This seems like a really bad time to propose something like this. Parts of SF look like a mad max wasteland and they really have blown it when it comes to crime, vagrancy, and blight. It really seems like facial recognition could help catch criminals and put them away for once.
San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
41–50 of 75 posts
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#42I'm against this, but not for the typical reason of privacy or worry of government overuse. What I'm worried about more than either of those is the growing prevalence of GAN created video. As the outputs of GAN become more realistic and indistinguishable from the real thing, having a facial recognition system to be able to prove that you were or were not in some place at a certain time is going to be integral in fighting off the fake videos that are going to swarm us all soon.
What I'd rather see is twofold:
1.) A right to wear a mask. Both legally and for it to become socially acceptable. We should have a right to protect our privacy, when we want it.
2.) Open data when it comes to this. Otherwise I feel that power will centralize with governments and larger private orgs. By opening the data set, the system can be used for good. This would have to include some sort of authentication system as well - possibly something like 2fa where an alert comes to your phone that you have to authorize before an entity can query your facial recognition stats.
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#43This seems like a really bad time to propose something like this. Parts of SF look like a mad max wasteland and they really have blown it when it comes to crime, vagrancy, and blight. It really seems like facial recognition could help catch criminals and put them away for once.
The city knows who the criminals are. The district attorney drops the cases, you can have your open air drug bazaar or stolen bike shanty town in broad daylight.
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fast forward a few months, criminals are just wearing ski masks when they steal cars, and you’ve given up a significant amount of your privacy for absolutely zero benefit. Not a good plan, in my opinion.
Its a much better idea to fix the fact that so many people are in such a shitty situation that they are willing to steal a worthless radio.
It's a much better idea for people to have instilled into them decent morals and standards, than to hand them what they want as a justification for their thievery.
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a strong motive to fix the homeless situation in San Francisco. "Fix" has a lot of potential meanings. If your goal is a more humane solution this is going to backfire. If the majority of the city becomes incensed at the homeless because of crime and security concerns they'll be hardened and in favor of harsher, crueler solutions rather than compassionate ones. The most successful protests (I'm thinking civil right…
Fix in the context of perfect facial recognition surveillance means being able to locate and arrest all people that commit a crime. People who are not driven to crime because they can afford a financially comfortable and privileged lifestyle will not feel the effects of poverty and homelessness in this scenario. It's like putting a band aid on a festering wound. On the other hand, if we are not able to locate and arr…
San Francisco's policy is basically to leave the gushing wounds alone, and instead think hopeful thoughts about how we really should be eradicating all disease.
True, that would be the real solution, and then we wouldn't need those pesky bandages. No pathogens in the air, no risk of infection. Leaving wounds open also helps bystanders feel the problem, and probably motivates some to go into medical research or to work harder at it.
But "visible infections will motivate the end of disease" is a batshit insane public health program, and "car break-ins will motivate the end of capitalism" works about as well as an anti-poverty strategy.
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fast forward a few months, criminals are just wearing ski masks when they steal cars, and you’ve given up a significant amount of your privacy for absolutely zero benefit. Not a good plan, in my opinion.
Its a much better idea to fix the fact that so many people are in such a shitty situation that they are willing to steal a worthless radio.
I really don’t think the people breaking into cars can ever be spun into protagonists, of any story. Advocating for them harms the message of helping the downtrodden and treating them humanely, because it seems totally out of touch with the emotional impact of totally gratuitous property crime on its victims.
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
ez, just use gait recognition /s https://www.apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a
I can already smell the studies about how that'll be mostly bunk science in a few years, just like hand writing recognition or fiber analysis now.
It has legitimate biometrics included like bone lengths. It could determine, e.g., which gang member should cops focus on.
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#48The third time my car was broken into (to steal - no joke - a crappy stock car stereo from the 90s), I'd have voted for mandatory cameras and facial recognition on every street corner. Maybe sentry guns too. Instead I moved out of SF. Good luck, folks.
walking down streets in SF seeing the piles of broken glass every few car spaces showing someone broke into a bunch of cars recently was really eye opening how bad it is.
Seems quickly solvable with a few honeypot cars. AFAIK isn't not entrapment if you don't ask them to do it. I imagine it's a relatively small number of people doing it. A month or two of honeypot cars would clear up that issue
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its a much better idea to fix the fact that so many people are in such a shitty situation that they are willing to steal a worthless radio.
> a worthless radio In 1999, I sold the stock radio from my 2000 Dodge Neon on eBay for $40!
A time traveling radio does seem pretty novel, to be fair.
Re: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dose the iPhone count as government facial recognition?
It does if a department issues iPhones to employees. Or Windows laptops with "Windows Hello" logins, or Samsung phones with facial unlock features, etc. It doesn't specify if "face recognition" includes iris and retina scans.
But that would only ban those iPhones not iPhones in general.