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Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

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Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#91

Post by JohnFen »

lozaning wrote: post #86
JohnFen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option." This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I fear these systems. A world where this is common is a world where it's no longer safe to take a stroll through your own neighborhood.

You've got all the rights in the world to walk by my house on the sidewalk and doing so an unlimited number of times will raise no suspicion from me. The minute you cross onto my property you're going to show up on multiple cameras that are pointed right at the boundary line. You rights to do whatever you want stop when you cross that line. I dont think you could convince me that this makes you any less safe.

"I dont think you could convince me that this makes you any less safe."

I'm not trying to, because when it comes to my own security, what you think is or is not safe isn't relevant. Just as what I think isn't relevant to yours.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#92

Post by JohnFen »

snowwrestler wrote: post #87
JohnFen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"After all, a good old security guard also does 'face recognition' of everyone passing by" Yes, but the essential difference is that the good old security guard isn't photographing everyone passing by and putting those pictures into a database.

I mean, he or she is collecting images with their eyes and storing them in their brain. We're fine with that because it's only local storage--the police can't just plug a network cord into your security guard and suck out all the images and timestamps every hour. I think facial recognition door systems are a fine idea if they can be implemented like a doorman: local storage only, carefully trained on local data. With…

"I think facial recognition door systems are a fine idea if they can be implemented like a doorman"

I agree, with the addition that all actual processing is done locally, that would be fine. But that's not what this patent is talking about.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#93

Post by JohnFen »

chaostheory wrote: post #73
JohnFen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option." This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I fear these systems. A world where this is common is a world where it's no longer safe to take a stroll through your own neighborhood.

A society of persistent, constant hi-tech surveillance already exists. It's called Singapore. I also wouldn't want to live in that world. There are many problems with it, but not being safe for "a stroll through your own neighborhood" is not a problem for that world.

"not being safe for "a stroll through your own neighborhood" is not a problem for that world."

I think that depends on what you consider "safe". Or perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying...

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#94

Post by chaostheory »

JohnFen wrote: post #93
chaostheory wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A society of persistent, constant hi-tech surveillance already exists. It's called Singapore. I also wouldn't want to live in that world. There are many problems with it, but not being safe for "a stroll through your own neighborhood" is not a problem for that world.

"not being safe for "a stroll through your own neighborhood" is not a problem for that world." I think that depends on what you consider "safe". Or perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying...

My definition is that you're not going to be hassled by anyone, government included.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#95

Post by JohnFen »

ilikepi wrote: post #82
Klonoar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...for every house? I don't go up to random houses and ring their doorbells to begin with, because nobody does that anymore.

Nobody? Where I live (suburbs, New England, USA), it's pretty common to be visited in person by local political candidates and/or volunteers during campaign season. I doubt this is in any way unique to my neighborhood.

OK, nobody except salespeople (politicians going door to door electioneering are really being salespeople).

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#96

Post by JohnFen »

jklinger410 wrote: post #41
nepeckman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it gets more problematic when the data is shared and human judgement is eliminated. What happens if someone is lost in a neighborhood and accidentally displays "suspicious" behavior in multiple locations? They are then logged in a database as a suspicious person and potentially pointed out to law enforcement as a suspect without any chance to explain themselves. I don't think this technology would be quite as…

>What happens if someone is lost in a neighborhood and accidentally displays "suspicious" behavior in multiple locations? They are then logged in a database as a suspicious person and potentially pointed out to law enforcement as a suspect without any chance to explain themselves. Where is the issue here? That we provide suspicious activity reports, or that our police SEEMINGLY can't reliably deal with those reports?

Involving the police is an issue, but that's really not the first thing that comes to my mind.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that people who use these systems would be causing innocent others to be included in Big Data databases without their knowledge or consent. I think that it's not only immoral to do so, it is straight-up antisocial and harmful to community and society.

We have more than enough of that sort of thing already.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#97

Post by jesusmg »

nonamechicken wrote: post #4

In my state Kerala in India, police seems to have started using face recognition. There was a huge protest recently in a famous temple called Sabarimala. Police had installed 12 cameras in the temple compound. If I understood correctly, the system compares live video feed against a database and alerts the police if anyone in the database was caught in the camera. Quoted from the below link: >"The cameras are equipped…

Yeah but at least it's the police who control the data. Who knows what Amazon can do with that info. We're handing over the keys of the power to a private company.

Nevertheless, is as scary as you think...

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#100

Post by _37go »

bilbo0s wrote: post #11
Santosh83 wrote: post #2

It is not the technology that is dangerous but the scale and manner of its deployment. Patented, opaque, closed source, championed by mega-corporations closely allied with powerful governments, entirely beyond the analysis or oversight of the vast majority of citizens, completely connected realtime to various other systems, automated, eternally slurping up data for indefinite storage... these are the real concerning…

> society will get sharply stratified into the 'watched' and the 'watchers' and the latter will get access to nearly limitless data and power... Don't kid yourself, even the 'watchers' will be 'watched'. The people bringing all these systems together will not be your local yocal Barney Fifes. They will be professional and highly intelligent technical teams whose members have likely studied little other than security…

ring's entire technical team is based in the ukraine because the labor is cheaper and the data moderators that tag the videos for facial recognition and video processing make $3.00 - Ring isn't a sophisticated technology or even a secure product. For example, there is no two factor authentication and it's not encrypted end to end. Surveillance capitalism is a rush to the bottom to make money, not protect society, leaving gaping holes and cutting corners on quality (and fair pay) for profits.
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