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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

#31

Post by chii »

munmaek wrote: post #13
chii wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> action against face recognition is also worthwhile. there's limited resources for political action. If you focus on facial recognition, may be it succeeds. But the data brokering industry will continue on unabated because there are plenty of other sources of data other than face. And now there's less political capital left to fight the fight again. Best to deploy the limited resources to fight the root cause - that…

Why is it one or the other? IMO, laws against facial recognition would start a national dialogue on data collection. You have to start somewhere, so it’s better to start with this and then expand, versus trying to pass sweeping legislation, etc.

"we are already safe from privacy concerns because we've already regulated facial recognition! Why spend any more money on privacy, isn't it enough? We have more pressing issues to deal with!"

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#32

Post by euske »

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.

"Facial recognition doesn't discriminate people. People discriminate people."

This just reminded me of a typical gun control argument (which I don't disagree with). Banning one particular technology might be still worthwhile, but the argument is valid only after the actual damage is assessed. I think we're still missing the number. (Arguably it's very hard to measure though!)

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#33

Post by Larrikin »

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.

I'm far more fearful of gait recognition than facial recognition. Gait recognition is more accurate and its much harder to fight against.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#34

Post by oarsinsync »

James_Henry wrote: post #12
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.

Schneier's point doesn't have to do with the specifics of, as he says, "identification, correlation and discrimination" methods, but rather he's arguing that focusing just on facial recognition instead of focusing on the larger more important question of surveillance in general is not useful. If you just ban facial recognition, then you are missing the point Schneier's making. Also, I think it might be easier to wear…

Varies based on country. Face masks are pretty normalised in some east asian countries after SARS. Coronavirus has resulted in affected areas being sold out of face masks entirely.

That said, Hong Kong tried to make face masks illegal during the extradition protests, which only resulted in even more protests.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#35

Post by oarsinsync »

xupybd wrote: post #28
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…

Indeed, the surveillance state that exists online vastly exceeds the surveillance state that exists offline (in some countries) right now.

Schneider's point is that we're failing to regulate against surveillance in general, and by simply focusing on banning a single form of surveillance, we're ignoring the dozens of other mechanisms that can be used both online and offline to track every single thing we do.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#36

Post by sircastor »

Larrikin wrote: post #33
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.

I'm far more fearful of gait recognition than facial recognition. Gait recognition is more accurate and its much harder to fight against.

Really? Gait recognition seems a far easier thing to spoof via a limp, change in shoes...

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#37

Post by BLKNSLVR »

jammygit wrote: post #21

> 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.…

> but we should take every winning battle we can, no?

It's treating the symptoms not the cause though, and this little victory will likely serve to dampen resolve to continue fighting against the root cause: increased surveillance, invasion of privacy, and the overall devaluing of privacy.

Facial recognition may be a battle that gets won, but it could be a key moment that results in the war on ubiquitous surveillance being lost.

Additionally, this is only a 5-year victory. Must we repeat it again every five years? At least the victory in the war for encryption lasted 20-odd years.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#38

Post by schlowmo »

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)

Unfortunately this is already illegal in some other western countries for quite some time. In Germany for example since 1985 (one year late though). It's often used as legitimation when the police is using violence against otherwise peaceful protests.

In the aftermath of the G20 summit in Hamburg there were some advancements to even tighten the law while at the same time the police was using illegal face recognition software.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#39

Post by Retric »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #37
jammygit wrote: post #21

> 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.…

> but we should take every winning battle we can, no? It's treating the symptoms not the cause though, and this little victory will likely serve to dampen resolve to continue fighting against the root cause: increased surveillance, invasion of privacy, and the overall devaluing of privacy. Facial recognition may be a battle that gets won, but it could be a key moment that results in the war on ubiquitous surveillance…

I have noticed victories tend to embolden a political groups to seek more of the same. It’s why chipping away is so often used in politics. Each individual bill does not make a big enough change to upset the silent majority, but in agrigate over time you see things like a 50% reduction in top tax rates. Passing that on day one makes headlines, but a 2% drop flys under the radar, as does the next, and the next, etc.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#40

Post by fzeroracer »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #37
jammygit wrote: post #21

> 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.…

> but we should take every winning battle we can, no? It's treating the symptoms not the cause though, and this little victory will likely serve to dampen resolve to continue fighting against the root cause: increased surveillance, invasion of privacy, and the overall devaluing of privacy. Facial recognition may be a battle that gets won, but it could be a key moment that results in the war on ubiquitous surveillance…

The entire reason why we're facing down these privacy and surveillance issues is because they came one small step at a time. First it's rolled out for some incredibly small part of the population, gradually expanded to everyone else as people get used to the new norm. Rinse and repeat.

The way you win battles like this is by winning many smaller ones and pushing back what is acceptable or not one step at a time.

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