Photo Trap Change Detection software is a really cool smartphone app that you can use to determine if anyone has rifled through your stuff in a hotel room, desk, or even messed with the physical settings on your mixing panel! Only 99 cents from the App Store!
I first heard about this app while instructing this summer at the 6th Annual DAA Joint Training Conference held down in Texas. It was a (very private) training conference for law enforcement and government agencies about Data Acquisition and Analysis, which is a fancy way of saying "surveillance and noise reduction processing". Literally, for the duration of the conference, we were secluded off the grid for a week in order to safeguard the personal security of personnel who sometimes work undercover. It was a distinguished honor to have been chosen to be one of the Instructors. And, for the record, Izotope RX is a very popular noise reduction software used in forensics as well as motion picture soundtrack processing.
For those not familiar with my background, in addition to being a film soundmixer, I have also worked with, as well as instructed audio for, various organizations connected with law enforcement and government video production over the years.
But I digress. Back to the Photo Trap app. I actually learned about this app from some colleagues during a lunch break.
Photo Trap is software that works with your smartphone camera. You take a picture of your "stuff" that you are concerned about. The software date/time stamps it and names it. It could be a shot of a drawer, desktop, closet, suitcase, sound console, whatever. That is your "before" picture.
At a later time (after returning to your room), you stand in the same approximate spot and prepare to take an "after" photo for comparison. Photo Trap brings up a ghost image of the original picture and helps you align and perfectly overlap the framing.
After you take the new picture, the software allows you to easily flip back and forth between the two shots. If any object in the first picture was moved or rotated even slightly, it becomes readily apparent. Most "intruders" are pretty adept at putting things back the way they found them, and look for the obvious tell-tales -- but it is rare that someone will get everything perfect. This is where Photo Trap comes into play.
You WILL know if anything was moved out of place!
The bad news is that, if the intruder also relies on Photo Trap -- then it helps them get everything right. But to be honest, unless you live and work in a Tom Clancy universe, it is extremely unlikely that a "curious" housekeeper or office mate would be familar with, nor take the time and effort to use, an app such as Photo Trap.
You could also use Photo Trap to keep track of dings and scratches to your (rental) equipment, so that you can detect any new "wear and tear" marks.
