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A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

nytimes.com

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Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#31

Post by Cenk »

mc32 wrote: post #24
pwg wrote: post #19

The privacy concerns here are huge, but the much more direct issue is from this quote from the article: > the same programs failed to identify darker-skinned women up to one-third of the time. A one-third failure rate means that on average, for every three times you try to return home, you are likely to have the system fail to identify you at least once. Being locked out, as a resident, one-third of the number of tim…

Why does the system even care about color in the first place? Can't it measure other facial characteristics, measurements?

Probably a consequence of being mostly developed by and tested on white people

Edit: Take a look at this video, it illustrates the problem quite well with a soap dispenser as an example: https://twitter.com/nke_ise/status/897756900753891328

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#32

Post by gph »

mc32 wrote: post #24
pwg wrote: post #19

The privacy concerns here are huge, but the much more direct issue is from this quote from the article: > the same programs failed to identify darker-skinned women up to one-third of the time. A one-third failure rate means that on average, for every three times you try to return home, you are likely to have the system fail to identify you at least once. Being locked out, as a resident, one-third of the number of tim…

Why does the system even care about color in the first place? Can't it measure other facial characteristics, measurements?

Not an expert in this area, but I believe it's harder for the software to pick out shadows/shades on a darker skin, and it relies heavily on those shadows/shades to recognize structure.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#33

Post by manfredo »

Makes sense for publicly subsidized housing (which is what rent control is, in essence). A lot of people sublet their price controlled housing under the table.

It's not like the facial recognition is resulting in any privacy loss for those that legally live there. The government already knows their permanent address.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#34

Post by ohazi »

mc32 wrote: post #24
pwg wrote: post #19

The privacy concerns here are huge, but the much more direct issue is from this quote from the article: > the same programs failed to identify darker-skinned women up to one-third of the time. A one-third failure rate means that on average, for every three times you try to return home, you are likely to have the system fail to identify you at least once. Being locked out, as a resident, one-third of the number of tim…

Why does the system even care about color in the first place? Can't it measure other facial characteristics, measurements?

It doesn't care about color. Dark faces reflect less light, making them more challenging to photograph well. If you have less light illuminating a scene, you'll have more noise and less contrast/dynamic range in the image. You need these things to extract features reliably. It's physics, not racial bias.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#35

Post by mirimir »

mc32 wrote: post #24
pwg wrote: post #19

The privacy concerns here are huge, but the much more direct issue is from this quote from the article: > the same programs failed to identify darker-skinned women up to one-third of the time. A one-third failure rate means that on average, for every three times you try to return home, you are likely to have the system fail to identify you at least once. Being locked out, as a resident, one-third of the number of tim…

Why does the system even care about color in the first place? Can't it measure other facial characteristics, measurements?

I guess that, with darker skin, there's less accurate data.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#36

Post by lazyasciiart »

manfredo wrote: post #33

Makes sense for publicly subsidized housing (which is what rent control is, in essence). A lot of people sublet their price controlled housing under the table. It's not like the facial recognition is resulting in any privacy loss for those that legally live there. The government already knows their permanent address.

It doesn't know all their visitors names though.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#37

Post by rb808 »

envy2 wrote: post #5

This is almost surely about catching "unauthorized" tenants (e.g., medium/long-term guests) and finding grounds for eviction. One of the many sorts of ubiquitous lease provisions that landlords are more than happy to turn a blind eye to for "desirable" market-rate tenants who pay on time each month, but will vigorously enforce against others.

Yes, but surely this if fair right? There is a real problem with people subletting rent stabilized apartments. This helps to keep the apartment for those that are supposed to benefit.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#38

Post by lazyasciiart »

tmp192489 wrote: post #23
jen20 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you so sure that it's not aiming to catch people who get a rent-stabilised apartment and then long-term sublet it at market rate?

I'm not "so sure", though I think gaming the system with a long term sublet would be pretty unlikely because how likely are you to find a legit tenant who would go through you as the landlord instead of the actual landlord for a luxury rental. It's more complicated than actually living in the unit and then staying with a partner or friend if you can rent it out a few days/week when you can command a good rate.

Criminal histories, eviction records, poor credit....lots of reasons to sublet instead of going to the landlord.
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