The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here • Hacker News Board

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#141

Post by Springtime » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 12:28 PM UTC

shabbyrobe wrote: post #67

macNchz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've spent years saving up to finally buy a home. You're having a baby in a few months, and you really need the space. You have the down payment ready, your credit is great, you've ticked all the boxes on the application, but you're turned down for the loan. Why? Maybe you walk home through a bad neighborhood. Maybe you sometimes grab a beer at a bit of a divey bar near your office. Maybe you've visited an old frie…

I've tried this one on lay people before. The problem I have is that they usually can't get past their firm belief that these things are technologically impossible, even after you explain to them that they are. "That all sounds like science fiction, that can't happen in the real world." Also it can fall down if you don't stick only to directly relatable details: "but I don't walk through a bad neighbourhood, so this…

> Also it can fall down if you don't stick only to directly relatable details: "but I don't walk through a bad neighbourhood, so this wouldn't affect me and therefore I don't see how it could be a problem". The instant it ceases to speak to their experience directly, you've lost them.

There is a superb essay written by a law professor that was posted to HN a while back entitled "I've got nothing to hide'' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [1] which tackled the problem with the way privacy is commonly framed (and limited) in such discussions, going into detail about the nature and definition of privacy, mass surveillance, and the difficulty in getting the point across.

One of the issues covered it that often privacy discussions hinge on singular arguments and hypothetical examples that become ineffectual when they don't relate to or affect a person's own experience, or use analogies that don't hold up well. The lack of news stories covering the real world effects of privacy harm, 'dead bodies' as one person put it, also make it hard for people to care for the tangible consequences. Now more than ever there are articles being written on company breaches and database hacks yet the problems we face from mass surveillance are a different, broader and legalized kind, the effect of which still isn't clear to a lot of people even with what we know.

Inevitably though people tend to look after their own interests, and if it doesn't affect them and they have no way to change it there are those that simply don't care.

[1] PDF: http://tehlug.org/files/solove.pdf

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#142

Post by gglitch » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 2:10 PM UTC

My default interpretive framework when I read something like this is, of course, nearly hysterical paranoia and sociopolitical despair. And, speaking as objectively as possible, I think those are not invalid responses. However, for the moment, I'm instead trying to imagine sociology/psychology of the first generation to grow up native to this environment, and I admit that it's fascinating to think about. What will the teenagers be like who grow up expecting to be identified and known everywhere they go, by friend and foe alike? How will it affect manners, speech, courtship rituals, expectations for entertainment/education/employment? Etc. So strange.

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#143

Post by tjr » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

15155 wrote: post #97

tjr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS has been advocating against using store cards for years. I guess in-store facial recognition could thwart the privacy efforts of people like him? (To some degree?)

Unless he's using cash, make no mistake, his purchases are being tracked in some capacity. Why do you need a store card when a credit/debit card track has more than enough information to identify? - Card number (useful on its own as an identifier) - Name (not perfect, decent secondary info) Granted, these don't generally make for a super-continuous history on someone, but they're pretty decent for the average person…

Unless he's using cash

He is.

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#144

Post by avn2109 » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:06 PM UTC

Estragon wrote: post #101

avn2109 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If history is any guide, you've got the surveillance directionality mixed up here. Most fallen regimes that we have good records for - e.g. the Khmer Rouge, the Nazis, and (kind of) the East Germans had various factions competing overtly or covertly for power. Each faction had an intelligence service constructing dossiers on/blackmailing the chiefs and other interesting people associated with other factions. The nomi…

This is a strange perspective on the history. Why are you emphasizing comparison to the Khmer Rouge and the Nazis, and dismissing the similarity to the East Germans? Why not look at what domestic intelligence has actually already done in the US, which seems quite reminiscent of the Stasi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung

I just mean that the surviving Stasi records are incomplete. The Stasi parallels to our own surveillance state are indeed eerie.

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#145

Post by pms » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:07 PM UTC

It is a scary vision. However, the scary part seems to come not so much from the increasing data availability, but rather from the increased likelihood of discriminatory uses of such data. Enforcing non-discriminatory uses of data sounds like a hard problem to tackle, especially if we realize how diverse is the space of possible missuses (e.g., in law enforcements, business, and politics) and that this problem affects both humans and computer systems. As hard as this problem sounds, the article provides a great motivation for research that defines computationally what "discriminatory" means, as well as for the research aiming to design systems (both human and computer) that are privacy-protecting and non-discriminatory.

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#146

Post by newman314 » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

caskance wrote: post #134

newman314 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decent example. I generalized this as "You have something you really want (everyone has different goals). Right when you think you are about to achieve your goal, it is taken away (because of something stupid you did in the past; everyone has done something stupid at one point). This is why unchecked data collection is bad"

The problem is that there is no reason to believe that is more likely than the opposite case of "You have something you really want (everyone has different goals). Right when you think you are about to fail to reach your goal, it is achieved (because of something clever you did in the past; everyone has done something clever at one point). This is why unchecked data collection is good"

Information in this case as in many is asymmetrical hence leading to the phrase "information is power".

Lack of information does not grant the same benefits/advantages as possession of information. Why do you think so much effort is expended to possess information?

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#147

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:22 PM UTC

newman314 wrote: post #146

caskance wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there is no reason to believe that is more likely than the opposite case of "You have something you really want (everyone has different goals). Right when you think you are about to fail to reach your goal, it is achieved (because of something clever you did in the past; everyone has done something clever at one point). This is why unchecked data collection is good"

Information in this case as in many is asymmetrical hence leading to the phrase "information is power". Lack of information does not grant the same benefits/advantages as possession of information. Why do you think so much effort is expended to possess information?

[deleted]

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#148

Post by caskance » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

newman314 wrote: post #146

caskance wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there is no reason to believe that is more likely than the opposite case of "You have something you really want (everyone has different goals). Right when you think you are about to fail to reach your goal, it is achieved (because of something clever you did in the past; everyone has done something clever at one point). This is why unchecked data collection is good"

Information in this case as in many is asymmetrical hence leading to the phrase "information is power". Lack of information does not grant the same benefits/advantages as possession of information. Why do you think so much effort is expended to possess information?

You missed the point. In the original loan example, the lender may want to screw you, but they also know that the one that screws you least is the one you will do business with. And your good character, as determined by omnipresent surveillance, allows them to safely offer you a better deal. It's like the "good student" etc discounts that car insurance gives now.

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#149

Post by scott_karana » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 4:56 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #112

cookiecaper wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I don't think there's a real way to fight this in the age of networks and cameras in every pocket. There are many good uses for the ability to instantly recognize and identify anybody from a crowd, as well as bad ones. Probably the easiest way to frustrate these things would be the simplest; only go out in public with substantial facial features obscured or al…

I don't think there's a real way to fight this in the age of networks and cameras in every pocket. Sure there is. For one thing, a similar level of technology to the capture and processing applications could also be used to automatically detect and obscure faces where storing them isn't necessary, probably with imperfect but highly reliable success. Consider how Google's Street View wound up hiding car licence plates…

> Consider how Google's Street View wound up hiding car licence plates for a lot of places after the privacy complaints, for example.

Right, isn't that just "hiding the microphone"? Google still has records of your license plates.

Can agencies subpoena them for that information? Can Google themselves use it maliciously?

The technology exists, and will be used, even if it's not accessible to the public.

How much do you trust our information oracles?

Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

#150

Post by Silhouette » Tue, Oct 06, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

msellout wrote: post #125

Silhouette wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating regulating what software you can write with regulating what data you (or anyone else) can collect, use, and share. It is perfectly possible to restrict, say, the systematic collection of facial images or the commercial or government use of facial images or the transfer of facial images to another party, without impeding casual, incidental use such as taking your own personal photos that sometimes ha…

Au contraire, much of machine learning (learned?) software is simply the data used to train it. I think we can all agree that generic image recognition is benign and should be permitted. How about a database of publicity photos from famous movie actors and actresses? Would it be OK to use that database to identify which celebrity I saw getting out of a limousine? And if that's permitted, then the regulators are taske…

It's certainly true that we have problems both with our legislators not understanding technology and with their apparent willingness to help special interest groups more than their electorate at times.

However, those are orthogonal issues to the ethical principles and the technical aspects here. The same level of technology that can now be used to compromise privacy could also be used to help protect it, and we can surely do a reasonable job of distinguishing between the kind of inadvertent background imagery that comes from living in a world with other people and the kind of systematic, targeted collection and use of data that leads to some of the more serious privacy risks with the new technologies today.