A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by AlexTWithBeard » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

burtonator wrote: post #97

alister wrote: post #10

One result of doors being controlled by facial recognition -- or any other kind of biometric system -- is that you have to get permission from someone whenever you have a regular visitor. You can no longer give your girlfriend, boyfriend, dog sitter, relatives, or whoever you wish a key or access card to your home. You have to enroll that person in the facial database. And whoever is doing the enrolling can ask for l…

Let's ignore whether this is dystopian or evil for a minute. Assume that the land lord is right and that this will lower his expenses. I assume he's going to pass that savings to his tenants or just use it to buy more properties?

It's a rent stabilized apartment. The savings have been passed to the tenants even before something was actually saved.

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

#172

Post by someguydave » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

envy2 wrote: post #87

tmp192489 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I would guess catching people that try to Airbnb their rent-stabilized apt (short-term guests). Honestly, I agree it is would be kind of messed up for someone to have the fortune of winning a below-market luxury apartment and turn that around and illegally rent it out for a massive markup on Airbnb.

It's interesting to see that Airbnb is where the HN mindset goes; it reflects a certain degree of privilege that an entrepreneurial opportunity is the first use case surfaced. Cramming extra family/friends into an apartment who aren't officially on the lease (e.g. the adult son who's lost a job or is on parole, or the parents who can't afford assisted living and are helping raise the grandkids) is actually far more c…

Rent-stabilized tenants are receiving implict or explict taxpayer subsidies. Why is it unreasonable for restrictions to be placed on their use of the property, when the government places restrictions on the landlord's use of the property (through rent-stabilization laws)?

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

#173

Post by porknubbins » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

cowpig wrote: post #141

My sister works as a lawyer in NYC on these kinds of cases. I can tell you that when landlords have a financial incentive to get rid of a tenant (as is very often the case in rent-stabilized housing), they can and will do anything in their power to do so, including every possible form of harassment. A system that allows landlords to track their tenants' activities with a computer, lock out whoever they want individua…

Sure there are bad landlords in NYC, but there stereotype of the small cheap landlord trying to harass rent-stabilized tenants has not been my experience or that of others I've talked to here. In what way are these landlords harassing tenants? I believe NYC law is one of the most favorable to tenants.

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

#174

Post by mjevans » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

omegaworks wrote: post #21

kaycebasques wrote: post #8

I get where it’s coming from. I know a guy who’s been subleasing a rent-controlled studio in Nob Hill for years. It’s not a money grab, I think he’s just passing through his own cost. He’s just holding onto it as a backup.

I know a guy who calls himself an "environmental consultant" subleasing three rooms in his rent-controlled four room Nob Hill apartment. Cycled through a second subtenant in one of the rooms while I was there and raised the rent $400. I doubt he works.

I feel the same way about most of rent-seeking society. The lack of affordable housing and the friction involved with buying and selling housing raises the costs dramatically and promotes both an in-efficient market and a disparity of class between the have (owns housing already) and have nots (rents).

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

#175

Post by javagram » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #169

mbrumlow wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? I read your link and can't help to see it is about tenants rights, not visitors of tenants. It seems this would only stop non-tenets from having access to the facilities. At least without being accompanied by actual tenants.

Did you read the part about Privacy and Right of Use? Facial recognition would violate that.

Not sure if legally it would be considered to violate privacy.

My guess would be the mentioned privacy is relating to the dwelling itself, that is, the landlord can’t come hang out in your living room or hide cameras in your apartment.

Plenty of apartments have 24/7 concierge at the front door and monitored entrances. That isn’t considered violating privacy even though the concierge can see you come in and out.

Would a computerized system that does the same thing necessarily violate the legal definition of privacy ? I suspect it would be hard to tell at this point.

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

#176

Post by komali2 » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

geodel wrote: post #159

komali2 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>shady looking What's shady look like?

Generally people know when they see it. I suppose you refer only to legal definitions of how people look.

>know when they see it

I would imagine the vector for abuse/prejudice is pretty obvious here, no?

> legal definitions of how people look.

I genuinely don't know what this means

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

#177

Post by robocat » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #69

We have a face recognition lock in the office, there is one guy for whom it simply doesn't work, and there is absolutely nothing special in his look. He says that phones with facial recognition unlocks also have hard time with him.

Do you make jokes about him being a vampire? Or is making that joke to a potential vampire a bad idea?

Or is he 1/4 ghost - a genetic chameleon?

Is there a scientific discovery to be made here, or is it just a bug?

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

#178

Post by gjs278 » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

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…

it doesn’t mean that the same person has a one in three chance of not being recognized.

it means one in three people won’t be recognized. but the two of three that are recognized will be recognized pretty much every time. and you can always try again if it misses for some reason.

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

#179

Post by landryraccoon » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 11:00 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #34

mc32 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Luckily, there’s a technology called a key, which opens a lock, and has no minimum lighting or software requirement for working. If physics is an issue, then doesn’t that mean the technique is fundamentally broken?

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

#180

Post by UncleEntity » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #98

closeparen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already accomplished by having difficult-to-duplicate keys or fobs for the building entrance, which is a pretty standard feature of apartment living. And yes, some management companies are very stingy with extra fobs, as a control against having extra people in the unit who are not on the lease, or Airbnb, or whatever. You can tell you are in a building with a lot of illegal extra tenants when the keyfob-cont…

Do Americans not get extra keys for their rental apartments? Granted, I've only rented out an apartment once, but it was from a big local rental agency and I got three keys despite being the only tenant in a single bedroom apartment. My current studio apartment (although not a rental) also has three keys.

> Do Americans not get extra keys for their rental apartments?

Mine didn't though I'm sure I could have gotten extra ones if I just asked.

I've been tempted on many, many occasions to give the neighbors a dollar to get a duplicate key made so they aren't knocking on the door/window at all hours because they obviously don't have enough keys for the amount of people living there.