Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#21

Post by pjc50 » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

proksoup wrote: post #8

pjc50 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think European data protection directive rules won't work here?

I was not familiar with those, perhaps they will. Very fascinated reading about them now. I guess I don't follow the specifics, ... to give an example of my confusion, a journalist can't livestream a protest without blurring out the faces of the protestors?

That's fine, because simply a face is not at the moment considered to be personal data and there's a general exemption for news reporting and livestreaming is not 'data retention' (and I think not 'data processing' either, for the purposes of the directive.

Maintaining a facial recognition database however is definitely not allowed without appropriate consent: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/7/3964550/facebook-deletes-eu...

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#22

Post by crisisactor » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

To be honest, most of these are surface level traits of an individual. There are deeper traits which go much more personal, and have even been touched on in popular culture in recent times, like in the new James Bond movie (think gait recognition). But even gait, although highly individual, is still touching the surface. I was thinking of 'trimming the bloom filter' to such a degree that we can recognize not only a person on sight, but by cue words, and individual dictionaries alone.

It is no secret that our world is divided by language alone, so then as analysts we can attach certain words to certain behaviors, and this has been proven countless times to expose a person. If I speak English I probably respond in the same way to 'pizza'. Pizza means food, and therefore pizza emotes a pleasure response. But 'bomb' and other words must decide a different response then?

Marketers have copped this early on and frequently use talismanic phrases to elicit positive responses to products, so why not Facebook, and any other tech harvester of data such as Google, et al? Last time I checked it is not a crime to elicit responses using personal, and individualized key-phrases.

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#23

Post by tajen » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

KhalilK wrote: post #16

I attended a talk by Stallman last year and he implored anyone who took a picture of him not to post it on Facebook. Now I can see why.

The second information which I see having potential is the EXIF of the pics, the off pixels and other identifying data of the camera (flare, blur, watermark), artificially introduced or not.

Not only it proves who we with whom at the same time. It also links profiles. You can create a whole new identity; but if you didn't throw away all your phones and cameras, then Facebook can link the profiles. Or if you sell something on Craigslist and upload on Snapchat with the same camera: It's tied to your identity.

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#24

Post by Jill_the_Pill » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:37 PM UTC

Can you obfuscate your "faceprint" by tagging a few other people as you?

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#25

Post by Jill_the_Pill » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:39 PM UTC

saturncoleus wrote: post #19

rvense wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't like having my picture taken anymore. You don't where it's going to end up. I also do wonder how much infrastructure would need to be added in a country that already has a lot of video surveillance (like the UK) to implement a "find this person" feature, where you could just feed it a photo and it would go looking at all camera feeds.

Getting your picture taken kind of puts you on the defensive, but that probably isn't going away. You have to be able to go outside, go to the bank, go to work, and go to the grocery store. Each of those places are going to have cameras up for their own peace of mind. The alternative would be to not go out and enjoy life, which is the worse of the two options.

There is always niqab.

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#26

Post by KhalilK » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:45 PM UTC

cmelbye wrote: post #17

KhalilK wrote: post #16

I attended a talk by Stallman last year and he implored anyone who took a picture of him not to post it on Facebook. Now I can see why.

Was it just to make a point? Anyone can Google "Richard Stallman" to retrieve more than enough training data to train an image classifier.

>Anyone can Google "Richard Stallman" to retrieve more than enough training data to train an image classifier.

Yes but I think it has more to do with tracking him (i.e. on x day he was at y place/event) than merely identifying him.

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#27

Post by matt4077 » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:50 PM UTC

crisisactor wrote: post #22

To be honest, most of these are surface level traits of an individual. There are deeper traits which go much more personal, and have even been touched on in popular culture in recent times, like in the new James Bond movie (think gait recognition). But even gait, although highly individual, is still touching the surface. I was thinking of 'trimming the bloom filter' to such a degree that we can recognize not only a p…

Which reminds me of the researcher at Berlin's Humboldt University who ended up in jail because he was the only one at the time who used the word 'gentrification'.

Him, and this left-wing group setting cars on fire.

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#28

Post by amelius » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:51 PM UTC

Esau wrote: post #11

"Facebook hoped to get the case thrown out on the grounds that its user agreement states any disputes should be governed solely by California law". What about those people whose biometric data is being stored but don't have accounts of Facebook?

Let me just guess ... probably the people who uploaded that data are liable for it.

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#29

Post by amelius » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:53 PM UTC

rvense wrote: post #4

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #2

Facial recognition is really scary. This was recently demonstrated for Russia's Facebook, VKontakte, when a service appeared that let you look up people on that site by photo. So people started looking up the profiles of random subway passengers, outing sex workers to their families and friends, etc.

I really don't like having my picture taken anymore. You don't where it's going to end up. I also do wonder how much infrastructure would need to be added in a country that already has a lot of video surveillance (like the UK) to implement a "find this person" feature, where you could just feed it a photo and it would go looking at all camera feeds.

Or how about a feature that, given a photo, will predict where the depicted person will be tomorrow evening?

Given a sufficiently large number of photos and their timestamps, this kind of "functionality" is possible.

Re: Facebook sued for storing biometric data mined from photographs

#30

Post by sudojudo » Sat, May 07, 2016, 6:57 PM UTC

gcr wrote: post #12

If you don't want your face to be recognized, you can sometimes prevent it from being detected in the first place. Our research group recently looked into how to hide from Facebook's face detector. If you're uploading photos, adding white bars around the eyes of the subjects in the photo is the best way to prevent Facebook from finding the face. However, if you're out and about in the real world, even scarves and mas…

Years ago, I read about a hat that some Hollywood stars had found useful for fighting paparazzi. Mind you, I don't recall the source, and it my have been tabloid nonsense.

The hat had a circle of IR LEDs (or something of the sort) emitting 360 degrees of invisible-to-the-naked-eye light. Photos of anyone wearing the hat had a similar effect to using a flash in a mirror, the subject was completely washed out by light.

Again, I'm not sure if this was bogus or not, but it seems the demand for such a product is only going to become greater. Hell, I'd buy one.

Does anyone with expertise in this area know if this type of device is technically possible? I'm voting no, otherwise we'd be seeing these devices everywhere, and there would be laws against wearing them.