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JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

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Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#171

Post by thwythwy »

raxxorrax wrote: post #144
bayesian_horse wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's still not the problem that a machine can recognize you, but rather that somebody is tracking and storing such recognitions. Which is an entirely different thing. The former is a technological reality. It's impossible to legislate away devices who can do that. Tracking and storing personal data on the other hand, is very much within the reach of regulation. The GDPR for example restricts this. Even if somebody…

> It's impossible to legislate away devices who can do that. It is actually be pretty trivial to legislate restriction of these devices. We do that all the time. edit: Especially on planes where shampoo-technology is pretty much outlawed...

It's trivial for the tech not to follow the law. Show me the machine specs and I'll believe you. Otherwise, track record on compliance is abysmal.

Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#172

Post by int_19h »

skilled wrote: post #33

I am guessing that the bigger concern here is that this is an 'enabler' tactic to expand facial recognition in other areas of our lives. And if this is the case, then there definitely needs to be some kind of ratification. Maybe this is unrelated, but it's starting to feel like every bad accident in this world is affecting us in this very strange way. For example, I was very surprised to find that Sri Lanka cut every…

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

The ongoing "global war on terrorism" is no exception.

Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#173

Post by blahedo »

mattlondon wrote: post #25

So how does this work for international travelers? Presumably the US government does not have the entire world's passport photos? Or do they...? Pretty worrying if so ... time for some GDPR requests maybe ... I think at Gatwick in the UK they have a similar system where they take a photo of you as you enter security and it is then checked again at the gate. It does not work well if you are wearing glasses. I wonder i…

They have the passport photos from all US passports, plus all non-US people who have entered the country through a legal port of entry. That should cover everyone who's flying out of the country, right?

Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#174

Post by mirimir »

blahedo wrote: post #173
mattlondon wrote: post #25

So how does this work for international travelers? Presumably the US government does not have the entire world's passport photos? Or do they...? Pretty worrying if so ... time for some GDPR requests maybe ... I think at Gatwick in the UK they have a similar system where they take a photo of you as you enter security and it is then checked again at the gate. It does not work well if you are wearing glasses. I wonder i…

They have the passport photos from all US passports, plus all non-US people who have entered the country through a legal port of entry. That should cover everyone who's flying out of the country, right?

Sure. Except for those who entered illegally.

But I'm not sure how far they'd get even now. I'm guessing that checks on do-not-fly etc lists might already flag hem.

Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#175

Post by bayesian_horse »

skohan wrote: post #149
bayesian_horse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Minority Report" was about something that Humans couldn't really do, meaning to look into the future, and they even needed psychics to do it... Good luck trying to advance science by avoiding to invent anything that can recognize image!

Taken metaphorically we’re not far away. Imagine if we come to trust ML to make decisions for us in everyday life, and we build a system which can predict with high confidence that someone will commit a mass shooting. Is it so hard to believe that might be acted on?

To avoid these issues it is imperative to hold natural and legal persons responsible for the software they use, just as it has always been, regardless if it is using anything artificial intelligence-ish. Under that rule there will always be a way to handle problems arising from AI. Without following that rule, pretty much nothing else matters.

In the case of the mass-shooting prediction: Good luck proving that it is accurate enough to legitimize punitive consequences for the suspected perpetrator, and without violating a half-decent democratic constitution.

Some of the predictors are in themselves crimes, and picking those up would justify correctional measures, no problem. Schools and police also need to get a lot better at picking up and handling mental health problems, be it through algorithms or smarter laws and procedures. Make it easier for the mentally ill to get medical help than to buy an assault rifle, for starters.

Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#176

Post by bayesian_horse »

skohan wrote: post #145
bayesian_horse wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making bombs in your backyards is much less popular and much more consequential than recognizing images. And image recognition happens completely in silicon. There is no way to know from the outside if a device is recognizing patterns in image data, much less differentiate between recognizing faces or dog breeds.

I'm not following your argument. There's also no way of knowing from the outside if a device is storing identifying information to be shared with advertisers or foreign governments. What's special about classifiers which makes them unregulatable?

I think you are arguing, to try an analogy, that prohibiting any kind of face recognition would be as worthwhile as prohibiting bomb building, while being about equally difficult. I'm rejecting that premise.

And of course, storage and utilization of personal data is a lot easier to regulate in a way that can be enforced. That's the main premise of the GDPR legislation, by the way. Of course, criminal and negligent businesses can totally abuse your personal data, often without consequences. But they can't do so legitimately and they don't have access to the legal and open economy.

Even Facebook and Google are feeling the pain already. They do violate some laws some of the time and they have a hard time hiding that, because hiding it requires criminal intent itself, and it's really hard for hundreds of people to keep such secrets, regardless how profitable.

Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#177

Post by skohan »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #176
skohan wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following your argument. There's also no way of knowing from the outside if a device is storing identifying information to be shared with advertisers or foreign governments. What's special about classifiers which makes them unregulatable?

I think you are arguing, to try an analogy, that prohibiting any kind of face recognition would be as worthwhile as prohibiting bomb building, while being about equally difficult. I'm rejecting that premise. And of course, storage and utilization of personal data is a lot easier to regulate in a way that can be enforced. That's the main premise of the GDPR legislation, by the way. Of course, criminal and negligent bu…

1. No, you have asserted multiple times in this discussion that it's impossible to regulate facial recognition technology. e.g:

> The former is a technological reality. It's impossible to legislate away devices who can do that[facial recognition].

Please explain that statement, as it seems like total nonsense to me. My point about explosives is that just because something is "a technological reality", or that there's no way to physically prevent people from implementing something, that in no way makes it immune from legislation. We can legislate whatever we want.

Here's a law which would make it impossible for JetBlue to implement this system:

"No organization shall be permitted to use an automated system to identify individuals using an image of their face."

2. I think you're missing the point with your larger argument. It seems as if you are saying: we should not be concerned about JetBlue's use of this technology because this use-case in particular does not constitute the dystopian Orwellian potential of facial recognition technology. The point is not that this is the use-case which crosses that line, the point is that it is a big step in that direction, and has happened without a public discussion of where exactly the line should be.

3. You say w.r.t. GDPR:

> Of course, criminal and negligent businesses can totally abuse your personal data, often without consequences. But they can't do so legitimately and they don't have access to the legal and open economy.

That's an argument in favor of regulating facial recognition technology itself isn't it? We can allow the technology to be normalized, and just hope everyone is following regulations about not abusing access to our personal data. But given what has been revealed about PRISM and other government spying programs, it's hard to imagine that such data would not be abused if it existed. On the other hand, we could agree not to make facial recognition a part of our daily lives, or to put very careful boundaries around its use, and make it that much harder for it to be abused.

Re: JetBlue has started using facial recognition instead of boarding passes

#178

Post by vinay427 »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #167
vinay427 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't quite accurate for some parts of the Schengen area. Everyone on my flight was required to go through ID controlled when flying out of "Switzerland" [1] to an EU Schengen area country, though I'm very aware that CH is usually an oddball in these matters. [1] The Basel airport is technically in France, though the Swiss part of the airport which I entered is treated like it's in Switzerland and not in the EU,…

I took dozens of flghts out of and into ZRH and was checked exactly twice. Both times upon arrival at the gate: Once upon arrival in Prague and once in Zurich upon arrival from Athens. In all other cases the whole process, at least in ZRH, was completely automated. It does depend on country and airport, though. Customs is a whole different kettle of fish. But as for id, I'm very rarely asked.

Hmm, this may be unique to the Basel airport, and perhaps the airline I was flying on. The gate was actually past a physical barrier with booths for checking IDs, similar to the Schengen borders in airports.
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