| by Kim Zetter
Wired
Photo: Oran
Viriyincy/Flickr
|
(December 11,
2012, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) Transit authorities in cities across
the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on
public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private
conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet.
The systems are
being installed in San Francisco, Baltimore, and other cities with funding from
the Department of Homeland Security in some cases, according to the Daily,
which obtained copies of contracts, procurement requests, specs and other
documents.
The use of the
equipment raises serious questions about eavesdropping without a warrant,
particularly since recordings of passengers could be obtained and used by law
enforcement agencies.
It also raises
questions about security, since the IP audio-video systems can be accessed
remotely via a built-in web server (.pdf), and can be combined with GPS
data to track the movement of buses and passengers throughout the city.
The systems use
cables or WiFi to pair audio conversations with camera images in order to
produce synchronous recordings. Audio and video can be monitored in real-time,
but are also stored onboard in blackbox-like devices, generally for 30 days,
for later retrieval. Four to six cameras with mics are generally installed
throughout a bus, including one near the driver and one on the exterior of the
bus.
Cities that have
installed the systems or have taken steps to procure them include San
Francisco, California; Eugene, Oregon; Traverse City, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio;
Baltimore Maryland; Hartford, Connecticut; and Athens, Georgia.
San Francisco
transit authorities recently approved a $5.9 million contract to install an
audio surveillance system on 357 buses and vintage trolley cars, paid for in
full with a grant from DHS. The contract includes the option to expand the
equipment to an additional 600 vehicles.
Concord, New
Hampshire also used part of a $1.2 million economic stimulus grant to install
its new video/audio surveillance system on buses, according to the Daily.
Transit
officials say the systems will help improve the safety of passengers and
drivers and resolve complaints from riders. But privacy and security expert
Ashkan Soltani told the Daily that the audio could easily be coupled with
facial recognition systems or audio recognition technology to identify
passengers caught on the recordings.
In Eugene,
Oregon, the Daily found, transit officials requested microphones that would be
capable of “distilling clear conversations from the background noise of other
voices, wind, traffic, windshields wipers and engines” and also wanted at least
five audio channels spread across each bus that would be “paired with one or
more camera images and recorded synchronously with the video for simultaneous
playback.”
In 2009, transit
officials in Baltimore, Maryland, backed down briefly from plans to install
microphones in buses in that city after civil liberties groups complained that
the systems would violate wiretapping laws and constitutional protections
against illegal search and seizure. Transit authorities then asked the state’s
attorney general to weigh-in on whether the systems violated wiretapping laws.
After the attorney general indicated that signs warning passengers of the
surveillance would help combat any legal challenges, transit officials pressed
forward with their plans last month and announced the installation of an audio
recording system on 10 public buses. The city plans to roll out the system on
at least 340 additional buses.