Baggage tracker

Engineers at Leeds University are working as part of an international consortium to design an intelligent CCTV system that will track people who have left bags in public buildings - and even determine whether their actions might be suspicious.

Building on existing surveillance technology, the SUBITO (Surveillance of Unattended Baggage and the Identification and Tracking of the Owner) program will be able to identify specific shapes and movements that allow an individual and their baggage to be tracked over time.

By creating an artificially intelligent system, users of the system should be able to determine whether someone has put a bag down for an innocent reason, such as going to buy a coffee, or for something more sinister.

David Hogg, Prof of Artificial Intelligence at Leeds, said: ‘Due to increased anxieties around the threat of terrorism, the monitoring and surveillance of unattended baggage has become a top priority across the globe. By employing advanced computer technology our system will make this kind of surveillance much less prone to human error.’