Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 289 posts

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#11

Post by xg15 »

ta_egdhs wrote: post #10

constitutional rights (and a culture that enshrines them as sacred) is just one layer of protection for civil liberties. The other, Often overlooked layer is the fact that running a dystopian state is uneconomical. For better or worse this is the logic used by gun advocates, but it should also apply to other areas. technology can make it feasible to scale repression like never before. facial recognition, big data, ce…

> technology can make it feasible to scale repression like never before. facial recognition, big data, centralized Electronic banking are all enormously powerful tools in the wrong hands

What would be the "right" hands?

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#12

Post by tolien »

ta_egdhs wrote: post #10

constitutional rights (and a culture that enshrines them as sacred) is just one layer of protection for civil liberties. The other, Often overlooked layer is the fact that running a dystopian state is uneconomical. For better or worse this is the logic used by gun advocates, but it should also apply to other areas. technology can make it feasible to scale repression like never before. facial recognition, big data, ce…

The argument I think you’re alluding to is that rather than employees petitioning Amazon not to sell the government facial recognition technology, they should petition for Amazon (among others) to lobby government to restrict its use (data retention limits would be a start, I guess).

If nothing else, that would probably be more effective.

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#13

Post by hugh-avherald »

freeone3000 wrote: post #7
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

>The letter also contained demands to kick Palantir, the software firm that powers much of ICE’s deportation and tracking program, off Amazon Web Services The number one thing that will make large companies reject cloud computing is any hint that why will be kicked off because their legal business goes against the mores of the US West coast tech workers. If Palantir gets kicked off, how long until these same workers…

Corporations are overseen by the government. The government is in the unique position of having the monopoly of force. If a company turns bad, the government protects us. If the government turns bad, things get very bad.

I doubt that any of the four sentences above are true in reality.

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#15

Post by mprev »

xg15 wrote: post #11
ta_egdhs wrote: post #10

constitutional rights (and a culture that enshrines them as sacred) is just one layer of protection for civil liberties. The other, Often overlooked layer is the fact that running a dystopian state is uneconomical. For better or worse this is the logic used by gun advocates, but it should also apply to other areas. technology can make it feasible to scale repression like never before. facial recognition, big data, ce…

> technology can make it feasible to scale repression like never before. facial recognition, big data, centralized Electronic banking are all enormously powerful tools in the wrong hands What would be the "right" hands?

Presumably those that wouldn't use it. If we accept that those technologies have upsides, then the "right hands" would be those that don't take advantage of the downsides.

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#16

Post by hueving »

product50 wrote: post #14

Won't the tech be built regardless of Amazon? It is either SV companies help with it and reduce costs or else blood-suckers such as IBM will come in with their contracts and low tech but costly solutions..

Make up your mind, will the solution work if IBM makes it? If so, then it's not really low tech. If not, then Amazon staying out of the game did exactly the right thing because all of the capable people abstained.

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#17

Post by hueving »

nodesocket wrote: post #3

Until you are a victim of a crime and facial recognition helps to find the perpetrator and you suddenly change your mind. > The letter also contained demands to kick Palantir, the software firm that powers much of ICE’s deportation and tracking program, off Amazon Web Services And... I can tell this post is going to be west-coast extreme liberal biased.

>Until you are a victim of a crime and facial recognition helps to find the perpetrator and you suddenly change your mind.

Appeal to fear. Why is it you think that justification doesn't work for illegal search and seizure?

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#18

Post by ta_egdhs »

tolien wrote: post #12
ta_egdhs wrote: post #10

constitutional rights (and a culture that enshrines them as sacred) is just one layer of protection for civil liberties. The other, Often overlooked layer is the fact that running a dystopian state is uneconomical. For better or worse this is the logic used by gun advocates, but it should also apply to other areas. technology can make it feasible to scale repression like never before. facial recognition, big data, ce…

The argument I think you’re alluding to is that rather than employees petitioning Amazon not to sell the government facial recognition technology, they should petition for Amazon (among others) to lobby government to restrict its use (data retention limits would be a start, I guess). If nothing else, that would probably be more effective.

what I'm saying is we should assume that whatever mass surveillance mechanisms the government is trying to buy, it will eventually buy and whatever legal safeguards there are to protect us will eventually fail.

what I'm calling for is the individual to be "armed" with adversarial patches or whatever other tool it is that confounds facial recognition sytems. the only thing which is long term effective is a population which can and does resist. VPNs, encryption, cryptocurrency, and a bunch of other tech (existing and under research) will be the safeguard when all else fails.

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#19

Post by hueving »

nodesocket wrote: post #8
kochthesecond wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if your daughter was murdered, you want them dead. That is not how we made our legislation work.

Most people want justice, thus the police to find the murderer, arrest them, and bring them in front of a judge or jury for their due punishment. Limiting the polices technology and resources is an argument that doesn't make sense to me. Especially coming from open source advocates. Smells of hypocrisy.

Open source has nothing to do with data. If you think open source people don't care about privacy you know nothing about open source.

People want justice, but they also want individual liberties to not be violated. Particularly in the US the Constitution is filled with stuff to keep a government seeking 'justice' from getting out of control.

Re: Amazon Employee: We Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police

#20

Post by grondilu »

kochthesecond wrote: post #5
nodesocket wrote: post #3

Until you are a victim of a crime and facial recognition helps to find the perpetrator and you suddenly change your mind. > The letter also contained demands to kick Palantir, the software firm that powers much of ICE’s deportation and tracking program, off Amazon Web Services And... I can tell this post is going to be west-coast extreme liberal biased.

And if your daughter was murdered, you want them dead. That is not how we made our legislation work.

> That is not how we made our legislation work.

Wasn't it, though? I mean, laws are ultimately decided by vote (directly or indirectly). People are free to agree or not with death penalty, but it's hard to deny that being personally affected by a crime can influence our opinions on the subject. That's why death penalty still exists in several states.

Same with facial recognition tech. Despite the legitimate concerns about potential abuse from a government, people can acknowledge that it is an extremely valuable tool for crime investigation and thus law enforcement.

So in the end, it all depends on how bad people want an efficient police, and that can definitely depend on our individual experiences with crime.

Post reply on HN