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

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

#21

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…

you are right and when the public has their own sting rays, their own license plate trackers, and their own facial recognition systems it will be a crazy world indeed. As these systems grow and learn more about people they will become increasingly powerful. Imaging a world where one mistake could follow you around for ever. You take a photo while in public and your facial recognition app detects someone in the background. Of course after you subscribed for 9.99$ you can access information about people detected. The person detected was in the news for assaulting his wife. He was arrested and did a year in jail and did his time and changed his ways and regrets ever doing it. But the facial recognition does not forget what you did 10 years ago. My girlfriend was acting weird, I am going to be insecure and see where she went. Good thing we all have internet connected dashcams taking real time license plates. I better subscribe to the license plate tracking service for 9.99$ and now I can see that when she said she was in class her car was actually spotted 50 miles away. The future will be different.

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

#22

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…

I think its mostly just a political statement - that these workers don't like such technology being used for immigration control whilst President Trump is in office.

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

#23

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.

I'm with you. Never mind the leftist narrative of HN. You fight the good fight.

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

#24
post #17

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?

If "someone might commit a crime and facial recognition could help find the perpetrator" is appeal to fear, the argument of "nobody ever commits a crime so why would you ever want the police to have facial recognition" is appeal to living in a fantasy world.

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

#25
post #21

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…

you are right and when the public has their own sting rays, their own license plate trackers, and their own facial recognition systems it will be a crazy world indeed. As these systems grow and learn more about people they will become increasingly powerful. Imaging a world where one mistake could follow you around for ever. You take a photo while in public and your facial recognition app detects someone in the backgr…

The public is going to have their own armed flying drones too eventually. The future is going to be so incredibly cyberpunk.

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

#27
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm with you. Never mind the leftist narrative of HN. You fight the good fight.

Since when is "limiting the powers of the state" a "leftist narrative"? Because that what it boils down to.

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

#28
post #27
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you. Never mind the leftist narrative of HN. You fight the good fight.

Since when is "limiting the powers of the state" a "leftist narrative"? Because that what it boils down to.

The argument usually is "this will be used to target minorities/dissidents/illegal immigrants"

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

#29
post #17

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?

In the same way, not wanting to let the police have this technology due to concern of surveillance is appealing to fear.

People forget that, in the USA at least, the police investigate and pursue crimes that have already been committed. They do NOT pursue crimes that have not happened and do NOT scan for people who have not committed a crime. As you all should know, license plate scanners, for example, are looking for specific plates of people who have already committed crimes.

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

#30

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…

It's simply not inevitable. I'm so tired of this rhetoric. "it's going to happen anyway, so give up". No, it's not going to happen if you actively oppose it.

For example, cops in Europe cannot execute crawling, begging, unarmed people. And if they try, they won't be getting away with it. Guns exist, cops exist, and guess what, cops shooting people doesn't exist. Why? Because society is an active thing, and if a society opposes a behavior (including the usage of tools, like amazon's rekognition) they can stop it.

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