Development of privacy-preserving sensor for person detection

A privacy-preserving sensor for person detection has been developed. In theory, the sensor can be constructed with a line sensor and cylindrical lens because only a one-dimensional brightness distribution is needed. The proposed sensor obtains enough information to detect person's position and movement status from a one-dimensional horizontal brightness distribution that is approximately equal to the integration value of each vertical pixel line of the two-dimensional image. Thus the privacy is protected. Moreover, the appearance of the proposed sensor is very different from the conventional video camera, so the psychological resistance of having a picture taken is reduced. The verified results of practically developed sensors showed that it can correctly detect a present person's state without violating privacy.