On a dark winter night, a woman waits for a train on an abandoned platform. A man arrived and sat next to her, making her feel uncomfortable and unsafe. A new application of laser technology is being developed to detect when this is happening and determine when it is an innocent act and when it is a threat.
“Throughout my life, the responsibility has always been on women to protect themselves,” said Rosie Richardson, director of product and strategy at the tech company.
She is in the early stages of developing a tool that can quickly identify behaviors such as lurking and stalking and provide direct help when needed.
“I think we have to develop solutions that put responsibility back elsewhere, such as public authorities, space owners, police forces,” she said.
The tool was developed by Createc, based in Cockermouth, Cumbria, but is based on systems the company already uses to monitor crowds at airports and train stations, including London’s King’s Cross station.
It uses laser technology to track people, showing each person as a dot on the screen.
If unusual behavior is detected, such as a large group of people moving suddenly or in an unexpected way, security teams on the ground are alerted and can check to see if there is a problem.
“That means you’ve now noticed [situation] You can tell based on your security training whether that’s a threat or not,” Richardson said.
Predators have specific behavioral patterns — loitering in a certain area or stalking someone — that the technology can detect, she said.
Similar technology is currently being used at London’s King’s Cross Station [Createc]
Richardson had experience receiving unwanted attention from predators, and she waived her legal right to share anonymously. She was just 12 years old and had been watching a stage of the Tour de France.
“I had this horrible man sexually assault me in a crowd and then I just walked away and nothing happened,” she said. “He walked through the crowd, sexually assaulting people as he went.
“It’s a bystander effect – no one really takes any action, but a lot of people see it.”
She’s angry knowing these attacks happen every day, but she believes the technology she’s developing could help spot patterns in predators and intervene before anything happens.
The idea is that a laser would spot unnecessarily closely selected seats on that abandoned railway platform, registering them as unusual and potentially threatening. The security team will then be alerted and can direct CCTV to take a closer look, or send staff in person if required.
Richardson said the technology used at train stations and airports enables companies to use real-life data to map behavioral patterns.
“It uses laser beams effectively and very clever mathematics,” she explains. The system sees patterns of movement and only takes a closer look if it deems the behavior suspicious based on its knowledge of the threat’s behavior.
“It’s just a sign that someone should be paying attention to that environment and making sure that person is okay because if you’re at a bus stop and all the seats are empty and then someone comes and sits in the seat next to you, that’s not a normal situation,” she said.
Richardson believes this may have uncovered a sexual assault in her childhood.
“When you look at the crowd from top to bottom, you can see normal bystanders, normal spectators, but you can also see people moving strangely,” she said.
“You can see when someone walks into a crowd, everyone else will stay away from them because they’re acting weird.”
Looking at the people in her life and her circle of friends, she said, it’s rare that a woman doesn’t feel unsafe when she goes out.
“Almost everyone I know has had some kind of unacceptable experience with men in public spaces – it’s everywhere.”
Tool uses laser technology to track movement in places like train stations [BBC]
Richardson acknowledged that there are limitations to using CCTV alone, as it may not work well in low lighting conditions and the view may be restricted. Concerns have also been raised about privacy issues associated with ongoing observation.
But the system she’s developing doesn’t use cameras and instead monitors crowds of people as anonymous dots on a map. CCTV cameras will only target individuals or security personnel sent to the site if a potential problem is identified.
“Our goal is to respect public privacy, so really understand that people don’t want to be constantly monitored unnecessarily, but also to ensure that the space is safe,” she said. The process has already been tested in simulations and will soon move into testing in real-life scenarios.
Dr Emma Cunningham, a criminology expert at the University of East London, said technology had its own limitations and real social change was needed for women to truly feel safe.
She said it was normal for women to plan their daily activities out of safety concerns, but it needed to stop.
“Attitudes need to shift from blaming the victim to blaming the perpetrator for those women and girls who are attacked despite these concerns and plans,” she said.
She said violence against women had become an “epidemic”, which was particularly evident in domestic violence statistics.
Dr Emma Cunningham says changing social attitudes will be the biggest help [Emma Cunningham]
Figures from the Office for National Statistics and the charity Women’s Aid show that around a quarter of women experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, and on average more than one woman dies at the hands of a male partner or ex-partner every week.
Cunningham said this shows the culture needs to change.
“Educating and working with young people to challenge misogyny and sexism in their daily lives remains vital,” she said.
While cameras and technology may help keep public places such as train stations safe, Cunningham believes they “do not replace the ability to express concerns to others.”
More research is needed to understand safety factors in public places and whether measures taken can reduce violence, she said.
While Richardson is passionate about addressing violence against women and girls, it was a male victim that set her on this career path.
When she was seven, her brother was killed during an argument in the street.
“I can viscerally feel the ripple effect of something similar happening in real life,” she said. “I think that’s one of my main motivations and a big driver in making changes.
“if [our technology] Just helping solve an incident, no matter how serious, is what your life’s work has accomplished. “
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