CHAPTER 1

What Is FMPS?

FMPS (Fully Monitored Public Space) is a concept for building cameras into streetlights so that public space is watched over as a continuous surface. There is only one basic principle: it should be possible to follow a person by switching from one camera to the next.

How it differs from conventional security cameras

Today's security cameras are scattered as isolated points — in shops, homes and stations. When an incident occurs, police collect footage from nearby cameras one by one and piece the route together ("relay investigation"). This works, but the trail breaks wherever there is no camera, and collecting the footage takes time.

FMPS links the fields of view of cameras on neighbouring streetlights, covering public space like a net. The aim is to be able to follow a person from one camera to the next without a break.

Why "public" space?

In a town, almost every place that is not public space is private property. So if routes are covered in public space, a person's movement never breaks off. Tracking ends only when the person enters some private property — and that in itself is an important clue.

FMPS does not look inside private property. The insides of homes and shops are out of scope. This combination — only public space, but without gaps — defines both the effectiveness and the restraint of FMPS.

Two layers

Tracking network (most cameras): low-resolution cameras with wide-angle lenses. It is enough to follow people from camera to camera by clothing, build and belongings. Most streetlights are in quiet residential streets, where this is sufficient.
Identification points (key locations): high-resolution cameras at junctions, station squares and similar locations record faces and vehicle number plates. People followed through the tracking network are identified here.

In busy areas such as shopping districts there are also more streetlights, so the number of cameras, their angle of view and resolution, and the communication bandwidth are increased as needed. Image quality is set by what tracking and identification require. Privacy is protected not by lowering image quality but by VRAIO.

What FMPS does not do

It does not stream footage to a control centre. Footage is stored encrypted in the unit on each streetlight and is automatically overwritten after about two weeks.
Not just anyone can view it. Footage can be retrieved only after a request based on the rules has been made and recorded by an independent Recorder.
It is not a system in which AI constantly watches people. Its basic function is tracking after an incident or disappearance has occurred. Functions such as anomaly detection are to be added step by step, only after society has decided on them (Chapter 8).

Combined with VRAIO

FMPS is a powerful measurement capability. Precisely because it is powerful, it must be guaranteed — by mechanism, not by the goodwill of operators — that the information is not misused. VRAIO is that mechanism. FMPS and VRAIO are two halves of one concept.

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