We are pleased to announce that the AVSS 2007 (IEEE Int. Conf. on Advanced Video and Signal based Surveillance) technical program is available at http://www.avss2007.org, under Program. AVSS 2007 will take place in London in September and will feature the following Keynote and Overview Talks: Keynote talks 1. Looking at people (Dariu Gavrila, Daimler Chrysler Research & Technology and University of Amsterdam) 2. A journey from signal processing to surveillance (Tsuhan Chen, Carnegie Mellon University) 3. Computer-aided facial reconstruction from skulls (Peter Tu, GE Global Research) 4. Object detection, segmentation and tracking (Andrew Blake, Microsoft Research) Overview talks 1. Directions in Automatic Video Analysis Technology Evaluations at NIST (John Garofolo, National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA) 2. Overview of the Physical Security Sector (Andy Coleman, Home Office Scientific Development Branch) 3. Detecting hidden objects: security imaging using millimetre-waves and terahertz (Mike Kemp, Iconal Technology Ltd.) AVSS 2007 will also feature one challenge and five special sessions: Challenge i-LIDS bag and vehicle detection challenge (Organizer: Paul Hosmer, Home Office Scientific Development Branch) Special sessions 1. 3D face recognition and novel biometrics (Organizer: Ioannis Kakadiaris, University of Houston) 2. Industrial special session (Organizer: Li-Qun Xu, BT) 3. Vision-based gesture and human action recognition (Organizers: Ioannis Patras, Queen Mary, University of London; Edwin Hancock, The University of York) 4. Video systems for retail applications (Organizer: Andrew Senior, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) 5. Video tracking in complex scenes (Organizer: Fatih Porikli, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories) We are looking forward to welcoming you to London in September! Sincerely, Andrea Cavallaro AVSS2007 General Chair