Overview

• The research shows a fivefold increase in computer vision papers linked to downstream surveillance patents since the 1980s.
• Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Chinese University of Hong Kong rank as the top institutions producing surveillance-related CV research.
• The United States, China and the United Kingdom lead global publication of studies tied to surveillance applications.
• Authors document how terms like “object” have been normalized to obscure that people are the focus of many surveillance systems.
• The paper urges policymakers to use its findings for regulatory action and encourages researchers to reject or redirect projects that enable coercive monitoring.