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Banning facial recognition is missing the point

schneier.com

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Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#21

Post by jammygit »

> These efforts are well intentioned, but facial recognition bans are the wrong way to fight against modern surveillance. Focusing on one particular identification method misconstrues the nature of the surveillance society we're in the process of building. Ubiquitous mass surveillance is increasingly the norm. In countries like China, a surveillance infrastructure is being built by the government for social control. In countries like the United States, it's being built by corporations in order to influence our buying behavior, and is incidentally used by the government.

He’s right, but we should take every winning battle we can, no? Even a few notable victories could help to change public opinion about whether things are inevitable or not

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#22

Post by closeparen »

randomsearch wrote: post #2

I see his point, but practical face recognition is a lot easier to implement and a lot harder to defend against than all the other types of recognition. You could, for example, no carry a phone or turn it off. But your face is expected to be on show (obv exceptions aside). So no, it’s not missing the point. It’s a different point. He’s right, but action against face recognition is also worthwhile.

If the images exist, you can't actually stop someone from running facial recognition algorithms on them in private, legal or not. To really stop facial recognition, we need to stop the collection of those images in the first place.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#23

Post by jammygit »

randomsearch wrote: post #2

I see his point, but practical face recognition is a lot easier to implement and a lot harder to defend against than all the other types of recognition. You could, for example, no carry a phone or turn it off. But your face is expected to be on show (obv exceptions aside). So no, it’s not missing the point. It’s a different point. He’s right, but action against face recognition is also worthwhile.

In Canada, it’s now illegal to hide your face during a protest (a gift from the Harper years)

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#24

Post by andai »

BurningFrog wrote: post #16

Some times a technology is so cheap and easy to use that banning it becomes absurd, and you just have to accept the new reality. Face recognition isn't quite there yet, but in 5 or 10 years every kid with a phone can do this.

>2031: Google defends the swiveling roof-mounted scanning electron microscopes on its Street View cars, saying they 'don't reveal anything that couldn't be seen by any pedestrian scanning your house with an electron microscope.'

https://xkcd.com/1204/

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#25

Post by xupybd »

My fear of facial recognition is not just governments it's criminals. All they have to do is crawl my linkedin on facebook and bam they have my name next to my face.

Worse they know where I work or where I live.

This opens up a world of problems.

Say someone sees a stranger in a situation that the stranger may find embarrassing. Embarrassing enough that they could be extorted. They open their phone and find out who the person is. They can now make contact and threaten to contact your employer or spouse with images of you in this embarrassing situation.

You now have a real life avenue for this sort of thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextortion#Webcam_blackmail.

I know the greater problem is that we now share our details online maybe no linkedin no facebook is smarter.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#26

Post by beached_whale »

jammygit wrote: post #23
randomsearch wrote: post #2

I see his point, but practical face recognition is a lot easier to implement and a lot harder to defend against than all the other types of recognition. You could, for example, no carry a phone or turn it off. But your face is expected to be on show (obv exceptions aside). So no, it’s not missing the point. It’s a different point. He’s right, but action against face recognition is also worthwhile.

In Canada, it’s now illegal to hide your face during a protest (a gift from the Harper years)

Yet to be tried in court, I think. I suspect, that unless someone is using a facial covering to hide their face while breaking the law, it would probably be found against the charter. One does not need to identify law abiding citizens and protesting is very protected expression.

Not a lawyer though, so I speak with little authority on the topic.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#27

Post by numakerg »

jammygit wrote: post #23
randomsearch wrote: post #2

I see his point, but practical face recognition is a lot easier to implement and a lot harder to defend against than all the other types of recognition. You could, for example, no carry a phone or turn it off. But your face is expected to be on show (obv exceptions aside). So no, it’s not missing the point. It’s a different point. He’s right, but action against face recognition is also worthwhile.

In Canada, it’s now illegal to hide your face during a protest (a gift from the Harper years)

Bill C-309 is the law in question [1]. It should only affect "unlawful" assemblies, but I'd be interested to see what the functional criteria are, how much warning is appropriate, and whether a protest's status can be changed retroactively.

>Harper years

The Liberals were also supporters of this bill, including the current Prime Minister.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#28

Post by xupybd »

petermcneeley wrote: post #4

It took me awhile to grok but I think that people like Schneier want to take the ideology of online anonymity and apply it IRL.

No I don't think this is it. IRL actions are forgotten over time and they're not indexed against each other. If all your actions can be tied to your face with automated tools everything you do can be recorded, indexed and cross referenced.

Now maybe that protest you went to as a college student shows up every time you attend a job interview. That time you drank too much and were seen peeing against a building by the buildings security camera is available to someone that was recording the unsecured stream.

People from old youtube videos are now locatable as they had their face show up on facebook.

That cute girl on the bus now gets stalked home because the creepy guy that likes her can find here address.

The guy you cut off in traffic has a dash cam, he uses it to find out who you are and is waiting for you at work the next day.

The picture of you at a party on someone elses facebook now shows up to every employers search as they can now search by photo.

How do witnesses in criminal trials disappear now? They might show up in someone's publicly posted holiday photos or on a webcam feed that hasn't been locked down.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#30

Post by emodendroket »

James_Henry wrote: post #19
emodendroket wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wear a mask outside in the winter, usually, but this makes people uncomfortable inside at best and obviously prevents you from eating or drinking. And you would not be comfortable yourself either. So I'm going to say wearing a mask at all times is not practical.

Of course it's uncomfortable

Why wonder about something you already know the answer to?
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