Connecticut police testing 'pandemic drone' that can monitor people's body heat and coughing

[mystery-ak]

Connecticut police testing 'pandemic drone' that can monitor people's body heat and coughing
by Zachary Halaschak
 | April 22, 2020 04:41 PM



Police in Connecticut are trying out a special “pandemic drone” that can detect people who have symptoms of coronavirus infection from up to 190 feet away.

The Westport Police Department, located in the state’s hardest-hit county of Fairfield, is testing the technology as part of its “Flatten the Curve Pilot Program,” according to Fox News. Drone company Draganfly said the drones will be able to display respiratory and heart rates for those analyzed. Police said the devices also have the ability to detect someone coughing in a crowd.

Police said the intention of the technology is to better monitor how people are social distancing in public areas, as well as better protect people who are elderly or have underlying health conditions that make COVID-19 deadlier.

Foti Koskinas, Westport’s police chief, said that the department is “looking for effective ways to ease the spread of COVID-19 and keep their communities safe.”

more
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/connecticut-police-testing-pandemic-drone-that-can-monitor-peoples-body-heat-and-coughing

[mountaineer]

I was going to start a separate thread for this, but what the heck, it's just another "big brother spying on us and pretending it's for our health" story:

Machine learning could check if you’re social distancing properly at work
Category:
April 17, 2020

Andrew Ng’s startup Landing AI has created a new workplace monitoring tool that issues an alert when anyone is less than the desired distance from a colleague.

Six feet apart: On Thursday, the startup released a blog post with a new demo video showing off a new social distancing detector. On the left is a feed of people walking around on the street. On the right, a bird’s-eye diagram represents each one as a dot and turns them bright red when they move too close to someone else.

 The company says the tool is meant to be used in work settings like factory floors and was developed in response to the request of its customers (which include Foxconn). It also says the tool can easily be integrated into existing security camera systems, but that it is still exploring how to notify people when they break social distancing. One possible method is an alarm that sounds when workers pass too close to one another. A report could also be generated overnight to help managers rearrange the workspace, the company says.  ...

Workplace surveillance: The concept is not new. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Amazon is also using similar software to monitor the distances between their warehouse staff. The tool also joins a growing suite of technologies that companies are increasingly using to surveil their workers.    ...

video:   https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Landing-AI-Social-Distancing-Detector-Demo.mp4

Story  at Technology Review

[mountaineer]

The above story was being discussed on Twitter. I commented, "Didn't we see this on Person of Interest (CBS, 2011-16)?" Can't believe how many likes and retweets I got.

From the opening sequence:  "We are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything ..."