Anti-terror spy tech will monitor Australian crowds

Major Australian IT consultancy Ajilon is supporting the “fight against crime and terrorism” with technology for detecting suspicious behavior in crowds.

The technology from iOmniscient, which is used in airports, museums, casinos and other public spaces around the world, will offer more “eyes and ears” on Australian streets, said Ajilon managing director Ger Doyle.

The system will be paired with an emergency alerts system from AtHoc used by the likes of the Department of Homeland Security in the USA.

The AtHoc technology can send targeted warnings via text message, email, sirens and other channels during emergencies. It was used by a medical centre to alert staff during a shooting in Idaho in the USA in January this year.

The two technologies will be offered in Australia by Ajilon, which has partnered with AtHoc and iOmniscient. The three companies are exhibiting this week at the the 2015 Asia Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane from 5 to 8 July.

While iOmniscient has been deployed in Australian previously at the Australian Maritime Museum, this is the “first big local relationship” for the vendor, chief executive officer Dr Rustom Kanga told CRN.

Rather than focusing on movement, iOmniscient’s system concentrates on learning the background of a scene, triggering alarms when certain objects appear.

The system claims to be able to “find” an object even when people are walking in front of it with hundreds of people moving in a confined space. For example, it could be used to detect someone walking into a train station and leaving various objects throughout the station.

The system has also been used at a convention centre overseas to trigger an alert when a VIP enters the premises. It could also be used to recognise criminals, verify people making a bank transaction, provide access control to buildings and monitor vehicles, or keep a city “clean and graffiti free”.

Asked about potential privacy concerns, Kanga said that system was “anonymised”, with operators able to have the system them alert them when suspects are identified, rather than watching other faces in a crowd. “We don’t face privacy issues normally,” he said.

“It’s not just about security,” he added, saying the system could be used to alert operators when a car was travelling the wrong way down a street, or to monitor crowd movement at a public event.

Meanwhile, AtHoc “protects the people who protect us”, with the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force (USAF) and Department of Homeland Security all listed as customers.

It was Microsoft that introduced the firms to Ajilon, which has numerous projects and awards under its belt in the law enforcement area in Australia.