The Advent of Technologies

Surveillance technology has improved greatly since the 1960's when federally mandated bank cameras could not even capture the movements of people. The first documented instance of police surveillance was in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1966. After five years, the system was credited with only two arrests and was dismantled.

The advent of digital technologies in the 1990s has improved picture quality and made offsite monitoring through the Internet much easier. Still, analysts are most often called upon to work with more primitive analog tape footage.

One of the most common problems video forensic analysts say they confront is overuse of tapes. When a tape is used more than a dozen or so times, the image begins to literally drop off the tape due to chemical deterioration, resulting in grainy footage.

Surveillance with no particular purpose, where information can be recorded and stored and there is no oversight and accountability, is clearly a problemHe expects that Starbucks, for ...