Air pollution is preventing the Chinese Government to monitor citizens

In January 2013, the Government of China has installed about 20 million cameras in various public spaces of cities all over the country. However, the Chinese Executive is having difficulties in monitoring its citizens, due to the intense air pollution that exists in key urban centres. It's ironic, isn't it?

Last month, the South China Morning Post, the field of visibility in the city of Harbin was less than three meters. On days with high levels of pollution in the air, none of the cameras can capture through the dense layers of particles that are suspended in the atmosphere.

The cameras installed were prepared to be able to capture images through fog or smoke. But this phenomenon of atmospheric pollution, known as smog, prevents infrared cameras penetrate the polluted particles. In this way, the equipment is unable to capture images.

Faced with this problem, the Chinese Government could have opted to redouble its efforts, which are internationally viewed as controversial, to reduce levels of air pollution. However, the Executive chose to hire a team of scientists to optimize the capture system of Chambers.

"Our preliminary research indicates that the particles of smog are quite different, in optical terms, water particles that constitute the fog," says Yang Aiping, one of the experts in digital imaging which integrates the team hired, cites the South China Morning Post. To resolve this issue of "national security", Aiping indicates that his team will have to revise, or even rewrite, the algorithms used in some mathematical models used by cameras for image capture.

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