Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#111

Post by candiodari » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

dogecoinbase wrote: post #98

chisleu wrote: post #76

They are NOT selling a service that identifies people from data sets other than the police's supplied data sets. It is not inappropriate for police to be able to determine who they are interacting with if that person is a known criminal. The cat is out of the bag and is already something the police could do themselves. The real fear is when they are able to source commercially available information from linked in, fa…

This was the purported intention of cellphone location tracking data. Instead it has been sold to marketers and data aggregators, and so poorly secured that likely for over a year it's been possible to get location data via phone number as a service. Companies and governments have demonstrated that they are not sufficiently responsible to have these databases. HIPAA-like laws and severe criminal penalties would be a…

Well, we have multiple court cases to prove that one of the applications of the police's and CIA's power to monitor phone conversations is checking if your (not-quite) girlfriend is "cheating" on you and attacking, as a law enforcement officer anyone she calls.

But without more government, there can't be more handouts, so ... ok ?

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#112

Post by fixermark » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

GabeIsman wrote: post #89

mattferderer wrote: post #59

People will be outraged until everyone starts doing it. How long until we see tons of marketplaces to sell your home & business surveillance videos? Maybe security companies will start offering free versions of things like Nest as long as you let them sell the video in their marketplace. It's the 21st Century way after all.

Well this is a terrifying thought.

I can't recommend David Brin's "The Transparent Society" hard enough on this topic [https://books.google.com/books?id=wg4XBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA336&dq=0...].

It's a bit dated, but the basic premise---the pattern of technology getting smaller, cheaper, and easier applies to surveillance technology also---tends to continue to be an accurate depiction.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#113

Post by otakucode » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

chisleu wrote: post #76

They are NOT selling a service that identifies people from data sets other than the police's supplied data sets. It is not inappropriate for police to be able to determine who they are interacting with if that person is a known criminal. The cat is out of the bag and is already something the police could do themselves. The real fear is when they are able to source commercially available information from linked in, fa…

It is, however, inappropriate to use facial recognition technology which is fundamentally terrible to primarily frame innocent people as known criminals. An encounter with a police officer, especially after 'the computer says you're a criminal', is dangerous. And facial recognition software is profoundly bad at its task. So this amounts to nothing but putting a bunch of innocent people in the crosshairs just so cops can feel like futuristic cyberwarriors.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#114

Post by shpx » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

excalibur wrote: post #6

sykh wrote: post #5

At some point in time we Americans are going to have to come to grips with the computational abilities of the state. There are way too few safeguards in the system and the Bill of Rights does not seem to be adequate in dealing with the new reality that private companies can acquire a vast amount of information on us and thereby sell it to law enforcement. Law enforcement can use privately obtained information without…

It's the leaking they fear most. The implementation of surveillance technologies is unavoidable. Ban them all you like, they will be used regardless. Privacy is dead, and nobody can save it. What we DO have a shot at controlling is what is done with the data. Probably the best hope for safeguarding things like freedom and democracy lies in making surveillance data transparent and public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#115

Post by candiodari » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

mrobot wrote: post #41

Spooky23 wrote: post #12

Why? The surveillance is there. I used this with some personal video surveillance to identify some thieves who were casing driveways to find cars to get into. Instead of wasting hours looking at footage, I was able to give the police excerpts that helped them identify the perp. Also, because of the circumstances and footage, they were able to charge him with a more serious crime than petit larceny, which means he won…

"Whatever means you want" just has to not include matching to a database of suspicious people that are not currently under investigation for a real crime. Or to something with a floating definition like "terrorist". Which it won't. Just because Washington County says it's not currently being used for mass surveillance doesn't mean it won't be in the future or for other departments.

You don't get the full extent of the damage. You are making the assumption that the government and police departments are the only ones that will do mass-surveillance.

You could not be more wrong. Everyone will do mass-surveillance. Everyone. The police is worst, because they will legally use violence against (true AND false) matches, with limited to no recourse for their victims. But the cats' out of the bag. Legal or not, mass surveillance is not going to happen ...

It is happening.

They will even sell that information on. "Alexa, which bar has the most blonds going into it ?" coming up soon. Or worse: "Alexa, can you tell me who is my daughter's boyfriend with face recognition ?" "That'll be $0.45, buy ? $1 extra if you want to know if they have sex. Included for free with Prime ! Order that instead ?".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-surprisi...

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#116

Post by blitmap » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #95

alex_young wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not inappropriate for police to be able to determine who they are interacting with if that person is a known criminal. Everyone is a criminal. You commit multiple crimes a day if you're like most people. There absolutely should be a clear delineation between what is possible and what is allowed when considering state surveillance. The 4th amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, hous…

Reasonable people can disagree on the definition of "unreasonable," however. Is it "unreasonable" for the Amber Alert system to co-opt the eyes and attention of ten thousand citizens around a kidnapped child? Hard to say. Most people seem to think 'no.' If that system could co-opt camera feeds instead of human attention, we could get most (all?) of the benefits of the existing Amber Alert without having to burn civil…

I definitely feel like we're missing positive opportunities for mass surveillance. Things like being able to recognize someone in cardiac arrest, or who is at risk for a stroke. Someday mass surveillance will help as much as it hurts society.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#117

Post by Kocrachon » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #31

lainga wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary as far as Amazon-the-online-store goes: they are notoriously pro-customer to the detriment of small retailers.

The number of counterfeits and abomination of UI argues against that point. I think Amazon is against both customer and small retailer and that goes to my point they are about market share and profit margin above all else.

As someone who has sold on Amazon, its not as simple as you make it sound.

Amazon takes my product, which I identify, and puts it in a bin at whatever warehouse. Another seller, sends in the same product, but theirs is counterfeit. Without opening the package, how is Amazon to know which one of us is selling the counterfeit and which one is real?

Now, my inventory is mixed in with amazon's and this counterfeiter, that product gets shipped out with my name because the customer chose my price of the list of sellers, but Amazon takes whichever one is closer, not the one I sent them. This is done to help ensure cheapest/fastest possible shipping. I take the blame even though someone else sent bad product.

This is a shitty situation all around, but how does Amazon fight back? They do eventually go back after the counterfeiters, but its a slow and complicated process because its super simple to set up as a seller on Amazon.

But, this is also not a new issue. Ebay still has this issue and I would say its far more mature than Amazon at the "3rd party seller" crap and Ebay cant fix it either. Its a shitty hard situation to deal with.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#118

Post by fixermark » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

sykh wrote: post #5

At some point in time we Americans are going to have to come to grips with the computational abilities of the state. There are way too few safeguards in the system and the Bill of Rights does not seem to be adequate in dealing with the new reality that private companies can acquire a vast amount of information on us and thereby sell it to law enforcement. Law enforcement can use privately obtained information without…

> What happens with false positives? What's the recourse?

The same recourse when you're false-positived by a witness, I'd assume: get a lawyer. Personally, I'd probably place my trust in facial recognition (possibly not this system specifically, though) over human eye-witness testimony, based on my understanding of human psychology and its vulnerability to incentives.

It's not as dire as it's sometimes painted. MD attempted to apply mass-ticketing with intersection cameras, and it was found to violate the state Constitution because the use of a car in committing a crime didn't imply the owner was behind the wheel at the time.

If the technology is unreliable, we call it out as unreliable. What society is going to need is people well-versed in the ways the tech can fail to be good, not a doom-sayer's disregard of the ways the technology can help.

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#119

Post by Kocrachon » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #71

I wonder how much more outraged people would be if you swapped Amazon for Facebook which has names and much more information to tie back to a bunch of faces.

None, because as stated, even after this current facebook backlash, usage of Facebook is still high...

https://www.androidheadlines.com/2018/05/facebook-usage-actu...

Re: Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

#120

Post by s_dev » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #12

Why? The surveillance is there. I used this with some personal video surveillance to identify some thieves who were casing driveways to find cars to get into. Instead of wasting hours looking at footage, I was able to give the police excerpts that helped them identify the perp. Also, because of the circumstances and footage, they were able to charge him with a more serious crime than petit larceny, which means he won…

>If you're allowed to have a camera, you should be allowed to look at it with whatever means you want.

You aren't allowed to look in to people houses with it or in to schools, up girls skirts, inside some banks etc.

You may have rights to own a camera -- I have the right to go around swinging my fists in to thin air but my right to swing fists stops where your head begins.