Chinese scientists develop camera to spot potential suicide bombers

From religious extremists wielding knives in train stations to crowded buses being set on fire, attacks in public places in China have led to security fears on the mainland.

And now a new camera aims to pick out people showing signs of high levels of stress before any potential suicide bomber could strike.

Unlike existing devices to measure stress, which look at heart rate, facial expression and body temperature, the camera will assess the level of blood oxygenation – something that unlike your heart rate, you can’t learn to control.

It may look something like this (Maureen Didde/Flickr)

It works by examining information across the electromagnetic spectrum, using hyperspectral imaging.

The stress sensor – developed by Chen Tong, an associate professor of electronic information engineering at Southwest University, in Chongqing, and his team – measures the amount of oxygen in blood in exposed areas like the face.

“The higher the mental stress, the higher the blood oxygenation,” he told the South China Morning Post.

Officers looking through the device at a crowd would see a “stress bar” above each persons head, with the suspect’s face highlighted red. All worryingly video game-like.

The camera may make life look less like reality and more like a game (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)

Tests in the laboratory were successful but getting it to work in real life is another matter. It requires filtering and processing a lot of data in a short amount of time, something beyond the capabilities of a smartphone-type device. At the moment they’re looking at sending the information over wifi to analysts who would be elsewhere, but that has its own challenges.

It has also worried some people: “The technology can be used on terrorists, but harmless people such as petitioners and protesters could be the target as well. I would feel uncomfortable and tense if a police officer stared at me through strange goggles,” Li Jiancheng, a resident in Shanghai’s Pudong district, told the paper.

Chen said the technology would have no commercial use until there were laws to regulate it.