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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

#201

Post by closeparen »

em500 wrote: post #161
jonathankoren wrote: post #44

Unsurprisingly, this technology, and presumably utilizing the surveillance to find any reason for eviction, is being applied to poor people. You rarely find this being rolled out in luxury apartments. Let's be honest here, poor people are stereotyped as being lazy, sneaky, untrustworthy, and stupid, so they have to be subjective to a more paternalism.

I thought it's not uncommon for luxury NYC apartment buildings to have a 24hr concierge / lobby attendant who's main task is to keep strangers out. (In Hong Kong this is pretty much the norm in all residential buildings, upscale or cheap government subsidized ones alike.)

When I was a kid and we visited my grandmother in her Chicago high-rise, I was amazed that the concierge recognized and greeted us by name the moment we stepped into the vestibule.

To memorize not only each resident's name and face, but also those of their occasional out-of-town guests, is quite a feat.

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

#202

Post by SubiculumCode »

crooked-v wrote: post #160
SubiculumCode wrote: post #71

All this door tech is just not in my MO. I don't need a camera in my doorbell, I don't need third parties keeping track of my visitors, I don't want my door to open for the package deliverer, and I don't want it to be my face that opens my door. "Hey Mom, here is my face, go right in, I'll be just a moment longer."

What I'd like to see is a self-contained home door lock that can use NFC or RFID, and even that just because of the convenience value in not having to get keys out with hands full of groceries. No Internet functionality, no Bluetooth or anything with a range over a couple of inches. Unfortunately, everything on the market that fills that want seems to be either completely unreliable, or hilariously insecure in either…

I think harvesting your own data in house is fine, as long as it is in the owners control.

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

#203

Post by purplezooey »

scarface74 wrote: post #125
purplezooey wrote: post #80

What we need is a lot more affordable housing and rent controlled apartments. Spend the money on that, not this.

What is my motivation for investing in property if I can’t charge market rates? Would you be okay if the government controlled the amount of money you could make instead of the market?

That got us where we are today. Market rate housing is good but there are limits to what a community can tolerate. It's why we have these places with cute little 1950s houses but nobody can afford to live near their work.

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

#204

Post by lazyasciiart »

tmp192489 wrote: post #152
codedokode wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't own the property and don't even live there then what's the problem? You can make them pay upfront.

haha i mean if we're talking about a situation where someone has bad credit, or a criminal history or whatever how many people with that background will have the funds to pay upfront (or want to)? Having subleased to a legitimate person before, it's already annoying/stressful enough to be a sublandlord since you are taking on a lot of credit risk as is. If I'm in a position where I'm going to shadily rent out my belo…

Plenty of people have actual friends and relatives with those backgrounds.

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

#205

Post by scarface74 »

purplezooey wrote: post #203
scarface74 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is my motivation for investing in property if I can’t charge market rates? Would you be okay if the government controlled the amount of money you could make instead of the market?

That got us where we are today. Market rate housing is good but there are limits to what a community can tolerate. It's why we have these places with cute little 1950s houses but nobody can afford to live near their work.

That doesn’t answer the question. Businesses that need software developers could just as easily say that they can’t afford to pay software developers so the government should oppose salary caps on them and not let FAANGs pay as much as they do.

Someone obviously can afford to live near where they work or the prices would come down. If companies couldn’t attract workers because of the high cost of living they would locate to cheaper places or be forced to pay more.

The answer is not government regulations.

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

#206

Post by anoncake »

scarface74 wrote: post #205
purplezooey wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That got us where we are today. Market rate housing is good but there are limits to what a community can tolerate. It's why we have these places with cute little 1950s houses but nobody can afford to live near their work.

That doesn’t answer the question. Businesses that need software developers could just as easily say that they can’t afford to pay software developers so the government should oppose salary caps on them and not let FAANGs pay as much as they do. Someone obviously can afford to live near where they work or the prices would come down. If companies couldn’t attract workers because of the high cost of living they would lo…

The difference is that software developers dont even appear on the hierarchy of needs. And of course the answer markets not working is government regulations.

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

#207

Post by scarface74 »

anoncake wrote: post #206
scarface74 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t answer the question. Businesses that need software developers could just as easily say that they can’t afford to pay software developers so the government should oppose salary caps on them and not let FAANGs pay as much as they do. Someone obviously can afford to live near where they work or the prices would come down. If companies couldn’t attract workers because of the high cost of living they would lo…

The difference is that software developers dont even appear on the hierarchy of needs. And of course the answer markets not working is government regulations.

Who can’t afford to live near where they work?

Public service workers like teachers, policemen, garbage collectors, etc. All of those jobs are in demand all across the U.S. If they can’t find jobs in San Francisco (just as an example), they will go to a part of the country where they can find a job. Let the cities compete for them by offering a better salary vs cost of living equation. Once San Francisco can’t get enough qualified people, they will have to pay them more and the taxpayers will have to pay more in taxes - instead of putting it all on landlords.

For private employees, they will have to pay enough to attract workers to either entice workers to work for them, or the potential business owners will see that the numbers don’t make sense and set their business up somewhere else.

If the citizens of San Francisco can’t get the jobs or have the services they want, they will move somewhere else and as the demand for housing decreases, the prices will go down.

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

#208

Post by TeMPOraL »

Balgair wrote: post #83
idrios wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along the same lines, imagine someone allergic to bees getting stung on the face causing their face to swell, so the system doesn't recognize them and they can't get into their apartment to grab their epipen. This system could literally kill a person

Heck, imagine something as mundane a haircut, a beard-shave, or a sunburn from a beach trip.

Yup. If the sophisticated facial recognition systems in flagship smartphones can't recognize you with vs. without prescription glasses, I have no hope that whatever el cheapo systems those landlords will be installing can handle a haircut or even bad lighting.

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

#209

Post by MR4D »

sithadmin wrote: post #52
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…

If nothing else: there's a market for fighting back against this. KeyMe kiosks (usually found at US supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.) have had RFID fob/card cloning capabilities for a while now. You scan the fob/card at the kiosk, then they clone it to a sticker and send it to you via mail.

I wonder what they do with the data after they’ve mailed you the sticker.

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

#210

Post by Doxin »

MR4D wrote: post #209
sithadmin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nothing else: there's a market for fighting back against this. KeyMe kiosks (usually found at US supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.) have had RFID fob/card cloning capabilities for a while now. You scan the fob/card at the kiosk, then they clone it to a sticker and send it to you via mail.

I wonder what they do with the data after they’ve mailed you the sticker.

Most RFID keyfobs simply contain a serial number (possibly encrypted or signed) and nothing more. There's not a lot of use in stealing a random number. They'd have to be in cahoots with the people running the lock software to gain anything by it.
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