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AI Medicine Software United States

Surveillance Company Says It's Deploying 'Coronavirus-Detecting' Cameras In US (vice.com) 87

Posted by BeauHD from the just-what-we-need-more-cameras dept.
An Austin, Texas based technology company is launching "artificially intelligent thermal cameras" that it claims will be able to detect fevers in people, and in turn send an alert that they may be carrying the coronavirus. Motherboard reports: Athena Security is pitching the product to be used in grocery stores, hospitals, and voting locations. It claims to be deploying the product at several customer locations over the coming weeks, including government agencies, airports, and large Fortune 500 companies. "Our Fever Detection COVID19 Screening System is now a part of our platform along with our gun detection system which connects directly to your current security camera system to deliver fast, accurate threat detection," Athena's website reads. Athena previously sold software that it claims can detect guns and knives in video feeds and then send alerts to an app or security system.

"The AI detects it, and it says I have a 99.5 degrees temperature. It notices that I have a fever, and that I am infected," an Athena employee says during a video demonstration of the product. "Since higher temperature is one of the first symptoms, these cameras can be life-saving" warning the person that they could have the virus and encouraging that person to take serious steps to self-quarantine," the representative added in an email, suggesting that the company could deploy them at polling locations. "Although many voters today are bound to get it, steps in the coming weeks could prevent them from spreading the bug to loved ones and strangers alike." The representative claimed that the software is accurate within half a degree and that it detects a dozen different parts on the body. They added the system has "no facial recognition, no personal tracking."
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Surveillance Company Says It's Deploying 'Coronavirus-Detecting' Cameras In US More

Surveillance Company Says It's Deploying 'Coronavirus-Detecting' Cameras In US

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  • What could possibly go wrong?? /s
    .
    Also, frost pist!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:05PM (#59842498)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      They've had these kinds of thermal camera systems at airports in Asia for over a decade now. You walk past them at arrivals in Hong Kong and Shanghai. They have a couple of people monitoring them for alerts. The only difference is that this company is trying to market it to retail rather than airports, and they're using "AI" buzzwords.

      • I can't find a link with some quick searching, but I saw someone on social media relating how those cameras would easily give a false positive if you happened to be carrying a hot drink.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by _merlin ( 160982 )

          You wouldn't be able to get a hot drink between the plane and the cameras in any of the airports I've seen them at. You can't take hot drinks off the plane (safety regulations on staid/aerobridges) and there's nowhere to buy food/drink before you get through immigration and customs.

          • I've a feeling that this was in the context of the use of those cameras having been widened to other areas, due to COVID-19.

        • "I can't find a link with some quick searching, but I saw someone on social media relating how those cameras would easily give a false positive if you happened to be carrying a hot drink."

          Too warm clothes an a hurry would be enough.

          • "I can't find a link with some quick searching, but I saw someone on social media relating how those cameras would easily give a false positive if you happened to be carrying a hot drink."

            Too warm clothes an a hurry would be enough.

            They use AI so it only alerts on your eyes

        • I can't find a link with some quick searching, but I saw someone on social media relating how those cameras would easily give a false positive if you happened to be carrying a hot drink.

          Only if your hot drink was shaped and moving like a body part.

          The representative claimed that the software is accurate within half a degree and that it detects a dozen different parts on the body.

          It's not like it will be linked to a sentry gun anyway.
          The person who gets the alert to check your actual temperature can probably tell what a hot drink is.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by makomk ( 752139 )

        Yeah, this is pretty much just a US version of China's post-lockdown approach to controlling the coronavirus, the one that they and the WHO are trying to push to the rest of the world. China hasn't just been deploying them to hospitals and stores but apartment buildings and offices as well. Got a slightly raised temperature? Expect to be carted off or at least denied entrance.

        • Yeah, this is pretty much just a US version of China's post-lockdown approach to controlling the coronavirus, the one that they and the WHO are trying to push to the rest of the world. China hasn't just been deploying them to hospitals and stores but apartment buildings and offices as well. Got a slightly raised temperature? Expect to be carted off or at least denied entrance.

          Expect to get more accurately checked by a real person.

    • I haven't heard of this company, so they could well be con artists or slimy assholes - it would be nice if you explained why you think this.

      But on the face of it, a thermal camera that can pick out all they eyes in a crowd & read the temperature between the eyes would be extremely useful in the current crisis.

      Systems similar to this have been used by all the countries who have successfully slowed or stopped the spread of the covid-19.

    • It's not snake oil, it's designed to get cameras into every grocery store and other common area which are networked directly back to the federal government for surveillance. They're selling it as exactly what it is, this story relating it to coronavirus is just PR to the people being spied on.

    • What a pack of slimy assholes.

      -jcr

      Just curious, which assholes are you referring to here?

      The assholes using a pandemic to sell the Orwellian dream, or the assholes happily buying it...

    • What a pack of slimy assholes.

      -jcr

      At least this company is trying to do something about it. Asia has has this technology over a year now it is about time America implements it!

  • Are they gonna stop and frisk anybody who is hot and bothered?

    Michael Bloomberg looks a tad on the warm side.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Matheus ( 586080 )

      Something involving big data... and lasers.

  • Lemme guess (Score:3)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:10PM (#59842516)
    Out for a jog? Sweater too tight? Take em’ away to the tank of infected people, thems got da virus!

    • Out for a jog? Sweater too tight? Take em’ away to the tank of infected people, thems got da virus!

      Make them wait a couple days for a test and you will be able to confirm it as well.

      • This "Tank of Infected people" is really a problem, for us. What this "Tank" is (be it Jail or Airport Sick Lounge) is, is a Human Wet Market where every person is likely sick with a fever producing illness - some illness. As I hear it, mixing viruses in a living being is a good way to get a "Novel" virus. Why use pigs, bats, and ducks when you could just use humans? I mean, any Novel produced this way will be much more than likely to infect humans than a Novel produced in a duck. Since all subjects

        • sarcasm Come on, it’s not like we had thousands of people flying back from hotspots around Europe to avoid a travel ban only to be shoved cheek to jowl for hours and hours while they waited for a temperature test then scattered them across America. I’m no scientist, but I’m pretty sure that’s the best way to handle these things. /sarcasm

    • send an alert that they may be carrying the coronavirus.

      Take em' away to the tank of infected people

      Naa, don't bother. Just make the camera case out of C-4 and hope your camera doesn't get hacked.

    • Why the qualifiers? "Have an uncommon skin hue? To the tank!"

  • Lol, not even doctors can tell without tests! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:11PM (#59842518)

    The symptoms overlap way too much with every cold or flu.

    "AI" seriously is the new "snake oil"!

    • That's right... a fever doesn't mean you have COVID-19. Then again, all forms of flu give you fevers, so people with fevers please get away from everyone else.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The symptoms overlap way too much with every cold or flu.

      "AI" seriously is the new "snake oil"!

      As long as there are enough buyers, the scam will continue to be going strong. You can even sell devices with absolutely no function for a lot of money if you appeal to the right sort of moron, just remember the fake "bomb detectors": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fintux ( 798480 )

      If you have any symptoms of cold or flu, quarantine yourself IMMEDIATELY. It doesn't even matter if it's COVID-19 or not! Any sickness overlapping with that will burden the hospitals, cause the doctors, nurses, maintenance people - anyone critical for the society - to may have to go for a sick leave. Do not contribute to the problem in any way, it is bad enough as it is!

      Even when you are asymptomatic and feel healthy, minimize any contact you can and follow any other instructions you are given. Even if it f

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 )

        ...there is no such thing as overreacting with this.

        There is definitely such a thing as overreacting with this. Launching nuclear weapons to reduce population and hence transmission would undoubtedly be overreaction. The question is where the line should be drawn between sensible precaution and overreaction.

  • There is no crisis too big in the US that some scammer couldn't show up to make a fast buck with the problems of society by scamming the people.

    God bless America, what would you be without your "entrepreneurs".

  • Found it (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jodka ( 520060 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:14PM (#59842526)

    In other news, the long-missing third step in the old Slashdot profit meme has been discovered.

    3. Wait for COVID-19 virus panic

  • Would you people settle down?! (Score:3)

    by JeffOwl ( 2858633 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:30PM (#59842558)
    Wow, the comments got really stupid almost immediately. Nobody in the article said it could detect COVID-19, just that it can provide some sort of measurement of a person's temperature at a distance. I don't know if this actually works to detect people with elevated temperatures or not. If it does, maybe, just maybe, they won't automatically quarantine everyone that gets flagged. Maybe, just maybe, they'll ask them to take a more traditional temperature reading. If you refuse the secondary reading or it shows you as having a temperature over 100 you don't get to come inside. Maybe if you have a high temperature they will even hand you a card with a phone number of a place that can do an actual test for COVID-19. Why are so many people trying to make this some conspiracy?

    • Wow, the comments got really stupid almost immediately. Nobody in the article said it could detect COVID-19, just that it can provide some sort of measurement of a person's temperature at a distance.

      Yeah, nobody in the article said that. I mean, yeah the subject was "Surveillance Company Says It's Deploying 'Coronavirus-Detecting' Cameras in US", bit what does that have to do with COVID-19?Absolutely nothing!

      • First paragraph of the article (emphasis added):

        An Austin, Texas based technology company is launching "artificially intelligent thermal cameras" that it claims will be able to detect fevers in people, and in turn send an alert that they may be carrying the coronavirus.

        • If you want to bitch about the article itself, for saying in the headlines that it could detect coronavirus, then please, by all means do. But you were bitching about "the comments got really stupid" because people were reacting to what the article literally said (in the headline).
          • Yes, people went full retard without reading the article. Most of the time without actually even reading the entire summary. But I may be the last person on /. complaining about people who don't actually bother to read the material.

        • And yet the headline of the article is "Surveillance Company Says It's Deploying 'Coronavirus-Detecting' Cameras in US." The headline is part of the article. Are you saying that someone should have to read the actual article to not get outright lies?

    • Re: Would you people settle down?! (Score:4, Informative)

      by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @08:07PM (#59842676)
      Thermal imaging won't read your core temp, it reads how much heat is being radiated from the body. Anyone doing strenuous activities will have a "fever" as long as their body is shedding heat properly, and anyone with an actual fever who is wearing enough insulting clothing will show "normal."
      • Just like the thermometer that the nurse passes across my forehead?

      • Thermal imaging won't read your core temp, it reads how much heat is being radiated from the body. Anyone doing strenuous activities will have a "fever" as long as their body is shedding heat properly, and anyone with an actual fever who is wearing enough insulting clothing will show "normal."

        They have fancy algorithms to translate the detected skin temperature in certain places to some approximation of your core body temperature.

        But all they really have to do it let it run for a bit and detect what the baseline is for everyone passing by. And then anyone who detects as higher than that, probably has a fever. Do a second check with something more reliable.

        Anyone doing strenuous activities in grocery stores, hospitals, and voting locations, probably needs some kind of check anyway. How much do

      • and anyone with an actual fever who is wearing enough insulting clothing will show "normal."

        That's clearly false.

        Where do you think all the heat is going if the clothing is not letting it out to be detected? That part is easily going to show an elevated temperature.

        Just think about it logically. You have a fever and are all rugged up with insulating clothing. Imagine how much heat is going to be coming of the parts of your body still exposed, like your face say.

        It doesn't even need to measure core temperature. Just measure anomalous readings higher than the average of everyone else. Then check t

    • I don't know what the distribution of "normal" body temps is in the population is. But my wife mentioned she saw a recent item about how some (she's an example) whose reading is LOWER than 98.6. Explains why I've had to put up with 20 years of her cold feet :)

  • Think for a moment. How long do you think that this whole virus outbreak is going to last? How long do you think it takes to develop something like this until it's ready for market?

    Do I even want to know what they're really developing?

  • set the room to 98.6 to by pass it (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:34PM (#59842576)

    set the room to 98.6 to by pass it

  • Exact body temperature varies from person to person based on various factors.

    Even then... those infected with CovID19 don't necessarily have a fever, and people
    with a sinus, ear, or other minor infection, tooth problems, common cold, etc, and many other non-communicable
    diseases can have a fever,

    Also, if you get a fever with covid19; by the time you get that sustained fever (100-101.5) you probably have other
    noticeable symptoms they should notice. On the other hand many people infected and possibly spre

    • Exact body temperature varies from person to person based on various factors.

      This. I seem to run hot, and every time I go to a doctor I have to explain that no, I'm not running a fever. It's just my normal temp.

      • This. I seem to run hot, and every time I go to a doctor I have to explain that no, I'm not running a fever. It's just my normal temp.

        Are you quite sure about that, ehm... Snotnose? Any strange coughs lately?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      A gentrified area would have a person doing tests in person at every exit and entry.

  • funny coincidence here (Score:5, Informative)

    by david_bonn ( 259998 ) <davidbonnNO@SPAMmac.com> on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @07:40PM (#59842596) Homepage Journal

    I work quite a bit with thermal imagers, especially low-cost ones. In a drunken conversation earlier this week I talked with a few friends about the feasibility of doing exactly this.

    You run into a bunch of challenges:

    The first is that thermal imagers ("infrared cameras") don't directly measure temperature. By their nature they are estimating the temperature from the thermal brightness they detect. In the very best cases with high-end thermal imagers you might get an accuracy of +-0.8F. Lower-cost cameras more realistically have accuracies of around +-1.9F.

    At the very best, you are measuring surface body temperature, not core temperature. So you need to deal with a lot of variables, such as local ambient temperature and humidity, subject body size, subject age, subject gender, Usually you will get the best estimates if you use the thermal brightness around the eyes (which are usually the brightest part of a face when viewed with a thermal imager. People's physiologies also vary enough that without a baseline you are unlikely to do very very well at estimating core temperature.

    Your results will be best if the imager is very close (e.g. less than three feet) to the subject.

    This excellent paper discusses some of the challenges in much more detail:

    http://www.uhlen.at/thermology... [uhlen.at]

    The upshot of all this is even if you did a very good job dealing with all of the myriad challenges and used a very expensive thermal imager you would unlikely to get an accuracy of much less then +-1.5F. In practice for something that would be commercially deployable at reasonable cost +-2.5F would probably be more realistic.

    Those numbers aren't likely to be good enough to be useful in any practical sense. You might be able to use such a system to detect people with extremely high fevers, but such people are unlikely to be out and about walking around.

    However, the approach of directly estimating temperature from a thermal image probably isn't the only way to crack this nut. Thermal imagers are extremely sensitive to small variations in temperature in their field of view (on the order of 0.02F -- you can easily image your bare footprints on a concrete floor for several minutes). My guess is that with appropriate sample data (you'd need thermal images of the faces of tens of thousands of people, many of them sick) you could use that relative temperature data to determine if someone had a fever or not.

    • Thank you! I suspected as much, and emotional state also can affect skin temperature - like being irritated at some guy telling you that you're infected.
    • It's about getting thermal cameras in every grocery store and other commonly travelled area networked back to the federal government, not about detecting diseases for the public good.

    • So you need to deal with a lot of variables, such as..., subject body size, subject age, subject gender...People's physiologies also vary enough that without a baseline you are unlikely to do very very well...

      Same applies to breathalyzers, but those are ubiquitous. I don't expect logic and reason to prevail here, either.

      MADD produced enough "panic" that breathalyzers were adopted, and now this pandemic is causing the panic needed to get these sorts of cameras adopted...history does repeat itself.

  • vs. cheap sunglasses. I guess these Texans have never heard ZZ Top.

  • I'm sure they're just crappy IR thermometers but I can't get into a hotel / mall without someone taking my temperature.

  • No Personal Tracking (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @09:08PM (#59842824)

    If it has no personal tracking then how does it report people with fevers? If its showing someone's picture and saying that person has a fever then I'd call that pretty personal and it makes that person easy to track.

  • Does it work with homeassistant yet? Because if it doesn't, it's kind of hard to take your integration claims seriously.
  • Oh, our camera THINKS you have a fever, you are here by LOCKED UP until WE determine it is safe to let you go. Good lord, and people say what's the big deal...it's for our safety. Bunch of sheep!
  • In other words another company is going to sell our privacy, and our stupid leaders are going to pay them.
  • Installer 1: Hey, I plugged it in and everyone is showing up red. Is this thing broken?

    Installer 2: Our work here is done.

  • that fever was caused by that top heavy, curvy blond in the low cut blouse tied around the middle wearing daisy duke shorts. she smiled seductively at me as she walked by.

  • "I got a fever and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      Nah, just fire up Foreigner's Hot Blooded!
      I'm hot blooded check it and see.... I've got a fever of one hundred and three....

  • A good way to gauge the extent of coronavirus infection in the community might be to assay the sewage stream for the virus.

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