Banning facial recognition is missing the point • Hacker News Board

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#141

Post by varjag » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

_carl_jung wrote: post #135

TeMPOraL wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine it's 1995. The Web gets banned for five years so that a government committee can meet to figure out what could possibly go wrong with that technology. Fortunately we already know what can go wrong with facial recognition technology. We have China, and we have American and Israeli and various Asian marketing startups inventing abuse after abuse after abuse. So there is already a test bed in place; it doesn't…

But the context in those countries is too different to ours to come to any meaningful conclusion about what should be allowed "here" (I'm assuming UK + US mainly).

The vector of anglo world isn't too promising right now either.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#142

Post by Ohn0 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

Interesting he mentions festivals banning it. There's a startup in LA who's trying to add facial recognition to ticket gates of large venues like stadiums for both security and marketing. I wonder how 50,000 people think about being facially recognized / tracked just to go see the ball game or concert?

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#143

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

martin_a wrote: post #94

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the EU has done any other notable things to fight mass surveillance, because if so it would mean they weren't focusing on one particular identification method. I mean maybe they are working on multiple fronts. Also perfect being the enemy of the well-intentioned here.

General data retention was also banned by EU courts, I think. While Germany is over and over trying to integrate something like that with dubious reasoning ("it will only be used against terrorists and other really bad crimes" - reality is that everybody wants his piece of it, even to use against false parking), the EU regularly puts a stop to this. So, it's great to have this higher-level legislative to stop single…

yes, I suppose my post was too dryly sarcastic to be obvious but really the EU has been doing quite a bit more than other nations or international organizations to stop the surveillance state and it seems a little unfair to pick on what attack of a symptom and saying but stopping this symptom won't do enough.

Not sure if this kind of problem isn't best solved by attacking the symptoms anyway, until you build up a sort of selection of anti-surveillance principles that can be used to decide new laws and regulations.

But I guess I'm pretty pro-EU so this kind of thing makes me grumpy.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#144

Post by clay10 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #96

dmje wrote: post #88

Everyone on HN is no doubt sitting there nodding along sagely but there’s also a pretty good bet that 90% of us (nerdy, apparently in-the-know tech types) have done very little to think about cutting down on smartphone use. It’s the single biggest surveillance vector (a device that you carry everywhere that knows where you are and reports your habits into a data store we know pretty much nothing about!), but we all n…

Once Librem 5 is ready, this problem will be solved for many nerdy people here. It's just the lack of choice now.

What about the Librem 5 would make you less trackable?

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#145

Post by devy » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

Schneier's title made it seem like we should not be banning facial recognition, but in the blog itself he spent lengthy verbiage arguing there are 3 components we needs do more to fight against of a surveillance state. In other words, we need to do more to ban/regulate those rather than undo the facial recognition ban.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#146

Post by quotemstr » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

mbel wrote: post #124

quotemstr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment reinforces the OP's point: opponents of facial recognition seem to approach the world with a particular value system that includes a disagreement with several existing laws. Instead of working to get these laws changed, facial recognition opponents advocate bans on technology that would maken these laws easier to enforce. Why should they succeed? > No street art Good. Graffiti is a blight. > No protestin…

> Why should people get to break the law? Because laws are made by people and as such can be flawed.

Laws can also be unmade by people. What gives random individuals the right to nullify laws made by everyone? Don't like a law? Get it repealed. In the meantime, you have to follow it.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#147

Post by bsenftner » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

aeternum wrote: post #63

bsenftner wrote: post #18

Schneier's points are dead on. One of the few talking sense here. Biometric and related identification technologies are here and multiplying. We need to regulate data sharing and 3rd party data compiling, regardless of the data. Dirty data and incorrect data will haunt people, existing in who knows what databases. This is what needs to be regulated. Not the individual identification technologies. Stop the abuse of ne…

Data compiling is just too easy at this point. Anyone can spin up some instances and run webscrapers to compile profile pictures, writing samples, etc. Many data leaks are available as torrents or hosted on pay-for-access sites likely from a variety of jursidictions. Even with some kind of global cooperation, can regulations really solve the problem? They might prevent corporations from using the data for advertising…

The regulations would prevent random scraped data from being compiled into official profiles used for official purposes, such as credit checks, security scans, and anything that can legally and official be used as verified information about you. Regulations need to be in place to prevent junk profiles compiled from dirty sources and then used as official information.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#148

Post by bsenftner » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #67

Because the conversation is so lopsided, I feel like somebody has to ask: what opportunities are we giving away when banning face recognition tech? Obvious one would be no more purse snatchers, ever. Almost no rapes, much fewer violent crimes. No lost kids. Lives and wallets saved. What else? This feels like the kind of tech that creates its own broad fields of use where there were none before. It might take time or…

Reasonable post, down voted by the "quick thinkers in the horde". The situation is too emotional to get clear discussions about FR anymore.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#149

Post by _carl_jung » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #141

_carl_jung wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the context in those countries is too different to ours to come to any meaningful conclusion about what should be allowed "here" (I'm assuming UK + US mainly).

The vector of anglo world isn't too promising right now either.

I don't remember stating otherwise.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#150

Post by Carpetsmoker » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #91

atoav wrote: post #84

While he is right I think Bruce is also missing the point here himself: he states that this law is the wrong way to fight surveillance – but that is not the stated goal of the law. The goal of the law is to prevent the development of a technical reality in Europe, to which a Jurisdiction can only passively react. The technical space moves so fast at times, that reality has been made before the law can even start to t…

>The technical space moves so fast at times, that reality has been made before the law can even start to think about what is okay and what isn't. In general I think this is exactly how it should work. You cannot stop all technological developments early on and make rules for imagined problems that may or may not arise. Imagine it's 1995. The Web gets banned for five years so that a government committee can meet to fi…

> Imagine it's 1995. The Web gets banned for five years so that a government committee can meet to figure out what could possibly go wrong with that technology.

This analogy doesn't work because the web is something I can choose to use or not, whereas facial recognition isn't.

> But as a general principle I think problems should be solved when they arise. Solving imagined problems before they arise is impossible and prone to misuse of power and influence.

The problems aren't imagined; they're very real and already present in other tech.

Also, "figure out problems when they arise" is rather naïve; history has shown that corporations will do anything to make a buck and will lie and bribe to get away with it. So this strategy didn't always work so well with past.