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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

#41

Post by manicdee »

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…

We’ve had to handle Holocaust Denial since WW2, we’ve had to handle anti-vaxxers since Andrew Wakefield, and conspiracy theorists since the first apes developed complex language.

This is not a “fight every five years” episodic battle,mthis is a daily struggle, with the vested interests on one side looking to squeeze in more of the wedge until they can walk through the door unobstructed.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#42

Post by firediamond »

sircastor wrote: post #36
Larrikin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I had that thought when I heard about gait recognition too, and I'm still curious if the general counterpoint is the same as the next thought I had, or unrelated:

It seems surprisingly hard to spoof a limp (or any other biomechanic change, like randomly swapping shoe inserts or some prosthesis to change arm movement patterns or something), consistently, for an extended period. Also, painful. Also, noticeable to humans, like most MV-dodging techniques are.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#43

Post by cryptoz »

Schneier is missing the point.

> The whole purpose of this process is for companies — and governments — to treat individuals differently.

This isn't true. It's about population control, not treating individuals differently. He has an extremely close-minded view of the future here. The point of this isn't to treat people differently, it's to contain the overton window and basically thought-police entire populations. Nothing to do with the individual being treated differently, that is merely the lipstick-pig moment where it happens but isn't really the core problem.

> The point is that it doesn't matter which technology is used to identify people.

It sure does matter! Bugs in code, hacking the system itself is all 'implementation details' of the 'technology' used to do the tracking. Techniques that are especially susceptible to both of these make a surveillance technology dramatically more dangerous.

The details do matter, because they add up to a larger, unknown future. Schneier has a bizarrely close-minded view of the dangers of facial recognition.

I haven't heard any of the proponents of the ban say that it is the only surveillance that is happening or that should be banned, but that seems a central tenet to his point.

Some progress is better than no progress, especially in this case where things move quickly. I do not think we are at risk of a population thinking that its problems would be solved if we could just ban this one thing. It's a straw-man argument that I haven't even heard elsewhere.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#44

Post by Lind5 »

While most of these systems work well enough to identify a person, there are a number of well-known ways to defeat them. One is simply to apply newer technology to cracking algorithms used inside these devices. Improvements in processing power from one generation to the next, and a proliferation of information about where the vulnerabilities are, applies to biometrics as well as other technologies.How Secure Is Your Face? https://semiengineering.com/how-secure-is-your-face/

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#45

Post by BLKNSLVR »

fzeroracer wrote: post #40
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm on both sides of the fence a bit. I agree entirely that victories are piecemeal, but the facial recognition issue just feels like the piece of the iceberg that's above the water. The rest of the iceberg, supporting things such as facial recognition, feels as if it will never be addressed, and that's the war that needs to be won.

My original reply written prior to the above: And yet nothing has been done about the information dragnet that is the Internet, even after the Cambridge Analytica situation got worldwide press. Well, the GDPR happened, actually, but that's only a reaction from a single country. And this has been going on, and escalating, for years with almost zero political will to halt or even slow it down.

Winning on Facial Recognition will be license for most governments to happily ignore the other, more insidious, creepings of privacy invasion.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#46

Post by gwbas1c »

cryptoz wrote: post #43

Schneier is missing the point. > The whole purpose of this process is for companies — and governments — to treat individuals differently. This isn't true. It's about population control, not treating individuals differently. He has an extremely close-minded view of the future here. The point of this isn't to treat people differently, it's to contain the overton window and basically thought-police entire populations. N…

> This isn't true. It's about population control

Uhh, why do you think that? So far, I only see evidence that mass surveillance is to catch criminals and for marketing.

"1984" was a work of fiction, and it seems more a warning about perpetual war, totalitarian, and the communism concept of "cult of personality" than just surveillance.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#47

Post by matthewheath »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #45
fzeroracer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm on both sides of the fence a bit. I agree entirely that victories are piecemeal, but the facial recognition issue just feels like the piece of the iceberg that's above the water. The rest of the iceberg, supporting things such as facial recognition, feels as if it will never be addressed, and that's the war that needs to be won. My original reply written prior to the above: And yet nothing has been done about the…

The EU is not a country, it is a collection of 27 countries.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#48

Post by cryptoz »

gwbas1c wrote: post #46
cryptoz wrote: post #43

Schneier is missing the point. > The whole purpose of this process is for companies — and governments — to treat individuals differently. This isn't true. It's about population control, not treating individuals differently. He has an extremely close-minded view of the future here. The point of this isn't to treat people differently, it's to contain the overton window and basically thought-police entire populations. N…

> This isn't true. It's about population control Uhh, why do you think that? So far, I only see evidence that mass surveillance is to catch criminals and for marketing. "1984" was a work of fiction, and it seems more a warning about perpetual war, totalitarian, and the communism concept of "cult of personality" than just surveillance.

I don't see how 1984 is relevant here. The surveillance we have today far surpasses the simple ideas in that book.

> Uhh, why do you think that?

Because the people building the facial recognition pretty much say so? "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible" does not sound like marketing opportunities or criminal-catching to me! It sounds like a desire for total corporate control over the physical and digital world.

Not to mention, it is the logical end of using this technology; "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Having such a powerful and omnipotent surveillance system in place enables totalitarian control over populations. This happens through chilling effects, through terrorism, mental boxing-in of populations ceding their free will to the government. Knowing that your own face is tracked everywhere you go and sold off to anyone and owned by your own government or other governments is dehumanizing. Do this for decades or centuries and you will have a very humanized and defeated population.

> So far, I only see evidence that mass surveillance is to catch criminals and for marketing.

I don't see any evidence like you are describing. I feel like we're living in different worlds.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#49

Post by cortesoft »

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.…

At the same time, banning the one mechanism that inherently creeps people out might make them not worry about the problem as much, and we won't fight the more nefarious and less obvious mechanisms that come next.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#50

Post by brokenmachine »

closeparen wrote: post #22
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.

Although I would like it, unfortunately I think the CCTV horse has bolted.
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