MARYLAND, USA, SEPTEMBER 2007
BIG GROTHER IS WATCHING US ALL
The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated
gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes
to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game.
"Five nine, five ten," said the research student, pushing
down a laptop button to seal the measurement. "That's your height."
"Spot on," I said.
"OK, we're freezing you now," interjected another student,
studying his computer screen. "So we have height and tracking and
your gait DNA".
"Gait DNA?" I interrupted, raising my head, so inadvertently
my full face was caught on a video camera.
"Have we got that?" asked their teacher Professor Rama Chellappa.
"We rely on just 30 frames - about one second - to get a picture
we can work with," he explained.
Tracking individuals
I was at the University of Maryland just outside Washington DC, where
Professor Chellappa and his team are inventing the next generation of
citizen surveillance.
They had pushed back furniture in the conference room for me to walk
back and forth and set up cameras to feed my individual data back to
their laptops.
Gait DNA, for example, is creating an individual code for the way I
walk. Their goal is to invent a system whereby a facial image can be
matched to your gait, your height, your weight and other elements, so
a computer will be able to identify instantly who you are.
"As you walk through a crowd, we'll be able to track you,"
said Professor Challappa. "These are all things that don't need
the cooperation of the individual."
Since 9/11, some of the best scientific minds in the defence industry
have switched their concentration from tracking nuclear missiles to
tracking individuals such as suicide bombers.
Surveillance society
My next stop was a Pentagon agency whose headquarters is a drab suburban
building in Virginia. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency
(Darpa) had one specific mission - to ensure that when it comes to technology
America is always ahead of the game.
Its track record is impressive. Back in the 70s, while we were working
with typewriters and carbon paper, Darpa was developing the internet.
In the 90s, while we pored over maps, Darpa invented satellite navigation
that many of us now have in our cars.
"We ask the top people what keeps them awake at night," said
its enthusiastic and forthright director Dr Tony Tether, "what
problems they see long after they have left their posts."
"And what are they?" I asked.
He paused, hand on chin. "I'd prefer not to say. It's classified."
"All right then, can you say what you're actually working on now."
"Oh, language," he answered enthusiastically, clasping his
fingers together. "Unless we're going to train every American citizen
and soldier in 16 different languages we have to develop a technology
that allows them to understand - whatever country they are in - what's
going on around them.
"I hope in the future we'll be able to have conversations, if say
you're speaking in French and I'm speaking in English, and it will be
natural."
"And the computer will do the translation?"
"Yep. All by computer," he said.
"And this idea about a total surveillance society," I asked.
"Is that science fiction?"
"No, that's not science fiction. We're developing an unmanned airplane
- a UAV - which may be able to stay up five years with cameras on it,
constantly being cued to look here and there. This is done today to
a limited amount in Baghdad. But it's the way to go."
Smarter technology
Interestingly, we, the public, don't seem to mind. Opinion polls, both
in the US and Britain, say that about 75% of us want more, not less,
surveillance. Some American cities like New York and Chicago are thinking
of taking a lead from Britain where our movements are monitored round
the clock by four million CCTV cameras.
So far there is no gadget that can actually see inside our houses, but
even that's about to change.
Ian Kitajima flew to Washington from his laboratories in Hawaii to show
me sense-through-the-wall technology.
"Each individual has a characteristic profile," explained
Ian, holding a green rectangular box that looked like a TV remote control.
Using radio waves, you point it a wall and it tells you if anyone is
on the other side. His company, Oceanit, is due to test it with the
Hawaii National Guard in Iraq next year, and it turns out that the human
body gives off such sensitive radio signals, that it can even pick up
breathing and heart rates.
"First, you can tell whether someone is dead or alive on the battlefield,"
said Ian.
"But it will also show whether someone inside a house is looking
to harm you, because if they are, their heart rate will be raised. And
10 years from now, the technology will be much smarter. We'll scan a
person with one of these things and tell what they're actually thinking."
He glanced at me quizzically, noticing my apprehension.
"Yeah, I know," he said. "It sounds very Star Trekkish,
but that's what's ahead."