Privacy Protected Neighborhood Watch

Privacy advocates have raised the alarm on the proliferation of unconstrained (and often unsecured) video collection and distribution over the Internet. Although millions of webcams are deployed today, the problem of privacy management becomes exponentially more complex with the rapid uptake of smartphones, which will soon provide anyone the ability to broadcast in HD from any location at any time. (This capability will also quickly migrate to digital cameras and other mobile devices.)

Google services have adopted excellent privacy policies and practices, such as Street View’s blurring of faces and license plates, but these do not scale to the requirements for a privacy management toolset that can be readily adopted by tens of millions of average Internet users armed with new HD capable smartphones and mobile devices.

Our team envisions a Google-scale privacy architecture enabling easy and secure privacy management for video streams featuring:

• Consistent policy management services provided in the cloud or pushed down to clients
• Privacy protection for video streams offered by legacy devices, allowing for real-time application of policy (such as face and plate blurring) to requesting video streams
• Support for default Opt In default privacy policy configuration for new device classes

Our proposed Neighborhood Watch application also allows Google to work closely with public protection organizations to:

• Recognize targets in video streams
   - registered sex offenders near schools
   - wanted felons
   - Amber Alert or other abductees
   - license plates of stolen vehicles
• Trigger alerts to law enforcement
• Send warnings to nearby subscribers

-Transmit or archive raw video for law enforcement

Of course, some Anchorage residents prefer a Neighborhood Bear Watch application…