It is a great pleasure to announce the 12th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Video and Signal based Surveillance (AVSS) in Karlsruhe/Germany! AVSS is the premier annual international conference in the field of video and signal-based surveillance that brings together experts from academia, industry, and government to advance theories, methods, systems, and applications related to surveillance. AVSS is sponsored by the IEEE and, in particular, by its two societies, the Signal Processing Society (IVMSP TC) and the IEEE Computer Society (PAMI TC). In 2015 the 12th AVSS will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany.