Photo: Screenshot from how Huawei’s technology is used by Amsterdam’s police

Can you imagine how much safer the streets could be if police were alerted to a crime as soon as it occurred?

No, this is not the start of a review of The Minority Report but actual plans to clamp down on crime in some Maltese towns.

As confirmed by MaltaToday a few days ago, public company Safe City Malta intends to install ‘advanced video surveillance’, a Plan B put into play due to concerns the proposed installation of CCTV cameras with facial recognition technology could fall foul of privacy regulations.

The technology will be designed by Huawei, but the Chinese giant is not believed to have any access whatsoever to the data collected.

The way ‘advanced video surveillance’ will work is as follows:

High-definition CCTV cameras will be installed across the streets of Paceville, Marsa and Ħamrun with the capacity of zooming right into facial details. Unlike facial recognition technology, these cameras will not be able to instantly identify people but will instead relay live footage to a control room full of screens.

The control room, which will be manned 24/7 by either the police or a security company, will be tasked with monitoring this footage and instantly relaying incidents of crime to police on the beat via handheld devices. These devices, which will be around as large as an iPhone 8, will allow the police to watch crimes right after they occur and therefore to immediately identify perpetrators.

The control room staffers will be assisted by technology in the cameras which will alert them as soon as they detect notable changes in activity in streets. Just as Google Traffic can alert drivers to traffic jams by using GPS-determined phone locations to analyse the speed of other drivers, so too will this technology cause an alarm as soon as it detects clear noise changes. The control room staffers will then analyse the screen and instantly alert the police via their handheld devices if the alert was sparked by a crime.

It will still have to undergo a privacy clearance process in Malta and the EU, but Safe City Malta’s plan is for this technology to be installed by the end of next year.

Do you think this system will make you feel safer?

READ NEXT: WATCH: John McAfee Criticises Maltese Government’s Plans To Introduce Facial Recognition For Public Safety

Tim Diacono

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]