[HN Gopher] UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of li...
___________________________________________________________________
UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of live facial
recognition
Author : belter
Score : 167 points
Date : 2023-05-22 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| EGreg wrote:
| [flagged]
| hkt wrote:
| For the elites who backed it - as opposed to the people who voted
| for it - Brexit was always a project about Americanising the UK.
| They're the same people forcing mayors on us, the same ones who
| wanted chlorinated chicken, the same ones who think american
| style private health insurance is a good way to run a healthcare
| system, and all the rest.
|
| So I'm not surprised that they think invasive surveillance
| capitalism is also a good thing.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| I'm a Hongkonger. The only thing I know about UK before moving
| to there is the Queen, and Manchester United.
|
| I'm curious of what British politics like in general. Like, I'm
| absolutely against invasive surveillance, but I associate it
| more with communist China and its authoritarian bullshit.
| hkt wrote:
| It is deeply authoritarian from Labour and the Conservatives.
| During the Troubles (eg, the Irish Republican Army bombing
| the UK and their opposite numbers in Northern Ireland doing
| the same) we practiced internment - eg mass incarceration
| without charge:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius
|
| We also routinely convicted people on flimsy charges, this
| being the most notorious case:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six
|
| A notoriously brutal policing operation split along ethnic
| lines:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ulster_Constabulary
|
| Infiltration of various groups by police with the sole
| purpose of surveilling and disrupting their activities:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2018/oct/15/undercover-p...
|
| Mass surveillance by GCHQ as documented by Snowden:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure.
| ..
|
| Rendition without trial (aka kidnapping) and torture:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/22/uk-support-
| cia...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone.
| ..
|
| London is the most surveiled city outside China:
|
| https://www.verdict.co.uk/most-surveilled-city/
|
| And last but not least, the Metropolitan Police is full of
| creeps, rapists and murderers:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58747614
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/28/met-
| police-p...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/22/fourth-
| offic...
|
| ...
|
| OK, one more, I give you.. indefinite prison sentences:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/28/call-to-
| rese...
|
| Edit: The pattern I'd identify throughout 200 years of our
| history is that we regularly "clamp down" on groups that are
| no threat (eg, Catholics, Irish people, and today Muslims)
| and radicals of any kind who wanted stuff like the vote, or
| socialised healthcare, or a decent environment. The pattern
| may well span longer, but I can definitely pick it up during
| that time.
|
| I don't think it is even a matter of national character,
| either: it is a function of how our politics works. We have
| two viable parties of government, and they don't contest
| certain things, including authoritarian policymaking.
| ThisIsNotNew wrote:
| Funny you say that because I know someone who picked
| Manchester after moving to UK from HK because he and his dad
| support Manchester United. He moved along with his brother,
| sister and retired parents, all under the HK visa. They are
| looking to buy two homes in Manc with their in savings.
|
| The newspapers are suggesting the new migrant stats to be
| published soon by Home Office for past 12 months will show
| extremely high numbers from both Hong Kong and Ukraine. To be
| honest I'm surprised people from Hong Kong didn't pick
| Australia instead of UK given it's better weather and bigger
| homes/roads compared to cramped England.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I have strong doubts that any company will care much about a
| British version of the GPDR. Even with the record fines, the GDPR
| is routinely disregarded. I can only assume that most companies
| will not care about applying special rules for the UK.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Well, yes, if UK is passing a law it is absolutely going to
| reduce privacy and rights.
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| canbus wrote:
| Roll on next GE.
| bb123 wrote:
| As if Auth-Left Labour wouldn't also love this.
| jacobp100 wrote:
| I don't really have a problem checking faces against a known
| police database - provided there's good laws about how people end
| up on that list. But people not on that list should not be
| tracked
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| The Eu loves to pretend to care about privacy until it comes to
| financial privacy.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| [flagged]
| deathgripsss wrote:
| The UK isn't even scrapping the "bendy banana" law
| https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/bendy-bananas-brexit-uk-e...
| jacobp100 wrote:
| The EU never banned bananas based on shape. It's a myth
| loo wrote:
| ** lie
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Oh, I thought they made it, but it was something the banana
| industry requested to have standards for trade.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/11/boris-
| johns...
|
| I always thought "journalists" whipping up outage over
| something the regulated industry requested(!) should be
| absolutely ashamed of themselves. This kind of "reporting"
| was probably a contributing factor in anti-EU sentiment and
| ultimately Brexit.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Reference:
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/news-and-
| pre...
| sofixa wrote:
| > blue passports
|
| Which are made in Poland. What a magnificent Brexit win!
| ktosobcy wrote:
| By a French company from what I heard.
| te_chris wrote:
| The wonder of the single market, innit.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> single market, innit_
|
| Why do you need to initialize the single market method?
| robinduckett wrote:
| And they're hardly blue. Closer to black.
| opless wrote:
| And very tacky.
|
| Literally. Tacky. Like 20 year old rubberised plastic going
| rotten.
|
| I felt compelled to buy a passport cover so I wasn't
| grossed out by the cover.
| ktosobcy wrote:
| Eh... https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/news-and-
| pre...
|
| So this is only a classification effort to help with inter-
| border trade, nothing else, nothing is banned...
| Havoc wrote:
| Can't say I'm surprised - london is famously cctv heavy
| mikelovenotwar wrote:
| For all the good it does....
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| It does lots of good. What's your point?
|
| ---
|
| Edit: I presume drive-by downvoters supported the conviction
| of Wayne Couzens?
| ex3ndr wrote:
| No, it is CCTV heavy, but most cameras are private, not public
| and not part of the single network.
| [deleted]
| londons_explore wrote:
| Writing a law that says it is illegal to do facial recognition
| with a computer, but okay do use humans to recognise other humans
| is stupid.
|
| The end result is you'll just have sweatshops of people watching
| CCTV streams clicking matching face images because it's illegal
| to get a computer to do it automatically.
| rsynnott wrote:
| The East Germans tried manual total surveillance. It didn't
| work. Like, it was a horrifically oppressive police state, but
| it fell short of the full potential of horrific police-state-
| ness largely due to practicalities.
|
| Automating mass surveillance is dangerous; it makes _possible_
| levels of societal control which simply weren't possible for
| even the most aggressively dedicated police states of the past.
| It's a bit of a Pandora's box, and probably best left closed.
| web3-is-a-scam wrote:
| Think of all the new jobs this will create! (/s if it's not
| obvious)
| detaro wrote:
| > _The end result is you 'll just have sweatshops of people
| watching CCTV streams clicking matching face images because
| it's illegal to get a computer to do it automatically._
|
| Good luck explaining how that isn't "data processing".
| lopis wrote:
| You'll never be able to do with people what computer vision
| systems do today, no matter how many people you hire. We're way
| past that.
| hkt wrote:
| The end result is that it isn't economical or practical to do
| it. Which is a resoundingly good thing.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Precisely. Which is also why we need strong E2EE assurances.
| I heard the argument that physical phone lines have already
| been prone to interception so banning E2EE (or mandating
| backdoors) would be similar. The difference is that
| wiretapping requires a lot of work and is expensive and as
| such _has_ to be done only for specific cases. Backdooring
| E2EE means cheap population-level surveillance.
| afavour wrote:
| This kind of thing was always my biggest worry going into Brexit.
| The country has to reimplement a ton of regulation and you _know_
| the government and its various hangers on won't be able to resist
| "tweaking" every law and regulation to better favour them.
|
| Workers rights, human rights... it's all up for negotiation now.
| By people who aren't listening to you.
| DannyBee wrote:
| "By people who aren't listening to you."
|
| This is the part everyone wants to say but isn't right. They
| are usually listening to people, just not people who agree with
| _you_ :)
|
| One of the grand follies is to assume politicians are not doing
| what their constituents support.
|
| They almost always are, and often enjoy incredibly high local
| support/satisfaction ratings, even when the national ones are
| in the toilet.
|
| They spend significant amounts of time polling and
| understanding how their constituents will react to issues and
| votes.
|
| Now, you may want to argue those constituents are ignorant, or
| don't know what the vote really means, or whatever, but it's a
| sideshow.
|
| I often see people say "well 70% of people in the country
| support X so politicians aren't listening". But when you break
| it down, they are _usually_ voting in alignment with
| constituent support, and it 's just a variant of Simpson's
| paradox in action (overall population vs subgroups).
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Regional constituencies allow politicians to select the
| voters they want in many respects. The UK might look very
| different if they had a party list or some other form of PR.
| jabradoodle wrote:
| Well, for example, our national politicans have delayed a
| plan to clean our waters (that are almost all polluted to a
| level illegal under EU law) until 2063. They are clearly not
| representing the people even on non partisan issues.
| [deleted]
| sfe22 wrote:
| The good news is UK is democracy, so no need to worry.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| /s presumably.
|
| We're so democratic we lock up people who look like they
| might be going to protest against us having rulers selected
| by accident of birth, rulers we are forced to spend PS10s of
| PSMillions 'celebrating' despite them being some of the
| richest people in the World. You can't get more democratic
| than that! Good job everyone here has more than enough, so
| it's not at all immoral. /s
| martinald wrote:
| But it's clear GDPR isn't working as intended. The compliance
| costs are absolutely enormous and EU member state national
| courts are leading to rule virtually every tech product being
| in noncompliance with it, as it so broad.
|
| It's likely to lead to the quasi-ban of LLMs sooner rather than
| later in the EU. This is going to be an enormous challenge to
| the EUs tech industry if UK and US firms can use LLMs but EU
| companies can't.
|
| While I lean remain; some people seem to have serious blind
| spots that a _lot_ of EU legislation is poorly thought out and
| given the slow pace of change extremely hard to revoke once it
| is in force (cf the ridiculous cookie banners; which were
| implemented in law in 2002 and _still_ haven't been changed,
| despite 10+ years of efforts to do so in the EU institutions).
| It's going to be even worse with the EU Digital Services Act,
| where being in compliance with GDPR and the DSA is a lawyers
| dream, as from what I understand it directly contradicts each
| other.
| pjc50 wrote:
| How _do_ you make an LLM trained on people's personal
| information comply with privacy law?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Depends on how you define privacy. If definitely accessing
| the data to train it was illegal/wrong, then you can't. But
| if that is ok, then the question is to what application
| will the LLM be applied? A generalized chat interface
| probably would be able to regurgitate private information.
| But things like reasoning engine, or recommendation system
| plugged into other downstream systems where the raw output
| isn't expose very much could work. There are a hundred new
| startups everyday it seems that are some kind of wrapper on
| top of an LLM applied to a niche use case. Many of these
| should be able to preserve privacy.
| it_citizen wrote:
| What does "working as intended" means?
|
| Some sibling comments challenge that it doesn't help reduce
| the amount of private data stored.
|
| I would argue that GDPR is working as intended on the
| economic war front. The US weaponized their extraterritorial
| anti-corruption laws, China is also building similar legal
| weapons, GDPR is part of the european answer to that: a
| framework to catch up with other super powers who can
| pressure foreign companies whenever it pleases them.
| chpatrick wrote:
| > The compliance costs are absolutely enormous and EU member
| state national courts are leading to rule virtually every
| tech product being in noncompliance with it, as it so broad.
|
| Isn't that intended?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Not really. The ideal is to have companies that are
| delivering functionality while still respecting user's data
| rights. Apple's products are probably the closest to this
| ideal, given their incentives aren't about harvesting user
| data to sell ads. I'm sure there are some techno-alarmists
| that would like to either shut everything or significantly
| slow the pace of innovation - but the broader vision is one
| of delivering both value and safety without unreasonable
| overhead.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| "There's no way to rule honest men..."
| phatfish wrote:
| Lets face it, an above average number of people commenting
| here work in covertly monetizing our personal data, as
| there seems to be quite a few of them rubbed the wrong way
| by the GDPR I can only conclude it's working rather well.
| input_sh wrote:
| That's a significant group of people for sure, but I'd
| add two more groups:
|
| - A group that think GDPR = cookie law and there's
| nothing more written in it. Never any discussion about,
| say, forcing companies to report a data breach within 72h
| of detection. Or about being able to download your data,
| or forcing a company to remove your data, or...
|
| - A group that think passing a new law = everyone is
| going to comply immediately and one random website that
| they know of that doesn't comply but wasn't sued yet into
| submission = GDPR was a mistake.
| afavour wrote:
| > While I lean remain; some people seem to have serious blind
| spots that a _lot_ of EU legislation is poorly thought
|
| Oh, I'm not blind to it. My calculation is a simple one:
| looking at where we were and where are now, where would I
| prefer to be? For me it's not a difficult conclusion.
|
| > This is going to be an enormous challenge to the EUs tech
| industry if UK and US firms can use LLMs but EU companies
| can't
|
| Sure, but your argument completely disregards the privacy
| concerns which is the reason the EU has done what it's done.
| It's possible for Europe to decide that it's worth the cost
| in potential business to protect the privacy of its citizens.
| That's essentially what GDPR decided, after all.
|
| (FWIW I've worked on GDPR implementations, I'm not so
| convinced it's a failure. It lead to a very meaningful drop
| in the amount of personal information the company was
| storing. The compliance costs were not particularly huge
| ongoing costs, just upfront implementation ones)
| Silhouette wrote:
| The EU isn't really protecting the privacy of its citizens
| with the GDPR as much as people think for at least two
| reasons.
|
| First there is the practical implementation. As we've seen
| the current stand-off between US government security laws
| and EU government privacy laws is still being decided in
| favour of transferring personal data for processing in the
| US. That might even be the preferable way to break the
| deadlock for the immediate future because the cost to the
| European economy and particularly the tech sector of
| suddenly cutting off all US-based services when the EU has
| no native competitors would be enormous and as things stand
| that appears to be the only safe way to guarantee legal
| compliance on both sides of the Atlantic.
|
| There is also the hypocrisy angle. The GDPR allows for EU
| government access to personal data under their own security
| laws that is not so different to what the US laws allow the
| US government to have. There are definitely some double
| standards in the typical arguments about how the GDPR
| protects personal data from unwarranted government
| intrusion and overly broad security laws.
|
| I'm also firmly in the pro-privacy camp on principle but
| the rules do still need to be workable or everyone is just
| going to ignore them anyway. It's not clear to me that the
| way the GDPR is currently being used against big US tech
| companies is a good way to go.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > cutting off all US-based services when the EU has no
| native competitors would be enormous
|
| I think you have it wrong way round - EU business was
| late, and 5he market was sevured by US corps. I dont
| think EU will ban US business, but if they did, that
| would create opportunity for homegrown co petition to
| emerge. By now, cloud services are not rocket science.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _I dont think EU will ban US business, but if they did,
| that would create opportunity for homegrown co petition
| to emerge._
|
| That's one theory. The problem is the several years of
| lag time between the opportunity being created and anyone
| actually exploiting it at scale. In the meantime
| countless SMEs that depend on modern online services for
| their day to day operations would probably have failed.
|
| _By now, cloud services are not rocket science._
|
| And yet the US keeps producing them at a far higher rate
| than we do over here. Much of that has been due to the
| VCs almost casually giving away millions in funding in
| the hope of backing the next unicorn among all the
| failures, which is an investment culture you don't see so
| much in Europe. But there are also reasons investors tend
| to favour some countries over others and the regulatory
| environment is usually second on that list (after
| taxes/subsidies) if it's not first.
|
| And in their regulatory environments the EU and US are
| almost polar opposites. The US is very lightly regulated
| (apart from the problems of regulatory capture, where the
| US seems to do much worse when it does happen) but that
| means tech firms engage in practices we might not like.
| The EU is very heavily regulated but that means added
| overheads even for well-behaved businesses that can
| eventually add up to being less competitive in a global
| market. Maybe there is a sweet spot in between but
| certainly neither the US nor the EU have found it yet.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > It's likely to lead to the quasi-ban of LLMs sooner rather
| than later in the EU
|
| It won't be GDPR but newer regs
|
| > This is going to be an enormous challenge to the EUs tech
| industry if UK and US firms can use LLMs but EU companies
| can't
|
| I'm sure they'll find a way
|
| > a _lot_ of EU legislation is poorly thought out and given
| the slow pace of change extremely hard to revoke once it is
| in force
|
| Kinda, but things don't change only by the original
| legislative process, but by subsequent regulations, agency
| reviews (like data protection organisms), judicial reviews,
| etc
|
| > which were implemented in law in 2002 and _still_ haven't
| been changed, despite 10+ years of efforts to do so in the EU
| institutions
|
| I'd love to know what kind of discussions went in regards to
| the cookie law and GDPR in legislative reviews. I'm sure it's
| all logged in a very verbose way in multiple websites and it
| would be some effort to get it all together
|
| And the AI act worries me, but we know that actual
| enforcement and definitions and wiggle rooms exists (and as
| with GDPR, enforcement is kinda patchy)
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Right, it isn't working. Facebook/Meta was fined a billion
| today, but still will not respect user's privacy.
| malfist wrote:
| Sounds like it needs stronger teeth. Not to be neutered.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| I hoped it was clear that I was referencing the previous
| post, where compliance costs where said to be too high,
| by countering that fines are too low.
|
| Yes, we need more effective GDPR, not less.
| clnq wrote:
| I feel like "it doesn't work as intended so it never
| will, do not try" - an argument very frequently said by
| cynics, is the antithesis of the indomitable human spirit
| and human achievement. It's very harmful to anyone trying
| to do anything challenging.
|
| Imagine if this was one of the principal virtues in human
| civilizations. Where would humanity be? Would we know the
| Earth is round and not the centre of the universe? Would
| we have vaccines or antibiotics? Would we have most of
| our art and literature? Would simple technologies like
| irrigation even exist? We would probably not have any
| advancements past about middle ages.
|
| I don't understand why so many cynics tell this to others
| these days. Do they genuinely have a mindset that nothing
| is worth trying if it failed the first time?
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > Do they genuinely have a mindset that nothing is worth
| trying if it failed the first time?
|
| No. But the way you first picked to do the thing is very
| likely impossible to make work. Don't decide on a
| mechanism, like cookies, and fixate on it without regard
| for practicality or effectiveness.
|
| Preventing invisible tracking is probably a good goal
| that's worth iterating on but making sites pop up a list
| of good and bad tracking and being allowed to track the
| people who accidentally don't click "No!" seems like an
| entirely failed way to go about this.
|
| If tracking is bad then stop it for everyone, not just
| people who clicked the correct thing. If some tracking is
| generally bad but allowable for certain functionality
| then mandate that tracking is only applied once the user
| had opted in, etc. Don't make users mark "Don't steal my
| organs while I sleep" on the hotel paperwork.
| clnq wrote:
| > No. But the way you first picked to do the thing is
| very likely impossible to make work. Don't decide on a
| mechanism, like cookies, and fixate on it without regard
| for practicality or effectiveness.
|
| GDPR is not about cookies. Cookies are mentioned only
| once in the entire legal text as an example of a
| technology that can be used to associate users with
| personally identifiable data. If there is no risk for
| this association, GDPR does not care about cookies.
|
| GDPR is about ethically acquiring and handling personal
| data.
| pgeorgi wrote:
| The GDPR allows for a bunch more escalations. Both in fines
| (that isn't 4% of global revenue yet) and in consequences
| (e.g. being all but expelled from the EU single market)
| pnw wrote:
| I'm in the EU this week and I had no idea that the cookie
| banners were so obnoxious, every site has a huge page
| blocking banner, and plenty of US news sites seem to block EU
| traffic entirely. I had to use a VPN to access some sites.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Funnily enough the ones that block are usually "State/City
| local news" website, which have a tiny, if not null EU
| audience already (meaning in practice nobody would care)
|
| Now if the popups are obnoxious whose fault is it? (To
| answer that just notice how many other obnoxious
| popups/overlays/etc the same site has about other stuff)
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| All sites not run by shit-heads have a "reject all non-
| essential cookies and close button" clearly displayed.
|
| They could just choose to honour "do not track", but I
| realise they want the money. Most large sites seem to have
| added the "reject all" button when it appeared that this
| was necessary for compliance. Those that did not don't care
| if they comply.
|
| Obnoxious banners are a choice. If we didn't have them the
| choices of site -owner's wouldn't be less obnoxious, they
| would just be hidden.
|
| It's like the warning your car makes 'put your seatbelt
| on'; sucks, but better than it not existing.
| sharperguy wrote:
| Could have been a great opportunity to try to actually improve
| things rather than adding loopholes for the benefit of special
| interests. Maybe with the right people in power that could
| still be achieved, but seems unlikely.
| blitzar wrote:
| > Could have been a great opportunity to try to actually
| improve things rather than adding loopholes for the benefit
| of special interests.
|
| The reality is that the EU legislation was toxic and
| loopholed at the behest of the UK and its special interests.
| The UK was not a moderating influence, but the UK was the one
| calling for no encryption and spying of the population.
|
| If given a chance to improve or remove legislation the UK
| government will remove it NOT because its an assault on
| freedom and liberty, but because they dont think it goes far
| enough in curtailing freedom and liberty.
| hawk_ wrote:
| Yes, very well explained in Yes Minister
| https://youtu.be/37iHSwA1SwE
| morkalork wrote:
| Just started watching the series this weekend; it holds
| up shockingly well. The only sad thing is it's almost not
| cynical enough when compared to today's politics.
| verisimi wrote:
| Well said.
|
| As a UK national, I have to prefer being beaten with relish
| by genuine sadists (the UK government), rather than by
| sadists who pretend to have some heart left over.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Mission accomplished! Good luck with, well, everything &
| looking forward to seeing you in back in the Union within
| 2 generations! Without the prior exemptions & special
| treatment, naturally.
| ThisIsNotNew wrote:
| Many Brits against Brexit and who want to rejoin EU
| disagree and believe EU wants UK back so much it'll offer
| the same terms as before.
| [deleted]
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I don't have any skin in this particular game but it sure
| seems to me that the UK is the one who stands to gain the
| most out of this particular transaction...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That arrangement of incentives seems about as likely as
| the US agreeing to take the UK on as the fifty-first
| state.
| blibble wrote:
| I mean if you're all about maximising economic gain over
| sovereignty: joining the much larger (and growing) US
| makes much more sense than the declining EU
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Curb your schadenfreude. The way things are going, there
| may not be a union in two generations.
|
| Most EU countries have an ultra-right wing, nationalist
| and euroskeptic party in their parliament (I just don't
| want to say "fascist"). At least three (Italy, Hungary
| and Poland) have one in government. In France, Mme Le Pen
| has consistently got to the second round of presidential
| elections for the last ... three? Four? elections?
|
| Things aren't going well.
| Timon3 wrote:
| It could have been, but realistically only if the goal is
| "find problems in current legislation and improve". They
| started from "repeal current legislation and replace". It's
| like a developer deciding to just rewrite the legacy system,
| it won't lead you to your desired outcome.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| It won't lead to desirable outcomes for the country, but it
| will lead to desirable outcomes for the Tory's increasingly
| fascist oligarchy, presumably.
|
| Johnson was asked directly about workers rights prior to
| Brexit and said that we would improve them and that it was
| so totally wrong of Remainers to assume any rights would be
| eroded... and no-one paying attention is surprised to find
| that was a lie. But it probably worked for a small margin
| of voters in the referendum.
| zepn wrote:
| > Could have been a great opportunity to try to actually
| improve things rather than adding loopholes for the benefit
| of special interests.
|
| But the kind of people who want the policy that Brexit is -
| i.e. xenophobic nationalists - are not the kind of people
| you'd want to take such an opportunity.
|
| Membership of the EU was a great opportunity. Brexit is an
| opportunity for fascists.
| trackflak wrote:
| > Brexit is an opportunity for fascists.
|
| I'd be curious to hear how exiting the European Union
| relates to the doctrines of Benito Mussolini.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Good news, Mussolini is dead so there aren't fascists
| anymore! They entire ethos was strictly and solely
| related to that specific time and place and is now a
| historical curiosity only!
|
| Phew, that was a close one!
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I don't know, you're talking about a surveillance-crazy
| culture, I don't see them shying away from facial
| recognition.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yeah, as with the US people will accept or even demand
| almost any authoritarian measure in the UK so long as it's
| used against people they don't like. But with some special
| UK pathologies.
| captainbland wrote:
| We love it. When we can't afford real CCTV, we hang fake
| cameras up practically as decorations. Asda even shows you
| a picture of your own face with a little green box around
| it to show they've got you and then allegedly just discards
| the data from it: https://fullfact.org/online/Asda-facial-
| recognition/
|
| Even when it's legally dubious we'll do our damnedest to
| look like we're surveilling the ** out of you.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| While I enjoy the candor and tone to your post, the
| content makes me a little uneasy. It just can't be good
| for society.
|
| That said, I didn't think London was nearly as bad a
| Singapore for number of cameras. And their aren't closed,
| I have no doubt that's all to a central store, facial,
| and AI all rolling now.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If anything, the UK take on surveillance was (for me as a
| visiting American) hugely de-stressing.
|
| In the US, I worry that some anonymous fellow citizen
| packing heat is going to snap and decide to execute a
| lifestyle change on me I didn't ask for and then melt
| away, unaccountable. The US unsolved murder rate is at a
| record high. Between the lack of firearm rights and the
| ubiquitous surveillance, I never had that fear in the UK.
| mijamo wrote:
| You didn't need Brexit to "improve" this kind of things,
| countries can already go beyond EU regulations on their own.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The British system (parliamentary sovereignty) means your
| rights are ONLY what the current government decides. There is
| no way to establish fundamental rights the way the US can
| with an Amendment. So any improvement you get post brexit is
| only worth a damn until the next change of whim of
| parliament.
|
| Personally, I would take a guaranteed "90% right" system (aka
| the EU) over a random number generator (aka Brexit)...
| dijit wrote:
| Yes, but this is _the UK government_. They are not
| benevolent. At every opportunity presented: they erode our
| rights, unless it has _significant_ public support and costs
| absolutely nothing. (like gay marriage).
|
| As soon as anything impedes special interests even slightly,
| be sure it will be legislated out of existence if possible.
|
| One argument brexiteers trot out commonly is that EU
| regulations make it hard to be competitive. But human rights
| should impede "competition" otherwise it's a race to the
| bottom.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| To be completely honest, I was surprised and disappointed
| at the amount of resources and time spent by the UK's
| government to infringe on the free-speech rights of
| pacifist anti-monarchists protesters.
|
| This contrasted with the weak response from the government
| after the sordid London bridge attacks, with the mayor even
| stating that "Terror attacks are 'part and parcel of living
| in a big city'". Is this what people in the UK want?
| verisimi wrote:
| Right. But I don't think the EU is better!
|
| I mean, everytime I go to a new site, what cookies am I going
| to accept...? What ridiculous yet boring puzzle is going to try
| to trick me into giving this or that info over? Thanks EU!
| RedNifre wrote:
| That's not EU, that's actually illegal under EU law. EU law
| requires that the "reject all" option is as easy to identify
| and click than the other ones.
| lwhi wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| The nice thing about being part of the EU was that we had a
| second level of sanity involved in our jurisdiction ..
| especially important when we have inept dangerous parties in
| control.
| kmlx wrote:
| the regulation is a joke anyway, so why pretend? same with gdpr
| and the so called online privacy. it's all smoke and mirrors
| with an added serving of mixed anti-americanism and european
| protectionism. they should remove everything from the books
| until these things have heft. and if they can't come up with
| something serious, why legislate in the first place? just for
| populism's sake? (eg UK's online safety bill)
| tobylane wrote:
| What is heft in this context?
| wafflemaker wrote:
| What you call a joke does work albeit slowly. Most of pages
| have a 'reject all' button now. It didn't get there in the
| first iteration, but the effect is nice now. As a bonus, you
| quickly see who works in bad faith, by how it's implemented.
| Macha wrote:
| Sadly the reject all became widespread as companies
| switched over to negating it by hiding "legitimate
| interest" toggles in multiple sublevels of expandables.
| dijit wrote:
| That used to work when it was just the cookie law, it
| doesn't work any longer. It must be "as easy" to opt in
| as it is to opt out, because of this dark pattern
| specifically.
| Macha wrote:
| Sure, there's the rules as written, and there's the
| actual behaviour of companies, and I think it's clear
| there's still a need for fines (and more of them) until
| companies start to comply and stop coming up with wishful
| workarounds to opt users in by default and then complain
| the law is unclear when they get smacked for an action
| that was clearly against the spirit of the law.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| It's a joke because it demonizes a specific technology
| which is only tangentially related to the goal. Imagine if
| we wanted to make drive-by shootings illegal and rather
| than passing a murder law your politicians criminalized
| having windows in cars.
|
| Cookies are the _least offensive_ tracking technology. They
| 're visible to users and the interactions with them can be
| seen. The EU _should_ have mandated that all tracking has
| to be implemented as a cookie so that users could see it
| and block it themselves. Instead they added a lot of cruft
| and legal risk to every website and it doesn 't make anyone
| "safer".
|
| > you quickly see who works in bad faith
|
| No, and that's the ultimate fail. You click the button and
| feel safe but you can't see the server-side logs so it's
| entirely a false sense of security.
|
| If you want to stop tracking, make the law about tracking
| not about the current methods.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| The law is about tracking, in fact it's about data
| protection which is a step removed from tracking,
| tracking is just a principal route to PII acquisition.
|
| The acquisition needs to be through informed consent and
| the data retention needs to be for the reasons consented
| to and not extend for periods beyond that (unless you
| need to keep data to comply with other laws, eg tax).
| nancyhn wrote:
| You may be surprised by how this plays out. UK has a golden
| opportunity, as Paul Graham recently wrote:
|
| _I knew EU regulators would be freaking out about AI. I didn
| 't anticipate that this freaking out would take the form of
| unbelievably stupid draft regulations, though in retrospect
| it's obvious. Regulators gonna regulate.
|
| At this point if I were a European founder planning to do an AI
| startup, I might just pre-emptively move elsewhere. The chance
| that the EU will botch regulation is just too high. Even if
| they noticed and corrected the error (datum: cookie warnings),
| it would take years.
|
| Now that I think about it, this could be a huge opportunity for
| the UK. If the UK avoided making the same mistakes, they could
| be a haven from EU AI regulations that was just a short flight
| away.
|
| It would be fascinating if the most important thing about
| Brexit, historically, turned out to be its interaction with the
| AI revolution. But history often surprises you like that._
| rsynnott wrote:
| Well, no, it doesn't _have_ to. There's little stopping the UK
| from holding onto what it has. Brexit provided an amount of
| political cover to remake the law if it _wanted_ to, though.
| EliRivers wrote:
| When the UK was in the EU, I was protected from some of the
| worst excesses of the UK government. The UK didn't leave the EU
| to make those protections _stronger_...
| afavour wrote:
| No, no, no, you've got it all wrong. You were subject to the
| _tyranny_ of _bureaucrats_.
| gpderetta wrote:
| What have the Romans EU ever done for us?
| moffkalast wrote:
| The single market?
|
| What?
|
| The single market.
|
| Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true.
| Yeah.
|
| And the peace funds.
|
| Oh, yeah, the peace funds, Reg. Remember what Northern
| Ireland used to be like?
|
| Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the single market and the
| peace funds are two things that the EU have done.
|
| And the Erasmus programme.
|
| Well, yeah. Obviously the Erasmus programme. I mean, that
| goes without saying, doesn't it? But apart from the peace
| funds, the single market, and the Erasmus programme--
|
| Food standards.
|
| GDPR.
|
| Huh? Heh? Huh...
|
| Climate policies.
|
| Ohh...
|
| Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
|
| And the chorizo.
|
| Oh, yes. Yeah...
|
| Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if we
| left the EU. Huh.
|
| Cross-border healthcare.
|
| And it's easier to travel to Spain now, Reg.
|
| Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face
| it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
|
| All right, but apart from the single market, GDPR,
| climate policies, chorizo, order, food standards, Erasmus
| programme, a cross-border healthcare system, and peace
| funds, what has the EU ever done for us?
|
| Prevented wars?
|
| Oh shut up!
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| [flagged]
| nindalf wrote:
| For those not in the know, this is from the movie _Life
| of Brian_ (1979) which takes place in Roman Judea. A
| potential rebel tries to rile up his comrades with the
| rhetorical question "what have the Romans ever done for
| us?!" Apparently, quite a lot.
|
| https://youtu.be/Qc7HmhrgTuQ
| dijit wrote:
| Parody here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA
| pier25 wrote:
| Brillant!
| jklrtx wrote:
| Meanwhile, Sunak is celebrating himself with a nauseating
| propaganda video:
|
| https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1660560546465193984
|
| Look how clean and groomed our dear leaders are while they are
| surveilling the population and ruin the economy. Whatever it
| takes!
| [deleted]
| kmlx wrote:
| i find that video to be pretty well made. what exactly is the
| problem here?
| phatfish wrote:
| Defending democracy in Ukraine is one of the few instances
| where I agree with the current UK government.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| 100% agree.
|
| For all the things I can think of to complain about our
| current government, this is not one of them.
| concordDance wrote:
| This doesn't seem like a productive comment.
| dewclin wrote:
| Returning back to the OT of surveillance and oversight, and as
| you're making this into a partisan issue, what would Labour do
| differently?
|
| "Authoritarian" concerns were expressed last time Labour was in
| government [1], and they're "seriously considering"
| resurrecting their policy of mandatory id cards if they get in
| power again [2].
|
| And, before I get smeared as a "Tory"/"Brexiteer", I am not -
| I'm someone who remembers what happened last time Labour was in
| power and see neither party offers an alternative to increasing
| surveillance in the UK.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/apr/24/commen...
|
| [2] https://labourlist.org/2022/11/mandatory-id-card-policy-
| shou...
| captainbland wrote:
| Authoritarianism is very much so bi-partisan in UK politics.
|
| That said I do think the Tories have taken it to the n-th
| degree recently, though. It's unlikely that Labour would
| introduce new bills that are quite as heavy handed as the
| Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 but I imagine
| they're unlikely to unwind what is currently there now.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| Lots of EU countries have ID cards, this is not something
| enabled by Brexit. I don't really get the dystopian angle to
| it either. Do countries with ID cards see them as
| authoritarian?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The UK's aversion to ID cards is weird as they are
| perfectly happy with HMRC having a database entry for them
| for example, so the government _already_ has a record of
| everyone.
| lstodd wrote:
| Those are two different things. HMRC may have numbers,
| but you're not required to get them tattooed on your arm.
| Which is the ID card scheme in fact is.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's not an arm tattoo, it's an ID card.
|
| The sad thing is that the UK has inflicted all the
| negative aspects of ID requirements on people without the
| consolation prize of a universal free ID.
|
| If you have a job, rent a house, or have a bank account
| in the UK, you must have a government ID at the moment.
| Because people wanted that requirement barrier built so
| it could be used against immigrants.
| brigandish wrote:
| If you're required to have it on you at all times outside
| of your own property then it is effectively no different
| to an arm tattoo.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| You would not though, so it's not.
|
| You might as well say we should not have police because
| if they're required to beat you up if they saw you commit
| a crime then that would be bad. It would, but they're
| not, and it's the people who would intend that who you
| should oppose.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| How is _having_ an ID card a requirement to tattoo a
| number on your arm? Nobody is advocating for mandatory
| "ID please" checkpoints everywhere, merely providing a
| standardized way to pass through existing checkpoints
| (AML/KYC in the bank, etc).
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| We had a trial run of "papers please" just a couple of
| years ago. You were forbidden from traveling more than
| 1km from your house lest you get fined 1500 euros.
| brigandish wrote:
| > Nobody is advocating for mandatory "ID please"
| checkpoints everywhere
|
| Why would anyone who wanted mandatory "ID please"
| checkpoints advocate for them before introducing ID cards
| when:
|
| a) it makes no sense to advocate for them prior, there's
| a natural sequence of dependencies.
|
| b) it would hinder the introduction of ID cards and
| hence, mandatory "ID please" checkpoints.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > a) it makes no sense to advocate for them prior,
| there's a natural sequence of dependencies.
|
| We had that back when the government made it mandatory to
| have ID to be employed or have a bank account or rent a
| house. Not having an ID scheme didn't prevent it being
| made a requirement.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > as you're making this into a partisan issue
|
| Criticising the current PM doesn't automatically make it a
| partisan issue IMHO.
|
| Personally I don't actually care what party they're in. I
| care how {badly} the {party who are currently in power} are
| running the country.
|
| > neither party offers an alternative to increasing
| surveillance in the UK
|
| I agree. They're all worthy of criticsm at the moment. And
| particularly the ones currently in power.
| dewclin wrote:
| > Criticising the current PM doesn't automatically make it
| a partisan issue IMHO.
|
| In hindsight I was wrong to say that; it was a bad choice
| of words. I agree with you. Thanks.
| i2cmaster wrote:
| [flagged]
| clnq wrote:
| A prompt to do it yourself:
|
| > GPT-4, make a generic 90-second UK political ad script about
| a G7 meeting in Japan. We don't have much footage, so slow it
| down and fill it with B-roll. Focus on nonspecific virtues,
| like freedom and peace. Include quotes from the main
| politician, and even though it's a video about G7, do a section
| on Zelensky and Ukrainian conflict.
|
| It keeps writing much better scripts though.
| aftbit wrote:
| I want my own private live facial recognition in the form of a
| social secretary that reminds me the names of people that I have
| met before. That would be a killer app for AR for me.
| malfist wrote:
| Honestly, as a person with prosopagnosia, I would kill for a
| google glass style AR that could just tell me names after
| someone gets a haircut
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-22 23:01 UTC)