SECURITY VISION explores the impact of computer vision on security, with a focus on the theoretical, empirical, and political implications of this technology. The project aims to document the workings of machine vision as a human-machine interface, understand how technological and social factors explain the different uses of the technologies, and determine how these various deployments are impacted by the routinized patterns of bureaucratic labor and bureaucratic politics that empower and marginalize actors in the field.
The project proposes a nested set of methodological approaches to reach this objective: First, a global mapping of computer vision technologies in the field of security. Second, based on the first step, innovative multi-modal research design which uses visual ethnography, and critical coding to dive in-depth in specific cases: crowd control and smart technologies in urban settings such as streets and stadiums, emotion recognition used for lie detection in judicial investigation or at the border, and gait/movement recognition in the context of violence prevention and surveillance. The project also explores the ethical and political impact of computer vision, taking a comparative view across the three cases.
On the basis of the detailed ethnographic fieldwork of the researchers, and in collaboration with them, SECURITY VISION analyzes how the micro-politics of attributing suspicion and guilt are distributed throughout human-machine interactions and routines. The project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the implications of computer vision for security, and to inform policy and practice in this field
