View Full Version : Red light cameras - how much footage do they store?
Eurodriver
02-03-14, 16:40
I've heard they only film when the light sequence turns yellow to when it turns green again. But the other day I saw footage from a camera showing an accident that occurred in the perpendicular lane of travel. The light the red light camera was enforcing was green. This was in Miami.
Then I read that several cattle thieves were apprehended when they were caught on a red light camera as well. Apparently several thousand requests by LEOs are made annually for traffic camera footage. The footage I've seen is insanely HD. Only what is uploaded to YouTube for the public has its quality reduced.
Thousands of cameras recording 24/7...that's a shitload of data! To the order of a gigabyte per second.
Does anyone know how long these companies store footage for? Are only some recording 24/7? They can no longer say they aren't - there is video out there disproving it.
Traffic camera or red light camera? Two different things. Lots of traffic camera's around the US, but red light camera's are, at least in Missouri, few and far between because they were ruled unconstitutional due to Missouri saying a certified LEO has to write tickets. Although there are tons of people who dont know any better and pay the fines anyway.
davidjinks
02-03-14, 18:49
Depends on how the contract is written will determine how long or even how much can be recorded/stored.
Some "Red Light" cameras are just that however some states/cities also have regular "Traffic" cams setup backing up the "Red Light" cams. I've seen this type of setup from El Paso to Baltimore up to Boston.
I've heard they only film when the light sequence turns yellow to when it turns green again. But the other day I saw footage from a camera showing an accident that occurred in the perpendicular lane of travel. The light the red light camera was enforcing was green. This was in Miami.
Then I read that several cattle thieves were apprehended when they were caught on a red light camera as well. Apparently several thousand requests by LEOs are made annually for traffic camera footage. The footage I've seen is insanely HD. Only what is uploaded to YouTube for the public has its quality reduced.
Thousands of cameras recording 24/7...that's a shitload of data! To the order of a gigabyte per second.
Does anyone know how long these companies store footage for? Are only some recording 24/7? They can no longer say they aren't - there is video out there disproving it.
Eurodriver
02-03-14, 19:44
I'm specifically talking about red light cameras. They have a video camera that rolls 24/7 and a digital camera that snaps plate #s during infractions.
a lot of times the cameras roll 24/7 and then store the info for a set time period per the agency using the system, as an example my in car camera rolls as long as the car has been started and 45 minutes after the car shuts off. It is not storing all the info just due to the lack of memory. As a patrol car has a finite amount that can be stored. When you look at red light cameras they are sending info to servers that store for a set time period a lot like security cameras usually only store for say 24 hours. This way if something happens it was recorded but will wipe the info unless requested in that set time period. Each state or municipality will be different on how they want info stored and for what time period.
Moose-Knuckle
02-05-14, 01:51
Data is stored indefinitely, we may be told differently but . . .
Eurodriver
02-05-14, 18:21
Data is stored indefinitely, we may be told differently but . . .
This is where I was going with the thread. That's a ton of data to store, but they obviously have tons of otherwise the police wouldn't be making 3 requests a day for it.
a lot of times the cameras roll 24/7 and then store the info for a set time period per the agency using the system, as an example my in car camera rolls as long as the car has been started and 45 minutes after the car shuts off. It is not storing all the info just due to the lack of memory. As a patrol car has a finite amount that can be stored. When you look at red light cameras they are sending info to servers that store for a set time period a lot like security cameras usually only store for say 24 hours. This way if something happens it was recorded but will wipe the info unless requested in that set time period. Each state or municipality will be different on how they want info stored and for what time period.
Your patrol car records your entire 8 hour shift? Here they "record" as long as the vehicle is on but they only store data from 30 seconds prior to when the emergency lights are engaged. Is that similar to what you're talking about? I don't see how you'd be able to store 8 hours of data in one CPU. That's over 2 Terabytes of data by my math.
Data is stored indefinitely, we may be told differently but . . .
Do you truly comprehend how much data that would be? I don't know about indefinitely. An extended period of time yes, but indefinitely is hugely improbably due to the amount of data you're talking about. More than 30 days is really pushing it. You're talking over a petabyte + of data every 12 days.
Euro, you are correct our cameras are on but only store the recording 1 minute prior to activation. Thankfully ours do not record sound for that 1 minute playback otherwise you get a lot of people making a comment like what an ...........when you notice a violation.
Euro, you are correct our cameras are on but only store the recording 1 minute prior to activation. Thankfully ours do not record sound for that 1 minute playback otherwise you get a lot of people making a comment like what an ...........when you notice a violation.
Very true. Whats shitty is when you hit a huge pothole and it turns on and you have no idea......lol
In addition, the data that is actually downloaded and stored on the department's server will probably be purged after a set amount of time, unless it is evidence.
To ensure integrity, police officers can't typically delete/edit the footage on their in car systems, so stuff that gets recorded automatically (for us, any time the lights go on, the car gets above 70, or when we turn it on just in case) all gets downloaded at set intervals, needed or not. This frees up the hard disk in the car as well. Unless IT/evidence/forensics/ or whoever is interested in the video know to preserve certain bits as evidence, it will likely be purged after a certain time.
That time will depend on the local govt., department policy, the CA/DA/AG opinions, and whatever open records, public records laws apply.
I've heard they only film when the light sequence turns yellow to when it turns green again. But the other day I saw footage from a camera showing an accident that occurred in the perpendicular lane of travel. The light the red light camera was enforcing was green. This was in Miami.
Then I read that several cattle thieves were apprehended when they were caught on a red light camera as well. Apparently several thousand requests by LEOs are made annually for traffic camera footage. The footage I've seen is insanely HD. Only what is uploaded to YouTube for the public has its quality reduced.
Thousands of cameras recording 24/7...that's a shitload of data! To the order of a gigabyte per second.
Does anyone know how long these companies store footage for? Are only some recording 24/7? They can no longer say they aren't - there is video out there disproving it.
Add a network connection, and it becomes a question of how much cloud storage they're willing to buy. Since those cameras are extraordinarily lucrative, I'd bet it's a fair bit more than we'd expect.
I used to have great fun tripping those piles of crap doing jackassery like turning right after the red light came up and the arrow had just shown up, those cameras are traffic hazards without a doubt. I've seen just personally about 5 accidents caused by people panicking and braking in the middle of intersections, or laying anchor 80 feet from the intersection without regard for cars around them.
Moose-Knuckle
02-06-14, 15:24
Do you truly comprehend how much data that would be? I don't know about indefinitely. An extended period of time yes, but indefinitely is hugely improbably due to the amount of data you're talking about. More than 30 days is really pushing it. You're talking over a petabyte + of data every 12 days.
So text messages just dissappear, how bout emails? Data is stored, may not be by the particular redlight/traffic camera vendor the municipality hired but its mined and stored. NSA data center in UT stores in the zettabytes.
Assume every camera is always on (including the camera on your phone and laptop), records everything in HD, footage is stored forever, and can be accessed by the govt.
While this is not all completely true now, it will be a fact in about 10 years. Add to this, many localities are using time lapsed aerial photography to create a historical record of people's movement and to predict future movements.
Our city contracts with Redflex. HD quality video at the time of a redlight violation. There are speed sensors prior to the intersection.
They do record the rest of the time , but quality is very poor. I'm not sure how long it is retained.
So text messages just dissappear, how bout emails? Data is stored, may not be by the particular redlight/traffic camera vendor the municipality hired but its mined and stored. NSA data center in UT stores in the zettabytes.
Every email I have EVER written would fit inside the card in my camera right now. Every text message could probably fit on my current phone alone.
Video is a whole different ball game in terms of size of files. I made no statements about what the NSA is storing indefinitely, only what local law enforcement is capable of handling.
Also would like to point out that data center is most likely far from a zettabyte. Estimates from Forbes put it in excess of 12 exabytes. (Size comparison for the non-tech people. If you watched a BluRay movie every five seconds, a zettabyte would take you three thousand four hundred years to sift through.) Not to mention the fact that HDD/SSD tech simply makes the 12 exabyte number impressive enough, and far closer to the centers cost.
montanadave
02-07-14, 04:51
So text messages just dissappear, how bout emails? Data is stored, may not be by the particular redlight/traffic camera vendor the municipality hired but its mined and stored. NSA data center in UT stores in the zettabytes.
"Data center" is a bit of a misnomer. It is actually a data uplink facility with only temporary storage capacity. Permanent storage is maintained on the orbiting (and cloaked) Death Star.
Moose-Knuckle
02-07-14, 16:01
Every email I have EVER written would fit inside the card in my camera right now. Every text message could probably fit on my current phone alone.
Video is a whole different ball game in terms of size of files. I made no statements about what the NSA is storing indefinitely, only what local law enforcement is capable of handling.
Also would like to point out that data center is most likely far from a zettabyte. Estimates from Forbes put it in excess of 12 exabytes. (Size comparison for the non-tech people. If you watched a BluRay movie every five seconds, a zettabyte would take you three thousand four hundred years to sift through.) Not to mention the fact that HDD/SSD tech simply makes the 12 exabyte number impressive enough, and far closer to the centers cost.
Wired Magazine has stated that their sources indicate NSA has 5 zettabyte capacity at their new facility. I never said you said anything about NSA. I'm talking about the bigger picture here, everything is connected (wired).
Moose-Knuckle
02-07-14, 16:03
"Data center" is a bit of a misnomer. It is actually a data uplink facility with only temporary storage capacity. Permanent storage is maintained on the orbiting (and cloaked) Death Star.
Damn the Empire and their Sith overlords!
In real life though the offical name of the facility located at Camp Williams is the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center.
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