[HN Gopher] Face recognition is being banned, but it's still eve...
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Face recognition is being banned, but it's still everywhere
Author : laurex
Score : 202 points
Date : 2021-12-22 17:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| midjji wrote:
| Seems rather obvious to me that will remain the case.
|
| Both encryption and face recognition software rely on math and
| programming simple enough that a single person can make a
| functional one in less than a year from scratch. However, if
| using existing open source frameworks anyone can put it together
| either in a few days, though collecting a face database takes
| slightly longer, though in most cases anyone with an existing app
| of some kind can very easily collect the data largely
| automatically. Arguably I would not trust an encryption framework
| put together like that, but when it comes to face recognition I
| would.
|
| So the question of if governments will be able to prevent non-
| sanctioned face recognition systems from the public sphere is
| rather similar to the question of if they are able to prevent the
| use of non-sanctioned encryption.
|
| How is that going these days?
| pueblito wrote:
| > CBP says it has processed more than 100 million travelers using
| face recognition and prevented more than 1,000 "imposters" from
| entering the US at air and land borders.
|
| I wonder how many of those 1000 were incorrectly bounced back
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| At least at airports, CBP never bounces anyone back at the
| first instance. At the immigration counters, the dude either
| lets you in or sends you to secondary.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The software only flags people for manual review. It's not an
| automatic software-only rejection.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| If a selection process is screwed at the outset, I don't
| think one can generally un-screw it with any amount of post-
| hoc analysis or manual review.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Your comment seems unrelated to the comment you're
| responding to. That comment is about automatic rejection,
| not selection.
|
| But speaking of selection, there is no perfect process in
| any system involving humans, so whether it's a flawed
| facial recognition algorithm, or a biased, tired,
| overworked human doing it, having a manual review step and
| post-hoc analysis is pretty useful.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| My point is that by the time a biased selection happens,
| much of the damage to the overall process is already
| irreversible. If the algorithm is biased (and I'm not
| saying it is, just that it's valid to ask the question),
| making the final decision manual is more of a fig leaf
| than an actual fix.
| ctdonath wrote:
| Can't stop a idea whose time has come.
| 14 wrote:
| If they ban facial recognition then companies will start using
| other tech like gait recognition. So are we wanting to ban facial
| recognition or is it something more like the right to not be
| tracked(if that even is a right). I think we need to establish
| what our end goal is because you know clever companies will find
| a way around such restrictions and find other creative ways. They
| will use shoe detection instead or something maybe not as
| accurate but enough to get them around the law but still detect a
| percentage of criminals. Or jewelry detections or tattoo or
| whatever isn't banned by law.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| This is the same issue I have with 'right to repair' laws. When
| you create a tangle of specific laws banning or regulating
| specific things all that you really have done is created a
| world where he who has the most lawyers wins.
|
| What is the end goal with banning face recognition? I think
| this is all about asymmetry of information.
| midjji wrote:
| Switching from defending the right to privacy to the right to
| not be exploited due to power/information asymmetry would
| solve a great many problems.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Note the immature (on purpose?) nature of some of these bans:
| some ban the local government only, some ban only one city of a
| multi-city district, and nearly all of them leave the option of
| hiring a private agency (with zero pubic oversight, because they
| are private) to do the FR for them. And that private agency
| happens to be owned by the step-son of one of the law makers.
| This type of legal nonsense is everywhere they are trying to
| regulate facial regulation.
| toper-centage wrote:
| The annoying part is that there's no opt out. And when there
| is, it's obscure (you can express that to the staff), and makes
| you look hella suspicious.
| ordiel wrote:
| As I heard "somewhere", 'now that they have forced you to wear a
| mask, dont remove it ;)'
|
| (I know the profiling works even whit only the eye section yet
| you get the gist)
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| "I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can so I can..." avoid an
| automated surveillance state.
| [deleted]
| wintorez wrote:
| Once the genie is out of the bottle...
| latchkey wrote:
| I just flew to Dubai and back.
|
| On the way in, they scanned my face at the immigration counter.
|
| On the way out, you go through a locked turnstile that scans your
| face and won't open until it recognizes you.
|
| It took about 2 seconds for the doors to open. Pretty amazing and
| creepy at the same time.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I believe that the efforts to ban technologies such as this one
| are futile. Pandora's boxes can only be opened, never closed.
| eunos wrote:
| "We need to live with surveillance"
| earthnail wrote:
| We banned mines, too, and it's been fairly successful. Not
| 100%, sure, but just imagine a world were mines weren't banned,
| and what Europe and the US would look like, and you know the
| ban was very effective.
| trasz wrote:
| Most countries banned mines, but not US:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
| hutzlibu wrote:
| To be fair, "most countries" does neither include china,
| nor russia, either.
| trasz wrote:
| But of the Western countries the only one that broke out
| is USA.
| [deleted]
| 2468013579 wrote:
| Ottawa treaty only bans anti-personnel mines, not anti-
| vehicle or command activated. The US bands persistent anti-
| personnel mines, but not mines that only last a day or so.
| This argument gets more convoluted once you read up on it.
| As I mentioned in spaetzleleeser's comment below, the US is
| one of a few countries that has a policy banning persistent
| anti-vehicle mines (they ban all persistent mines in
| general), so in some ways is more strict than others.
| trasz wrote:
| Anti-vehicle mines don't really matter, they pose no
| threat to civilians.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Definitely. It is known that civilians never use
| vehicles.
| trasz wrote:
| "Anti-vehicle mines" are rally anti-tank mines, and as
| such:
|
| 1. They require tons of pressure to detonate; it's
| adjusted for a tank, not ordinary car, and
|
| 2. They don't end up in unexpected places - they are
| placed on the roads, and thus are easy to find and
| detonate.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Any truck or bus has higher road pressure than a tank,
| because wheels footprint is much smaller than that of a
| tank tracks.
|
| A very quick search also proves that deaths from anti-
| vehicle mines number at thousands each year. Even on the
| very UN website [1] we read:
|
| > _The Secretary-General calls on all countries to also
| regulate the use of anti-vehicle landmines. Such weapons
| continue to cause many casualties, often civilian. They
| restrict the movement of people and humanitarian aid,
| make land unsuitable for cultivation, and deny citizens
| access to water, food, care and trade._
|
| I believe we can safely assume that anti-vehicle
| landmines DO pose a deadly threat to civilians.
|
| [1]: https://www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/Landmines/
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| That's a fact the US should be deeply ashamed of. I had no
| idea how bad the land mine and unexploded bomb situation is
| until I visited Cambodia and Laos where even 50 years after
| the war people are still getting their limbs blown off.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| All the countries that didn't ban land mines are all the
| same countries that were, essentially, expecting to fight
| wars in the near future.
| 2468013579 wrote:
| Read up on the difference between persistent and non-
| persistent land mines [1]. The US only uses non-
| persistent mines that last usually 24-72 hours. The issue
| with 50 years later is not accurate since non-persistent
| mines haven't been commonplace for decades and officially
| outlawed in 2004 [2]. Only place the US allows persistent
| mines is at the DMZ. There's also a distinction between
| anti-personnel mines and anti-vehicle mines, which the US
| has a clearer distinction about than others. The Ottawa
| Treaty only bans anti-personnel mines [3], so the US in
| one of few countries that has a policy banning the use of
| persistent anti-vehicle mines.
|
| [1]
| https://sites.duke.edu/lawfire/2021/04/12/understanding-
| u-s-...
|
| [2] https://2001-2009.state.gov/t/pm/wra/c11735.htm
|
| [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
| trasz wrote:
| I'm sure Russia and China have similar excuses :->
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| How many of the non persistent mines will fail to disarm
| and still be a danger? I would expect quite a few.
|
| In my mind they should have been banned like biological
| weapons. And the US could take leadership
| andrepd wrote:
| That's a cop-out. Regulation can happen, of course, if there's
| political will for it.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Even with all our efforts, murder still happens, so I guess
| it's time to throw the towel in on that as well.
| darkwater wrote:
| Looks like it's being deployed more everyday, rather. For
| example, a document-less airport experience pilot[1] is being
| tested in Barcelona (Spain)
|
| [1] https://identityweek.net/josep-tarradellas-barcelona-el-
| prat...
| flimflamm wrote:
| Should police collect iPhones away in those cities where face
| recognition is banned?
| raverbashing wrote:
| Face detection (that is, only identifying a face in a picture)
| is not face recognition (identifying the person behind the
| face).
| ben_w wrote:
| That depends what the law says. Some of the pressure here is to
| stop the police themselves from using the tech, I wouldn't know
| if any given law prevents personal use.
| onethought wrote:
| It's a government ban. Not a generalised ban.
| flimflamm wrote:
| Sorry, I am out side of US. What's the difference?
| lajamerr wrote:
| Government ban means banned for use by government
| officials/entities. So it doesn't really apply to the
| general public or corporations(Unless the corporation
| specifically has a contract with the same requirements to
| do work on behalf of the government)
| bayindirh wrote:
| You should also collect Sony Alpha cameras too. Many of them
| have a preferential focus feature which uses face recognition.
|
| You add up to five faces, prioritized, and it focuses to them
| if it recognizes in the crowd of people.
| sib wrote:
| Wow - didn't know about this preferential focus feature.
| Sounds extremely useful...
| namibj wrote:
| TIL, and this sounds actually rather useful. Do you have
| information on which ones would support that? Especially in
| the range a curious hacker (who else is HN for?) would be
| interested in.
| bayindirh wrote:
| It's especially useful in crowd gatherings, group photos
| and such. I think it's rather designed for concerts,
| weddings, etc.
|
| My A7-III has it. Since it uses Eye-AF and Face-AF
| pipelines (it generates a face model from the photo you
| take for that feature only), it needs AI autofocus stack
| inside the camera. A7-C should have it, maybe latest APS-C
| lines (6600 for example) have it.
|
| Sony's AF tech is insane. Point to a person with
| sunglasses, and it marks the eye instantaneously. What the
| actual sorcery?
| novok wrote:
| Well the goal is to recognize a face, not to match a
| specific face to a specific person. So you can train an
| AF model to to center focus on the center of the
| sunglasses. Even with the 'track these specific faces'
| features, since your still not trying to unique identify
| someone, the model can latch on to generic features like
| "red sunglasses, brown skin, surgical mask & this general
| shape".
| fortran77 wrote:
| I don't care too much about face recognition for check in. But I
| don't like it for bag drop. If it mis-matches me, I may never see
| my bag again!
| kotaKat wrote:
| Hell. Walmart's security DVRs by Verint all have facial
| recognition enabled on the firmware, along with other security
| analytics options.
| reaperducer wrote:
| The apartment building I lived in from 2009-2010 had facial
| recognition.
|
| When you walked through the main lobby, your face appeared on a
| screen for the inside doorman so he could grant you access to
| the elevator lobby. It also showed your name, apartment number,
| and lease end date.
|
| That was over a decade ago. I can't imagine what new tech must
| look like.
| surajs wrote:
| Everything is touching everything
| bigodbiel wrote:
| Pre-crime facial recognition surveillance is authoritanism. Post-
| crime facial recognition of surveillance is investigative
| process. The cat is out of the bag, the only thing that prevents
| it's inevitable abuse is strict legal framework for its
| implementation
| nirui wrote:
| > strict legal framework for its implementation
|
| And that might turn this technology into something that only
| big company can afford, artificially created a pro-monopoly
| environment.
|
| The problem is complex.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Not really. I don't mind there being a near-monopoly on
| facial recognition software if it takes a large company to
| handle the needed guidelines and potential liabilities.
| sailfast wrote:
| One doesn't mind until it turns on one, typically. It's all
| fine until the monopoly stops operating in good faith and
| it's too late to stop it.
| Jarwain wrote:
| Well that's what the strict legal framework is for,
| right? To ensure ethical operation instead of relying on
| good faith?
| uncletammy wrote:
| Replace the words "facial recognition software" with
| "location data", a comparable commodity in this context,
| then it's immediately clear what would go wrong. See
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/its-time-google-
| resist...
|
| If the bureaucratic obstacles for using a technology are so
| high that only very well funded companies can overcome
| them, then those companies effectively form a cartel with
| the state in the use and abuse of those technologies.
|
| If citizens had stronger protections against the
| application of the third-party doctrine in the US, we might
| have less to fear. Currently though, the greatest oppressor
| of personal freedoms through technology is the United
| States Government. They can and will use "guidelines and
| potential liabilities" to weaponize new technology while
| making it next to impossible to counter the threat.
| midjji wrote:
| Problem with a strict legal framework for implementation is
| that it takes 1 person just a few days to get a face
| recognition system working using generic frameworks for deep
| learning.
|
| The laws can be as strict as you like, but its like
| introducing a law saying you cant watch nude cartoons at
| home. Even if you somehow eliminated all the existing ones,
| its just a pen and paper away.
| kilburn wrote:
| Is that really a problem from a legal perspective?
|
| There are plenty of things that are easy to do but have
| strict legal frameworks around them. Quick examples include
| copyright laws, use of force/violence and driving rules.
| midjji wrote:
| and how well are those laws preventing these actions?
| Long term there are few things more damaging to a
| societies justice system than wide spread breaking of
| laws. Go on long enough, and people stop taking every law
| seriously, while at the same time political reasons for
| prosecution starts dominating.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| When did we decide that this should have a low barrier to
| entry. Is there any reason to think increased competition
| between surveillance providers will lead to more ethical
| surveillance?
|
| This is not a market problem at all, I don't see why you'd
| use market-brain constructs like monopoly to engage with it.
|
| One provider or thousands, the problem is the social dynamics
| and the power structures, not a product-consumer
| relationship.
| sneak wrote:
| There's really no chance of that happening in the USA within a
| generation. The US federal government has decided that it alone
| is trustworthy, and that everyone and everything is a potential
| threat, and that it is entitled to unlimited and unrestricted
| surveillance of the entire country (and several others),
| regardless of what is or is not written into law.
|
| Snowden even blew the lid off of it, and _nothing changed_.
| That 's how you know it's permanent.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. If anything, your
| comment is sadly an understatement.
| [deleted]
| deepstack wrote:
| > strict legal framework for its implementation and strict
| legal framework enforcement
| andrepd wrote:
| It's also trivially easy to regulate. Mandate that all cameras
| recording public spaces record to encrypted storage. The key is
| in possession of the judicial system. It can only be decrypted
| and examined _with a warrant_ , with probable cause, as you
| would need for wiretapping or raiding a home or searching
| someone's computer.
| aspaceman wrote:
| Now explain that to a lawyer.
|
| They won't get it. Trust me.
| brk wrote:
| Hardly sounds trivial, and how would you ever enforce or
| manage that? Also, that is totally counter to the current
| (US) laws that basically state you can record video (not
| audio) of any publicly viewable areas freely.
|
| What you propose would require massive changes to essentially
| any camera that has any part of its view covering an outdoor
| area, and probably many indoor areas (malls, etc.).
|
| Also, face recognition typically runs on live streams to
| build indexes, so encrypting storage would not do much. You'd
| need to implement something like an HDMI-style encryption to
| control what devices/processors/whatever can connect to a
| live video stream from a camera to try and control exactly
| how the streams are processed.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Where I am the law is very strict although somewhat
| arbitrary. I can shoot a video of a public place. I can
| publish the material (although commercial use requires sign
| off naturally).
|
| But here is the interesting bit: I can't set up a fixed
| camera to record a public space without permission. And I
| won't get that permission. Meaning basically that recording
| in public spaces is only done by humans, limiting the scope
| of how widespread it can be. I like this.
|
| It also means, that it's not allowed to put up a camera on
| my porch that covers the street in front of my house. I
| suspect a lot of ring/nest users are in violation.
| 14 wrote:
| Sounds like Japan. But most countries that is not the
| case. People want to protect their property. Also with
| hidden cameras it would be trivial to do so and not be
| detected so in your country those who want to record are
| already doing it just quietly. So again it is a law that
| only effects non criminals.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Do you have the text of the law for this? I suspect
| you're overstating the restrictions.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Which part of the law? That I can't set up a camera on my
| house to film a street crossing?
|
| That's almost impossible to get permission for. A private
| citizen can _not_ get permission to film a Street corner.
| The difficulty in getting permission obviously isn't
| written in the legal text, but individuals don't get
| permission and businesses only very rarely do.
|
| https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-
| lagar/dokument/svensk-f...
| dgfitz wrote:
| Don't tell Nest...
|
| Seriously, this means every home outdoor security camera
| is potentially illegal. This can't be true.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Of course it is. You can't put up a camera on your porch
| and shoot your driveway _and_ part of the street. To
| follow the law you have to point it so it's only covering
| your driveway or lawn and no public space. It's pretty
| simple restrict the field of view with a screen in front
| or bit of tape over the camera if needed.
|
| Does everyone do that? Probably not. But that doesn't
| change how the law is written.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| you keep saying this and you don't actually provide the
| text of the law
| herbstein wrote:
| They did. Two comments ago. But it's in Swedish so you
| probably won't be able to read it.
| exo762 wrote:
| > Hardly sounds trivial, and how would you ever enforce or
| manage that?
|
| Spitballing. Enforcement: make distribution of CCTV video
| undisclosed via court order criminal offense.
|
| > Also, that is totally counter to the current (US) laws
| that basically state you can record video (not audio) of
| any publicly viewable areas freely.
|
| This is irrelevant, because scale changes nature of things.
| Single photo of your person is just that. 24 photos per
| second for every second of your life is a total
| surveillance. Law was clearly about recording usage that
| does not amount to surveillance.
|
| > Also, face recognition typically runs on live streams to
| build indexes, so encrypting storage would not do much.
|
| Encrypt the stream on the camera itself. Storage is cheap.
| brk wrote:
| >Spitballing. Enforcement: make distribution of CCTV
| video undisclosed via court order criminal offense.
|
| The same way gun ownership laws have curbed the illegal
| gun ownership/use problem? Or, do we just keep stacking
| laws endlessly hoping one of them actually works?
|
| >24 photos per second for every second of your life is a
| total surveillance.
|
| Sure but we're nowhere near that point, or likely to be
| at that point. Also, almost nothing records at 24fps,
| 15fps is more common.
|
| >Encrypt the stream on the camera itself. Storage is
| cheap.
|
| In most cases and camera and recording/viewing software
| come from different companies, so you'd still need some
| kind of key management system.
| jrmg wrote:
| _The same way gun ownership laws have curbed the illegal
| gun ownership /use problem? Or, do we just keep stacking
| laws endlessly hoping one of them actually works?_
|
| There are legit arguments to be had about personal
| freedom here, but it's plainly untrue regulation
| intrinsically can't work. It works for many, many things
| - and works for gun ownership in basically every other
| developed nation in the world.
| zo1 wrote:
| And how does one view the feed from the camera if it's
| encrypted? That's the whole point of the camera itself.
|
| Anywho, sounds like we're jumping through hoops without
| really understanding the requirements. Like, what is
| _really_ bad about recording people in public? What is
| _really_ bad about performing facial recognition?
|
| But I'd go a step further, what is it that we're trying
| to prevent from happening by making facial recognition
| illegal? This is the juicy part and the one where the
| "problem" becomes wishy-washy. We get reasons like:
| "Prevent stalking by government officials", or "stop
| widespread surveillance from...[something]". All present
| their own challenges and implied slippery-slopes, but all
| have different ways of being solved without necessarily
| making public recording and facial recognition blanketly
| illegal.
| adolph wrote:
| All that seems trivial to type but less than trivial to
| implement.
| dunefox wrote:
| So?
| karmicthreat wrote:
| If someone throws a rock through a window, why shouldn't it
| be legal to run the surveillance through facial recognition?
| A crime was committed, we have a pic of the perpetrator.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Because recognition is incredibly flawed and biased and
| leads to false accusations ruining lives and costing people
| tens of thousands of dollars
| zo1 wrote:
| Everything is flawed and leads to false accusations, even
| something ridiculously black and white like electronic
| bank records. Witnesses, intoxication, bias, outright
| lying, guilt, etc. All evidence has flaws and potential
| bias. One need only look at all the false imprisonments
| that have happened over the years due to various bits of
| "evidence" to see that.
|
| Instead, we should take the opposite approach: Invest
| heavily in this tech, and lightly-regulate glaringly bad
| aspects of it. E.g. For facial recognition, we can put
| down laws that punish unfair punishment of suspects. Or
| if we find employers that misappropriate facial
| recognition developed to record hours worked on the
| factory floor to punish them for chatting or going to the
| bathroom too many times, and we don't like that, then we
| regulate that.
|
| We really went down the wrong path here somewhere,
| applying a black and white approach to things instead of
| just riding the in-between strategically and fairly.
| That's how we move forward as a society instead of
| legislating ourselves into irrelevance.
| tomschlick wrote:
| Facial recognition should never be considered evidence.
| It is a clue. A way to sift through tens of thousands of
| possible entries and narrow it down to 5 for a human to
| review. We need the legal framework to ensure its not
| used as evidence by itself, but the investigatory tool is
| very useful.
| karmicthreat wrote:
| True, it should not replace an eyes on review of matching
| suspects. But is a useful tool to reduce the pile you
| need to go through.
|
| Really, facial recognition just isn't getting weighed
| properly judicially.
| kbenson wrote:
| So is eyewitness testimony. That's why we have trials.
| The problem in the case of a crime committed like that is
| not that the technology is used, it's when people assume
| the technology is infallible, when there's plenty of
| evidence to the contrary (just like there's not plenty of
| evidence that eyewitness testimony is not infallible and
| often subject to a bunch of problems).
|
| If facial recognition is perceived as low accuracy, but
| can yield some leads for investigators that can be
| independently corroborated, that seems like a fine use of
| the technology. If we're worried about the public
| assuming it's more accurate than it is if used as
| evidence in trials, we can either pass some laws about
| its use as trial evidence (which is not the same as using
| it as a lead), or train defense attorneys and the public
| (often done through TV...) that it's use in the role of
| proving guilt is extremely limited because of it's false
| positive rate.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| > The key is in possession of the judicial system. It can
| only be decrypted and examined with a warrant, with probable
| cause, as you would need for wiretapping
|
| That's how you end up with the NSA and CIA being inside every
| single camera in the country :)
| vincnetas wrote:
| Including your phone ;)
| antris wrote:
| As if they aren't already.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| are they? or is this baseless speculation
| A_non_e-moose wrote:
| No quite baseless, more like speculation with established
| precedent, motive and opportunity.
| antris wrote:
| Snowden leaks
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| did the snowden leaks say they were in every camera
| antris wrote:
| For practical purposes, yes. The leaks showed how NSA has
| built a multi-layered data harvesting-archiving-searching
| machine that works not only through compromised hardware
| (including cameras), but also big company
| infrastructures, phone/email/SMS/internet browsing
| records and content, fiber optic cable tapping, hacking,
| installing bugs, spying and more.
|
| If the camera itself is not bugged, it likely is
| harvested at another step at some point and nothing's
| more clear that if NSA wants to see what a camera sees,
| they are able to tap it if needed. Sure, untapped cameras
| exist, but it doesn't really make a practical difference.
| The NSA will still have your information if it wants, and
| likely already has most of it.
| vngzs wrote:
| I don't know how long the records persist, but presumably
| for things like video surveillance footage the decay
| period would be quite fast. For full-text contents, less
| speedy but still fast. I can only truly envision long-
| term collection and storage of metadata - and even then,
| it's a big question how much is feasible and reasonable
| to store indefinitely.
|
| It's likely that for your security camera footage to be
| accessed you would have to be targeted. It's likely that
| such targeting would only affect footage in the future or
| very recent past. But I'd grant that pervasive attackers
| can probably capture exponentially-decaying single video
| frames from millions of cameras if they were
| appropriately motivated, and those single frames could go
| back quite far.
|
| The real problem here is the existence of such a system
| creates a kind of panopticon [0], with chilling effects
| not only on activity and discussion contrarian to the
| current administration, but also any future
| administration that may have access to electronic
| surveillance records. Without knowing how long records
| are kept, it is quite plausible that a future
| authoritarian state will misuse past records to target
| civilians.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
| hutzlibu wrote:
| You can regulate the NSA and CIA too, if you really want.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Those agencies both monitor and retaliate against members
| of Congress. The NSA and CIA regulate government, not the
| other way around.
| zip1234 wrote:
| The NSA and CIA are both foreign focused. The FBI is
| internally focused within the US.
| throwaway19937 wrote:
| Both agencies have a long history of illegal domestic
| surveillance.
|
| The NSA's warrantless surveillance program (https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(...) and
| the CIA's Operation CHAOS
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHAOS) are two
| examples of this behavior.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Tell that to John Kennedy.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| In theory, yes. In practice... no, unfortunately. The
| people of America seem to be fine with it.
|
| Actually, as another commenter mentioned, they probably
| already are doing it. It would be stupid to think
| otherwise.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| >> If you really want
|
| > The people of America seem to be fine with it.
|
| The people don't care that they're being watched. That's
| the main lesson I took from the snowden leaks. I think
| most people might even like it because they think it
| means there will be less crime.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| London is the surveillance capital of the world:
|
| London is often called the CCTV capital of the world, and for
| good reason. The city is home to hundreds of thousands of CCTV
| cameras, and the average Londoner is caught on CCTV 300 times a
| day.
|
| https://www.cctv.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-lo...
|
| Facial recognition software is being integrated now into this
| network. No one seems to mind at all. It seems that the same is
| in most of the rest of the world.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Not everywhere though, in Spain it's illegal to film the
| street. "In Spain, the law protects the rights of citizens to
| use public spaces, which is free from interference (Clavell et
| al., 2012)" If you want to live a functioning non-Orwellian
| society, move here.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Spain seems really competent right now compared to the UK,
| they even have a digital nomad visa for people outside the
| EU.
|
| With remote working being mainstream going forward I'm
| certainly going to consider somewhere with more sunshine and
| less harsh winters...
| novok wrote:
| They have bad economics and were living under a
| dictatorship in living memory. Those countries can do the
| best for a while once they free themselves from
| dictatorship.
| dmje wrote:
| The other easier option (although doesn't solve the
| sunshine problem..) is moving out of cities into rural
| areas. Very few cameras where we live in Cornwall.
| [deleted]
| Yottaqubyter wrote:
| If you do video calls through teams or similar when
| working remotely, internet speed would be a big issue,
| coupled with the abandon of a lot of rural areas in spain
| kenoph wrote:
| Explain this to the folks at home: https://www.reddit.com/r/e
| urope/comments/85qnx5/george_orwel...
| ricardobayes wrote:
| yes, having one CCTV is exactly the same situation as
| covering every square meter like in London. /s
| kenoph wrote:
| I most certainly didn't imply that (:
|
| But you did say it was illegal. Seems to me there are
| exceptions if that picture is to be trusted.e
| brk wrote:
| * London is the surveillance capital of the world*
|
| That's only because China does not release much information
| publicly about their surveillance systems, but many parts of
| China are most likely far more surveilled than London.
| danuker wrote:
| The network effects of large databases lead to an imbalance of
| power between surveillance and sousveillance: a personal face
| recognition DB will never match a government one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
|
| As such, we can not, say, catch not-so-publically-known but well-
| connected public officials where they should not be.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Obviously, a government has more power and more means than an
| individual.
|
| But when it comes to databases, individuals have access to
| ridiculously large databases too. With Facebook and Google you
| can peek into the private life of most people, even the police
| does it because there is more data there than in their own
| files. And I am just talking about ordinary access. Not what
| Facebook and Google can do as a company.
|
| Add a bit of social engineering and crowdsourcing and no one is
| safe if enough people want to find them. There have been some
| pretty impressive "doxing" in the past.
|
| And staying off social media is pretty hard if you want to live
| a normal life. You may not have a Facebook account but your
| friends do, you may find your picture on your company website,
| maybe even in a local newspaper. And officials are no
| different, if they want to live normally, they are going to be
| exposed.
| tartoran wrote:
| I see us wearing masks as a more general trend in the future.
| That would probably mess with all facial recognition systems
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agreed. My guess is that post pandemic, mask advocacy will flip
| to more reactionary elements as well.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Gait analysis/recognition covers that.
| donkarma wrote:
| wait until you put a pebble in your shoe
| spicybright wrote:
| I'd actually love to see if gait recognition gets screwed
| up by changing someones shoes (pebbles, extra size up,
| uneven platform height, etc)
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Gait analysis /recognition covers that._
|
| My wife has a hundred pairs of heels of varying heights and
| widths. Good luck with that.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| It was suggested in the early 2000s that a face could be tracked
| moving across London by the security services. What do we think,
| was it possible then? I have to assume by now they have intent
| monitoring everywhere and can probably tell when someone is doing
| things like planning a bombing etc.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Well, the Independent claimed in 2004 that the average Briton
| is caught on camera 300 times a day. [0] Since London probably
| has more than the average number of cameras per area, even if
| we wind the clock back 3-4 years, I suspect the answer is yes.
|
| ---
|
| [0]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/how-
| avera...
| antihero wrote:
| Which is an amazing number yet the MET seem incapable of
| solving most crimes.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| So why is that? Isn't this amount of surveillance basically
| a god tool?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It's a very large haystack.
| zo1 wrote:
| Because it's apparently taboo and dystopian to perform
| facial recognition and surveillance to help victims. Most
| of those cameras' and their recordings go into the void
| instead of some sort of central database that can be used
| for tracking criminals.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Probably because most of the cameras aren't hooked to
| anything centralised or necessarily known about. Which
| necessitates an enormous data gathering and combing
| operation to find any useful of which there might not
| actually be anything. Cameras aren't magic.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Solving real, victim-reported crimes requires effort,
| rarely scales and pretty much never brings any political
| clout.
|
| Solving bullshit manufactured crimes such as drug-related
| ones scales better, doesn't even require a victim to
| complain and provides seemingly-decent political clout and
| a veneer of "we're doing something, see?".
|
| What's the last time you heard about stolen bikes or phones
| being recovered on the BBC? Personally, never. But drug-
| related stuff is common.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| The vast majority of cameras in London are private
| installations, rather than something hooked up to some
| central system.
|
| There are the ring of steel cameras, but that area hasn't
| been widened recently. TFL cameras are possibly linked into
| some security service, and there's a fair few of them, but
| they're mainly pointed at roads.
| bsenftner wrote:
| "Intent monitoring" is fictional and does not exist beyond
| scifi stories and the journalist written articles selling fear
| about facial recognition. I work in the industry, there is no
| such thing as "intent monitoring".
| celeduc wrote:
| "Intent monitoring" is a euphemism for detecting the presence
| of the "wrong kind of people". It's not fictional at all.
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