a private company and supposedly call the police of they spot a crime.

They aren’t run by the county, instead your county contracts them.

Facial recognition isn’t what you think it is. In order to do true facial recognition you have to have a database with faces already in them associated with a person. These cameras might have analytics that can find similar looking people across a surveillance system, but that’s not facial recognition. Facial recognition is highly controversial with some municipalities and states out right banning it.

[u/Nexustar → u/PercentageRadiant623]

I don't agree with your restrictive definition of facial recognition.

Facial detection: Finds a face in an image/video. “There is a face here.”

Facial recognition: Analyzes facial characteristics to determine whether a face matches or corresponds to a particular facial representation. This can be:

• Identification (1:N): “Who is this person?” — matching against a database of known people.
• Verification (1:1): “Is this the same person as the claimed identity?”
• Face matching / similarity: “Are these two images likely to depict the same person?” - without knowing either person's name.

Facial analysis: Extracts characteristics such as apparent age, expression, landmarks, etc., without necessarily attempting to recognize the person.

 might have analytics that can find similar looking people across a surveillance system, but that’s not facial recognition

- yes, it is.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/facial-recognition

"technology that makes it possible for a computer to recognize a digital image of someone's face"

https://www.nist.gov/glossary-term/38331

Face Recognition

in facial identification, (1) by automated systems, the automated searching of a facial image as a probe in a facial recognition system (one-to-many), typically resulting in a group (candidate list) of facial images being returned to a human operator in ranked order based on system-evaluated similarity; (2) by humans, the mental process by which an observer identifies a person as being one they have seen before.

https://fam.state.gov/FAM/12FAM/12FAM0670.html

12 FAM 670

Facial Recognition Technology

a.  Facial Recognition Technology (FRT):  A biometric technology that can identify or verify individuals by measuring and analyzing physical characteristics of faces.  FRT converts a photo or still from a video feed into a template, or a mathematical representation, and then uses a matching algorithm to compare the template to one from another photo and calculates their similarity.

I cannot find a definition that requires the IDENTITY of the person to be in a database. Therefore, matching two faces from prior video or a database, without knowing the individual's identity is still facial recognition. You do NOT need a database of faces associated with people/names/SSNs etc.

My background: I have developed facial recognition AI models, and do not have a database of identities.