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Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Critics See Surveillance Risk

nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by syshum »

fixermark wrote: post #79
syshum wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh the old "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" defense for mass surveillance. Don't study history much do you? If you believe this will only ever be used to stop thieves and people that victimize others you are naive at an unfathomable level >The Federal government has been doing this type of surveillance either using facial or LPR data on interstate corridors since at least the 90s. lol... You be…

It does suggest, however, that a slippery-slope argument of "More surveillance plunges us immediately into a 1984-esque dystopia" has a big [citation needed] banner hovering over it though.

I feel we are already in a 1984 Style Surveillance state they are just better at hiding it then the book's government

So no I do not think it is "slippery slope" at all, we have already slide down the slope; arriving at the bottom. We long ago surpassed the level of government surveillance I believe is ethical, constitutional, or proper for government

if the government having a database filled with everyone Bio metric data they can then use technology to follow, trace, and monitory your every movement is not a "surveillance state" I shutter to think what it would take for you to classify such as system? a Brian implant that reads your every thought?

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

#122

Post by zaksoup »

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…

This is such a fascinating and interesting question. I highly recommend reading the book 'Automating Inequality'[0] if you haven't already. My initial reaction to this question was 'I certainly would prefer groups of humans making collective decisions over an opaque, proprietary, algorithm'. But then I also think back to the latest internet firestorm of the woman calling the police on black barbecuers over charcoal (this happened a block from my house). Can we actually trust people en masse to make collaborative decisions that generally avoid bias? Definitely not.

I think your comment may have changed my mind about the utility, objectivity, and overall value of amber alerts...

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Automating-Inequality-High-Tech-Profi...

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

#123

Post by fixermark »

syshum wrote: post #121
fixermark wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does suggest, however, that a slippery-slope argument of "More surveillance plunges us immediately into a 1984-esque dystopia" has a big [citation needed] banner hovering over it though.

I feel we are already in a 1984 Style Surveillance state they are just better at hiding it then the book's government So no I do not think it is "slippery slope" at all, we have already slide down the slope; arriving at the bottom. We long ago surpassed the level of government surveillance I believe is ethical, constitutional, or proper for government if the government having a database filled with everyone Bio metri…

I know the opinion will vary from person to person, but if this is a 1984 dystopia, then Orwell over-hyped the downsides to a 1984 dystopia.

(... I don't actually think it's a 1984 dystopia, mind ;) ).

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

#124

Post by decebalus1 »

alex_young wrote: post #90
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 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…

Lol. The fourth amendment went out the window with the Patriot act and the Freedom act. The fourth amendment does not matter anymore and nobody gives a shit. It's not like an 'important' amendment. I mean it's not the second amendment, otherwise there would be huge lobbying groups up in arms (no pun intended).

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

#125

Post by cblades »

decebalus1 wrote: post #124
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…

Lol. The fourth amendment went out the window with the Patriot act and the Freedom act. The fourth amendment does not matter anymore and nobody gives a shit. It's not like an 'important' amendment. I mean it's not the second amendment, otherwise there would be huge lobbying groups up in arms (no pun intended).

This is an incredibly un-helpful comment.

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

#126

Post by candiodari »

matwood wrote: post #62
mLuby wrote: post #11

Asking a company to please not sell something doesn't seem like a scalable approach. As long as there's a market someone will try to enter it. Either make it illegal for companies to sell this technology or illegal for police departments to buy it. It's a political matter.

I agree it's a legal matter, but completely illegal is not realistic. What's needed is a legal/privacy framework that addresses these new technologies. Unfortunately, I have zero faith in the law makers to understand the technology enough to really do anything meaningful. Instead, we will probably have to wait for a SCOTUS case at some point in the future to define the legal side.

Laws cannot stop a technology that is easily availabe, like number plate scanning or face recognition. Nothing can stop it.

You might just as well outlaw knives (they are in fact illegal in many European countries, which has done nothing about their easy availability, and software will be far easier to acquire than knives)

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

#127

Post by doorbumper »

blitmap wrote: post #116
fixermark wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's interesting is that anyone implementing mass surveillance could care less about your proposed benefits.

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

#128

Post by syshum »

fixermark wrote: post #123
syshum wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel we are already in a 1984 Style Surveillance state they are just better at hiding it then the book's government So no I do not think it is "slippery slope" at all, we have already slide down the slope; arriving at the bottom. We long ago surpassed the level of government surveillance I believe is ethical, constitutional, or proper for government if the government having a database filled with everyone Bio metri…

I know the opinion will vary from person to person, but if this is a 1984 dystopia, then Orwell over-hyped the downsides to a 1984 dystopia. (... I don't actually think it's a 1984 dystopia, mind ;) ).

It is sad that people have the delusion they are really free, unable to see they are actually in a guided cage.

I am sure there were many in Oceania perfectly content with their life, thinking they were free because they never butted up against the edges of their cage, they never tested the limits of their "freedom", they were "respectable" citizens doing as the government said

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

#129

Post by jedberg »

This is a ridiculous article. Rekognition has been available for over a year, and I've been using it for that whole year. I've even integrated it into my own home security camera.

Amazon is selling it to law enforcement, but it's not like LE get special service that no one else does. Amazon built a generic facial recognition system, and it works pretty well. Even if they weren't pushing towards the police and government, they tech is out there. Those groups could have used it on their own.

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

#130

Post by HashThis »

decebalus1 wrote: post #124
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…

Lol. The fourth amendment went out the window with the Patriot act and the Freedom act. The fourth amendment does not matter anymore and nobody gives a shit. It's not like an 'important' amendment. I mean it's not the second amendment, otherwise there would be huge lobbying groups up in arms (no pun intended).

> The fourth amendment does not matter anymore and nobody gives a shit.

It does matter. Citizens do care. Just because they haven't taken action yet doesn't mean that they don't care or won't.

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