MobileBeat: SkyEye turns your phone into a personal surveillance system

SkyEye is one of 20 promising startups included in the MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition and is in the running for one of two coveted Tesla Awards.

New mobile application SkyEye turns your mobile phone into an around-the-clock security and surveillance system for your person. Using your phone’s camera, it continually snaps pictures throughout the day and streams them to the company’s secure database where they can be stored if you need to review them.

“Any attempt at assault will be recorded and saved for use in a quick indictment and conviction,” according to the company, which stores the photographs taken for a certain amount of time based on the level of a user’s subscription payments. “This new function could save a young woman from an assault in a parking lot and convict her assailant with photo evidence. She would even have the satisfaction of selecting and cropping this photographic evidence herself.”

SkyEye was initially launched on the background operating system made possible on iOS 4 for Apple’s iPhone, though it does come in the form of a separate micro-camera device. Founder Phillip Walker encourages users to always keep the application on and running in the background. But users can still toggle how often pictures are snapped — whether they want the intervals to be 5 seconds or 15 seconds.

“If 80 percent of the photos are black or a dark pocket, then that’s OK,” says Walker, adding that the company offers clip devices that ensure your camera is always revealed. “The next iteration of the device will allow all photos to be taken from the angle of a brooch or bluetooth earpiece or a clip-on SkyEye.”

He admits that battery life is an important consideration here, if the application is left running at all times like he suggests. In order to spare phone batteries, SkyEye provides options for users to reduce or increase resolution, in addition to picture frequency.

The company compares itself to OnStar and LoJack in concept, but not in terms of competition.

Personal security is emphasized as the app’s core functionality, but the company says it has a host of other purposes, including tracking employees and tracing your own steps when you’ve lost something, like your keys There are even some social networking tie-ins the company is working on.

“We see the first successful target market being as an application parents insist their kids run at all times in agreement for purchasing their 12 to 19-year-old children and young adults cell phones,” Walker says. “The account and access to photos is entirely in the kids’ hands with only an emergency feature that would allow parents to access a kid’s location.”

The SkyEye device will retail for $19.99, with a monthly subscription rate of $19.99 a month. The company also plans to sell copies of still photos for 5 cents apiece.