Ever wonder what's on the other side of one of those shiny security camera domes?

Who's watching you? Who's watching the watchers? If you had the bad judgment to run naked past a camera at age 19, could that digital trail haunt you when you went for a job at age 25?

The answer to all the questions, is, of course, "it depends.”

Depends on where you are, what you're doing, and to some extent, even who you are.

Tom Keenan, Business Edge
University of Toronto professor Steve Mann checks out a conference bag outfitted with a security camera.

Some folks get watched on video more than others. And technology is emerging that will automate and systematize the use of digital surveillance in whole new ways. Companies with important assets to protect need to take notice. And what could be more important than the safety of the travelling public?

Consider the still rather-newish Terminal One at Pearson International Airport. You'd have to be blind not to notice the security cameras everywhere. Some belong to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA). Others are part of an Air Canada system called the station operation centre (STOC). Nobody wants to say exactly how many cameras are out there, but Air Canada watches them on an 18-screen "command and control video wall" inside the STOC.

"The new STOC video system, with its increased functionality, enhances Air Canada's ability to manage and monitor operational video from multiple sources around the airport," says Thor Hoff, Air Canada's manager for IT infrastructure projects for the Toronto hub.

So instead of having duplicate cameras, they can pull up relevant video feeds, even if they belong to a different owner. Hoff says they've also gone to simplified camera names with location information, eliminating the need for operators to cross-reference video feeds with facility maps.

Using closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras for video surveillance apparently dates back to the Second World War, when the Germans used them to record V2 rocket test flights.

The technology got a huge, if unwanted, boost in the 1970s and 1980s when Irish Republican Army bombings drove British officials to launch widespread surveillance, which they are now crediting with the recent arrest of terrorists.

Security cameras are getting dirt cheap. I recently saw a wireless camera for sale in (of all places) Winners for $139.99. There it was, sitting between the clearance-priced underwear and the tacky wall decorations. Hang it outside your front door and you can have your own reality TV starring the mailman, paper carrier, and perhaps the younguns drinking out on the front porch.

Meanwhile, Richmond Hill, Ont.-based Visual Defence Inc. (LSE: VDI) aims to provide "security convergence" by knitting together security systems, even if they come from different vendors.

"We've got software platforms that help our clients move from the analogue world (of videotapes) to the digital world," says VDI marketing manager Bethany Moir. "We also talk about convergence in terms of vendor convergence; being able to give our clients the freedom to use the camera manufacturer that's best for them, and the DVR (digital video recorder) that's best for them, and to tie them all together to work as one solution."

Moir also speaks of systems convergence, which she defines as pulling together information from CCTV systems, access control, fire alarms and video analytics into one system that makes it very easy for operators to respond.

While security is often viewed as a cost, she suggests that video information could also serve marketing and legal purposes, and be turned into a profit centre.

Air Canada's Pearson Airport system is one of VDI's showpiece installations and Moir notes that the airline is able to use other people's cameras to "ensure that catering trucks are getting loaded at the right time" and for other operational functions.

Like most modern applications, Internet protocol plays a part in bringing together these networks of security appliances. And not without some risk. After all, you can find thousands of security cameras online if you know how to search. (Hint: Check out Google Hacking, which allows you to even target a particular brand of camera.)

My students have uncovered cameras in bank vaults, a pet wash and behind the reservations desk of a major hotel. But according to VDI chief technology officer Michael Godfrey, you won't find the Pearson airport cameras on the web.

"Most of these systems are closed systems. As you put any IP device on a network, you have to think about how secure it is," he says. "That is an issue because you're going from a purpose-built network to a large network. One of the main things we do is to look at the security and firewall and IT issues."

He adds he has a camera at his cottage and "your students might be able to hack into that."

Moir and Godfrey are circumspect about the cost of their system, saying that each project is a little different. While they acknowledge that it's probably not economical for a mom 'n' pop store to buy a VDI system, Godfrey insists that costs are coming down quite dramatically, "and sometimes you can do things with this technology that would just not have been possible before."

The social implications of surveillance technology have not been overlooked. Techno-critics like University of Toronto electrical and computer engineering professor Steve Mann constantly remind people of the freedom that we give up when we put cameras everywhere.

Mann often appears in public with his own video camera, practising what he calls "sous-veillance" (viewing from below) to counter Big Brother's surveillance (viewing from above.)

As for the question of whether or not your teenage streaking adventure might haunt you, most companies do eventually destroy security videos. Universities typically cycled their VHS tapes on a 30-day circle, and that practice has often been carried forward into the digital world.

But as it gets cheaper to buy storage media than to pay somebody to erase it or destroy it, this could change.

So you just might want to keep on your shorts, or cover your face, if you plan a drunken rampage past a camera anytime soon.

Web Watch: www.visualdefence.com http://wearcam.org/ mann.htm (Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)