Why Pre-crime Detection Is Closer Than You Think

Pre-crime detection - the act of identifying a crime before it happens - may be a lot closer than we think. Up until now we've only had to worry about the guy next to us. Now we have to be concerned about the person behind the camera, too.

For those of you who have seen The Minority Report, you'll recall how law enforcement used methods to detect crimes before they occurred. Crimes were averted, lives were saved -- life was good. Today's technology is leading up to that capability. Not in the way it was done in the movie, but through studies in human behavior. These studies have shown that certain behaviors have tell-tale signs that can be used to determine the frame of mind someone is in and therefore what might occur in that setting. The Economist reports that while the technology is not perfect, a test was performed involving 140 volunteers whose purpose it was to deceive a behavior detection system by smuggling a weapon through it or acting hostile. The results were very impressive: 80 percent of those people were "caught", but part of that pre-crime number included innocents as well. These intelligent surveillance systems are designed to pick up on the gait of people, their posture, eye movement, facial expressions -- anything that is indicative of a type of behavior that law enforcement should be concerned with. For example, lingering at a bus stop is normal, but do it in a stairwell and you can raise suspicion. By correlating the human form to what it knows about someone throwing a bomb, for example, it can determine the actions taken that would lead up to such an action. The software is also sophisticated enough to detect "micro-expressions", which some industry experts refer to as "micro-facial leakage". They last for a tenth of a second in some cases, so they are easily overlooked by the human eye. Researchers conclude that these expressions are pronounced when the person is actually trying to suppress them. Some surveillance systems include the ability to detect body temperature, perspiration, blood flow, even heart and breathing rates. These facts have brought on the scrutiny of civil-libertarians disputing that this amounts to a form of forced medical examination. Whether or not the technology will do more good than harm remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: more eyes are watching us in more places in different ways than we ever thought possible.