By Humphrey Hawksley
The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game.
"Five nine, five ten," said the research student, pushing down a laptop button to seal the measurement. "That's your height."
"Spot on," I said.
"OK, we're freezing you now," interjected another student, studying his computer screen. "So we have height and tracking and your gait DNA".
"Gait DNA?" I interrupted, raising my head, so inadvertently my full face was caught on a video camera.
"Have we got that?" asked their teacher Professor Rama Chellappa. "We rely on just 30 frames - about one second - to get a picture we can work with," he explained.
Tracking individuals
I was at the University of Maryland just outside Washington DC, where Professor Chellappa and his team are inventing the next generation of citizen surveillance.
They had pushed back furniture in the conference room for me to walk back and forth and set up cameras to feed my individual data back to their laptops.
Gait DNA, for example, is creating an individual code for the way I walk. Their ...   more »