Gigabit Cops

One day, a group of officials in Chattanooga, Tennessee, got an idea. They were going to go down to the Tennessee riverfront and count ducks. Depending on your interest in ducks, this could be interpreted as a wasteful venture. But for Chattanooga, it was a crucial test of a growing set of tools that are dramatically changing operations and public safety in the city.

In September 2010, Chattanooga launched a citywide fiber optic gigabit network and it’s since been figuring out ways to use this super fast internet connection. The duck counting exercise was a test of the system’s capabilities. Using the high speed network, security cameras and servers, they could instantly analyze a live video feed of ducks swimming up and down the river. If the system could identify ducks, the thinking went, it could also presumably identify people, and alert police when, say, a group of five or more people are congregating in a dark alley or doing other suspicious activities. But that’s just the start.