Spying street lights equipped with microphones, Wi-Fi detectors and more coming to a city near you (Updated)
image credit: GElighting
Soon, spying street lights equipped with ShotSpotter (SST) microphones will be in every city and town.
Last year, GE Lighting and SST announced they're combining forces to put SST microphones into street lights.
A memorandum of understanding between GE Lighting and SST, Inc., developer of the ShotSpotter crime detection and location suite, lays ground to embedding sophisticated SST technology into GE’s intelligent LED street lights.
“We’ve entered an era where lighting is so much more than illumination,” says Rick Freeman, Global Product General Manager, Intelligent Devices, GE Lighting. “The ecosystem we are building with our Intelligent Environments for Cities solution is transforming street lighting into the analytical brain of urban life, and this MOU with ShotSpotter gives one more option for cities to unlock new potential benefits for their city teams and their residents.”
According to GE, 'lighting is so much more than illumination'. I guess if they are talking about spying on an entire population, then technically they are right.
What are the potential benefits to residents? Fear and control are two things that come to mind, more on that below.
Fyi, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is behind putting SST's in Seattle. The ATF intends to spend up to $500,000 on SST's in Seattle. (For more information click here & here.)
Updated 10/11:
Police departments have stopped using SST's
The Broward Sheriff's Office spent a half-million dollars on SST, which has led to only four arrests.
"Based on some benefit analysis, we decided it just wasn't cost-effective, said BSO spokesman Jim Leljedal at the time, adding that his agency was wasting too much manpower sending deputies out to false alarms."
Miami-Dade police department said...
"During 2012, the SST system identified more than 1,000 gunfire incidents within the boundaries of Northside District; however, there were less than 50 confirmed shootings within the area. It is unknown how many of the remaining incidents of gunfire were false positives or unreported incidents in which no one was struck."
GE's street lights are designed to spy on the public.
We install low-impact LED street lights throughout the municipal grid to help cities improve energy efficiency—and can also equip them with sensors that see, hear and feel the environment around them. (To learn how police use ‘ShotSpotter’ to spy on public conversations, click here & here.)
According to GE Networked street lights are also designed to monitor parking lots and traffic.
"Networked LED street lights will have the ability to direct drivers to available spaces with the help of built-in sensors and wireless transceivers. The same street light could serve as a sensor and give warnings in the event of severe weather or other event or help manage traffic and offer residents a faster route home."
image credit: Sensity
Street lights send real-time alerts to law enforcement and the public.
"We partner with vendors and developers on software applications that use our data for everything from real-time transit trackers to public safety alerts."
How would they send public alerts you ask? By spying on your vehicles' or cellphones' Wi-Fi signal of course. To find out how DHS and the police use Bluetooth detectors to spy on us, please read my article titled, 'Highway Bluetooth detectors are spying on motorists and pedestrians'.
GE lighting and ShotSpotter are creating massive databases
The above video, reveals what's really behind SST. At approximately 1:00, their CEO boasts about accumulating data at a MASSIVE rate and MASSIVELY deploying surveillance microphones across entire cities.
Last week, I warned everyone that the 'Array of Things collects facial biometrics and license plate information', combine that with GE, and Shotspotter and a truly frightening picture comes to light. (pun intended)
The only data that will not already be public is a limited set of images used to improve computer vision software. These images will contain no sensitive PII, but some may show faces or license plate numbers. The University of Chicago, as copyright holder of the data, would be responsible for responding to law enforcement requests.
According to SST's Flex datasheet, police use CCTV cameras and ShotSpotter to monitor entire cities.
Constant, 360-degree wide-area acoustic surveillance throughout large coverage areas.
Precise location including latitude/longitude, street address.
Purdue University and DHS admit spying CCTV cameras are all about control.
Purdue researchers have developed a prototype system called ' Visual Analytics for Command, Control and Interoperability Environments' (VACCINE) which allows law enforcement to tap into thousands of CCTV cameras.
According to a UK Sun article, CCTV's will allow cops and even private companies to track an individual’s movements.
"Eventually, CCTV cameras will be able to work out the identity of the people they are looking at – as long as they have pictures of them."
VACCINE and the International Chiefs of Police are working together to use SST's to monitor everyone.
Can you imagine a future where street lights and traffic lights monitor our travels and everything we say?