One Million Cameras Will Spy On Future Bangkok Criminals

[RickBradford]

As long as they buy high-quality cameras -- at least as effective as the GT200 bomb detectors of which Thailand has been such a good supporter, there shouldn't be any problems. /sarc

[Artisi]

The hub of amazing ideas.

[TS79]

913 cameras to be installed every day for the next 3 years. Better get a move on guys....

[Pib]

An ambitious crime-fighting project would flood the streets of Bangkok with 1,000,000 surveillance cameras within three years. Residents will have to pay between 100 to 200 baht a month to help finance the “Miracle Eyes” project.

Maybe this is just an odd way of describing the yearly budget requirement by breaking it down as cost per person living in Bangkok. I can just see the Bangkok govt trying to tax each Bangkok residents with a 100-200 baht fee. Heck, probably half of the residents don't pay any taxes each year.

Or maybe if you want one of the cameras in front of your business or residence you would have to pay a fee...go to 7/11 to pay your monthly surveillance camera fee...forget to pay and you get a SMS saying the camera will be cut-off by date XYZ....kinda like your TV subscription, electric or water service. Maybe the city govt should tax each bowl of noodles 25 satang....that would bring in millions upon milllions of baht each year; but once gain, how would they collect it....like all the noodle carts/stalls are paying all or any of their taxes.

And I'm sure the camera you pay for will be monitored 24/7 after they hire thousands of more police personnel or award a contract to monitor the cameras--yea, right!!! OK, maybe they can/will monitor all the cameras (let me dream)...I'm sure they'll dispatch a motorcycle policeman within seconds of noticing a crime...one can hope but I won't be holding my breath.

[sirchai]

One million cameras will spy on future Bangkok criminals

Will they use them to make up skirt videos for YouTube?

Shouldn't it be "One million cameras will spy on criminals in the future?" ( George Orwell)

How can a camera know if that person will be a criminal in the future?

The hub of futuristic criminals, indeed

Edited September 7, 2012 by sirchai

[GentlemanJim]

So for the next 3 years they are going to install just under 1000 cameras per day 365 days per year!!! Just a quick gross error check in their heads would tell them that they are talking out of their pants.

[OzMick]

How in the hell do the Thai Police intend to monitor 1,000,000 CCTV cameras effectively??

This idea is delusional

The idea is to check them after a crime as been reported, as a way of getting evidence. They are not intended for 24-7 monitoring.

Ahhh, Yes. Without monitoring and rapid response teams of BIB, crime will not be reduced at all. Criminals will be identified, then approached by BIB who will levy an extrajudicial punishment straight into their own pocket. What a fantastic idea!

[Soutpeel]

how would they collect it....

Based on what happened in Pattaya today with a Police women pulling a firearm on a Chevy dealer....one suspects they would just come around to your house and put a gun in your face if you didnt pay...seems to be an acceptable police procedure.

[Sateev]

They just finished putting up two cameras at the entrance to our soi, off Ratchada 32, one pointing inward (deeper into Soi 32), and the other pointing down the subsoi. Both enclosures mounted on the same pole, and had cameras inside. No wiring to be seen - pole was on old concrete sidewalk, no newly trenched or patched strips, and no overhead wires. Presumably, they left that part for a later date.

A couple of years ago, we had a spate of purse snatchings on that soi, with the BiB actually hanging a banner warning people to be careful, and to call or write (!) if they saw anything suspicious...however, there is a VERY big police official living in the next soi (huge estate), and the place is generally very serene. Maybe it's HIS personal cash cow, at 200 baht/mo. from all the denizens of our neighborhood...

The UK is already a police state, and Thailand is rated as half way there, so I have no doubt that some subset of the plan in the news clip will be implemented.

[ManOnTheRoad]

Wow Amazing thailand @@@ !!!

[Sateev]

Based on what happened in Pattaya today with a Police women pulling a firearm on a Chevy dealer....one suspects they would just come around to your house and put a gun in your face if you didnt pay...seems to be an acceptable police procedure.

Just read about that female cop in Pattaya. All I can say is, "Amazing Thailand"....

edit: ManOnTheRoad just beat me to it

Edited September 7, 2012 by Sateev

[ripstanley]

Fixed cameras will soon be outdated. The new surveillance technology is drones. http://www.businessinsider.com/us-police-drones-2012-7?op=1

[OzMick]

Fixed cameras will soon be outdated. The new surveillance technology is drones. http://www.businessi...nes-2012-7?op=1

Thailand already has enough drones, without flight capability.

[Pushit]

How in the hell do the Thai Police intend to monitor 1,000,000 CCTV cameras effectively??

This idea is delusional

The idea is to check them after a crime as been reported, as a way of getting evidence. They are not intended for 24-7 monitoring.

As mentioned...Delusional

[alfalfa19]

What a joke. They won't even put up a million FAKE cameras. This is just a ploy for some big shots to line their pockets at the expense of the public.

[Gone]

WOW. I thought I fell asleep and woke up and it was April 1st again. They can't be serious can they?

[Woodcaulk]

1,000,000 Cameras.....gives me pause to wonder, given the frequency of deaths by electrocution for the so-called electricians....you know the guys who try to install signs around Bkk and Pattaya....no doubt there will be plenty of injuries/fatalities, IF this project gets......."off the ground"...

[surangw]

Will the cameras actually be connected to anything?

[hellodolly]

The BiB are really getting creative with their tea funding projects these days....1 million cameras/ 3years....suppose there is only one response to that plan....

Although cant find an exact number of CCTV camera's in London, there are estimates of 400,000, so once again Thailand is going to go one better than a farang country...

A new hub perhaps ?.....a regional hub for CCTV camera ?

Not sure of the population of Bangkok but say it is 10,000,000 That would be a camera for every ten people.

I think my figure is high. It probably includes some of the cities that are not Bangkok but seem to be.

[hellodolly]

How in the hell do the Thai Police intend to monitor 1,000,000 CCTV cameras effectively??

This idea is delusional

Nobody mentioned monitoring 1 million screens. The plan is to check the footage after an event.

When crimes occur in that city, police officers rush to examine CCTV footage for evidence to obtain information and shorten the duration of investigations.

Well that got my eye also.

Could be get to the thiefs faster while they still have enough money to pay there way out of it.

[hellodolly]

Fixed cameras will soon be outdated. The new surveillance technology is drones. http://www.businessi...nes-2012-7?op=1

[KRS1]

100 installation teams x 10 cameras per day x 6 day work week = 312000 installations per year...more than 3 years to install 1 million

more than likely there will be :

20 installation teams x 5 cameras per day x 5 day work week = 26000 installations per year...38.4 years to install 1 million

Good time to start selling bb guns.

[creck]

No system I know of can spy on criminals. It can attempt to spy on all of us. But with so many cameras the video cannot be observed in real time. If that was possible they could stand a policeman (or three) on each corner. I am sure that facial recognition software will have to be used after the event is reported. First you find the event. Then try to find ‘other’ shots of someone who seems to be shown as committing the suspected crime. The bits of footage I have seen are nowhere near good enough for this to work effectively. Are the ID photos held on a data base? And even if it does work how does that help? Maybe I have missed something. The number of crimes and people involved will be huge, or such a small proportion it will be pointless. Publishing bad pictures and saying ‘have you seen this person’ will not work; simply because there will be too many.

How can this prevent crime? There is no way this can be called crime prevention. It may be a small disincentive if it is seen to be effective at apprehending a significant percentage of wrong doers – but I doubt that will happen.

On line is an article published in the Telegraph (yesterday) that stated the Metropolitan (London) Police admit for each 1000 cameras one crime is solved per year. The cost of the system ‘so far’ divided by the number of crimes detected (not sure if this means solved) gives the astonishing cost of 20,000 GBP (about 1, 000,000 THB) each! Clearly not useful for the vast majority of street crimes.

telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CCTV-cameras-to-solve-just-one-crime-Met-Police-admits.html.

Not clear in the article or in the information about Bangkok is the distribution of cameras between the several tasks they can be used for. The type and positioning is different for traffic information (traffic control), number plate recognition and facial recognition. Many are poorly supervised private property security only. The numbers (crimes and cameras) in London (about 1,000,000 cameras) are also put into doubt by saying they are based on a small sample. This should not be true if (as stated) they were produced in response to a ‘Freedom of Information’ request.

Important Note: Important Note:

Since posting the above I have found an article on the BBC site exactly similar but dated August 2009. I guess the date on the Telegraph article is a revision date and the data refers to 2009 not this year.

Edited September 7, 2012 by creck

[damo]

I totally agree with the above.

Wouldn't It be better to just offer businesses, residents and building owners of Bangkok cameras at a subsidised rate with free installation and just let each individual monitor thier own areas. If crime is committed then the local will have the opportunity to volounteer any footage.

The whole 1M cameras idea is too reactive, not really pro-active. Sunglasses, cap and hoodie then a crims i.d is so questionable plus with 1M cameras monitoring crimes for the public to help I.D, the cops could almost start a new tv channel for the public.

[moe666]

Its called the hub of spying on law abiding citizens

[RickBradford]

I wonder what happened to the idea to flood (sorry!) Bangkok with 'ja choie' -- the robot policemen with cameras in their heads.

Perhaps it just went the way of most other big projects, into some unaccountable black hole.

Here they are, looking very smart (that is, neat).

http://news.mthai.co...ews/132072.html

Edited September 8, 2012 by RickBradford

[Naam]

One million cameras will spy on future Bangkok criminals

and two million jobs will be created to watch one million screens.

[NanaFoods]

cameras dont selectively only spy on criminals.

[technologybytes]

CCTV cameras are just the start of a downward spiral.

It's not really about catching criminals, it's about turning Thailand into a surveilence society the same as the UK. And cameras along with body scanners and the like are all about conditioning people to accept this as a norm, instead of an invasion of privacy.

Along the way a few criminal will get caught and the cameras will be hailed a success, of course.

Oh yes, lots of people will say "if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide", well how would you like it if you found someone following your kids around with a video camera... it amounts to the same thing.

[softgeorge]

HUB of CCTV System's

Well they lost the technology HUB so they have to replace it with something.

Edited September 8, 2012 by softgeorge