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The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here

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

#151

Post by Silhouette »

scott_karana wrote: post #149
Silhouette wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

Yes, those are all valid concerns as well. I was just demonstrating what is technically possible, not asserting that current practice is sufficient.

If Google applied that same fuzzing to its own internal copy of the images, it would not have records of everyone's licence plates any more. I don't know whether they do this today, but we could empower the official regulators to investigate such things in reasonable ways, for example by mandating greater disclosure of working practices or some sort of inspection regime for organisations processing high volumes of personal data.

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

#152

Post by ksenzee »

anigbrowl wrote: post #84
ksenzee wrote: post #21

As someone with prosopagnosia (neurological inability to recognize faces) I find this incredibly frustrating. My everyday life would be immensely easier with assistive tech that told me the names of everyone I see. And now that the technology exists to develop such a useful device, what do we get instead? Mass societal surveillance.

How do you deal with this in real life? Do you recognize your friends' voices, or have they learned that they just need to identify themselves when you meet?

I have relatively mild prosopagnosia; I can recognize people I know well. My understanding is that the brain's object recognition system takes over from the facial recognition system. It's less efficient but it works well enough. Anyone I know well enough to recognize from the back (by gait, voice, height, hair color, etc.) I can also recognize from the front by looking at their face. It's hardest when I'm first meeting a lot of new people, like at a new job.

Other people, with more severe prosopagnosia, can't even recognize their own family members' faces. They rely on gait and voice and other cues. It's really hard on them when, say, their spouse decides to get their hair dyed blue.

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

#153

Post by ksenzee »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #108
cantrevealname wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the killer app for Google Glass. Not just for your situation, but for salesmen, customer service reps, security guards, politicians, or anyone who needs to recognize lots of people, recall names, and bring up an instant profile about the person standing in front of them. (Granted, even this application has serious overtones of societal surveillance.) EDIT: Anyone care to speculate on why Google Glass do…

I briefly worked with a company that made a facial recognition app for Google Glass ( http://www.nametag.ws ). Google officially banned us but you could still sideload it. The two major issues were assembling the database of faces (we used mainly LinkedIn photos but you really need multiple photos per person in different light/angles to train it well) and hardware performance (we had to do processing server side but…

I didn't realize the Glass was quite so underpowered. Somehow I feel better knowing the hardware hasn't yet caught up to the need.

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

#154

Post by mmanfrin »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #86
mmanfrin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say this, but: I think this would be very cool. See someone interesting at the bar? Scan and check to find a convenient ice breaker. "Oh! We both went to the same summer camp as kids!"

That is cool until every man uses it on you daughter.

Hopefully by then we'll have progressed past this patriarchal protect-the-defenseless-women mentality. Who's to say my daughter won't be the one using it on men at the bar?

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

#155

Post by PostOnce »

msellout wrote: post #126
PostOnce wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you can do in your own time is one thing, what you can do commercially is another. Encryption is something you do by yourself or with another consenting party, facial recognition is something you do to someone else without their permission and possibly use for nefarious purposes. There's nothing wrong with outlawing certain activities from the commercial sphere, or any sphere. It's not an assault on your freedom…

It's illegal to stalk and harass, it's not illegal to make phone calls. The issue is not facial recognition, it's the misuse. I'm all for gun control, not gun ban. Cameras in the bathroom? Fine. Whatever. If that's the new normal, then I guess I'll get over it. Are you saying that will now be legalized? I'm pretty sure we don't need any new laws to prevent cameras in changing rooms. The "scary" scenarios that have be…

You'll get over cameras in the bathroom?

You should be able to collect any data you want, and use it however you want?

Why not start a business face-recognizing people who show up at battered women's shelters and selling access online for $50?

Or how about completely legally standing a public street and making notes of the schedules of when people are and are not home, and selling access to that to probable burglars, should that also be legal?

The use of information can and should be regulated. Everything from insider trading to medical privacy.

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

#156

Post by msellout »

PostOnce wrote: post #155
msellout wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal to stalk and harass, it's not illegal to make phone calls. The issue is not facial recognition, it's the misuse. I'm all for gun control, not gun ban. Cameras in the bathroom? Fine. Whatever. If that's the new normal, then I guess I'll get over it. Are you saying that will now be legalized? I'm pretty sure we don't need any new laws to prevent cameras in changing rooms. The "scary" scenarios that have be…

You'll get over cameras in the bathroom? You should be able to collect any data you want, and use it however you want? Why not start a business face-recognizing people who show up at battered women's shelters and selling access online for $50? Or how about completely legally standing a public street and making notes of the schedules of when people are and are not home, and selling access to that to probable burglars,…

People's opinions are remarkably malleable. Read some accounts of how soldiers change during and after fighting. Watch how the audience acts at a rock show. Check out the people on a nude beach vs the sidewalk just off the beach. Normal and acceptable is entirely situational. Walking in the street was normal. After the ad campaigns of the auto industry, we call it jaywalking.

I'm all for regulating (mis)use of information, but not the collection of information.

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

#157

Post by DamnYuppie »

mmanfrin wrote: post #154
DamnYuppie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is cool until every man uses it on you daughter.

Hopefully by then we'll have progressed past this patriarchal protect-the-defenseless-women mentality. Who's to say my daughter won't be the one using it on men at the bar?

Who said anything about protecting? It is simply a statement about how men feel when other men are interested in their daughters.

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

#158

Post by DamnYuppie »

caskance wrote: post #132
DamnYuppie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is cool until every man uses it on you daughter.

Your daughter would be fine if her paranoid luddite father hadn't forbidden her from getting her own setup.

I am not sure I follow this comment. No one said anything about forbidding anyone from anything It was simply a statement about how upsetting it would be as a parent.

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

#159

Post by Houshalter »

terryf wrote: post #111
Houshalter wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand you are just as likely to get a loan you otherwise wouldn't have because you haven't been seen with questionable folks. In any case that kind of policy is already illegal. And it's not even technically feasible at the moment. Even if it was, it's very unlikely there is a strong correlation between being seen with some random person in a photo, and your likelihood of paying a loan. There is plenty of…

The banks are doing things, perhaps not exactly what was described, but your facebook history, linkedin, other social media accounts are taken into account when applying for a loan. Even when you browse the bank's web page, where you hover the mouse, what pages you look at and variour other metrics. One example of a company providing such service is http://www.bigdatascoring.com/

In my opinion that is a very good thing. If they can make fewer loans to people who are high risk and lower interest loans to people who are not, everyone wins. The source of the data doesn't matter.
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