Your telltale video camera shake can identify you

[Nipuna]

I'd know that wobble anywhere (Image: Metropolitan Police/PA)

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HERE's a way to shake off anonymity – literally. Footage from wearable cameras contains a "motion signature" unique to you. The discovery could identify police wearing body cameras, but also let authorities single out protesters uploading footage, say.

Shmuel Peleg and Yedid Hoshen at Israel's Hebrew University of Jerusalem collected footage from 34 people who wore GoPro cameras on baseball caps. They ran it through an algorithm that recognised motion signatures particular to each person.

This was achieved by dividing frames into non-overlapping blocks. Movement of these blocks between frames reveals the vertical and lateral motion of the camera. When videos were analysed, the system accurately identified from the movement alone who was wearing the camera 88 per cent of the time. Just 12 seconds of video were needed to make the identification (arxiv.org/abs/1411.7591).

"People who upload videos to the web may not be as anonymous as they think they are," says Peleg. "On the other hand, if police officers have to wear cameras, this may give another level of assurance that the video you are being shown is from that officer and not someone else. It's a double-edged sword."

This article appeared in print under the headline "Your camera shake can give you away"