Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#11

Post by bigbubba » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

liquidise wrote: post #8

Seems people are disregarding this vote based on hypothetical loopholes. Instead, i am focused on the awareness this bill represents. Facial Recognition and Right to Repair improvements both ended up on state ballots and came away with citizen/consumer wins (as opposed to gov/corporate). HN comments are usually quick to point out that "normal people" don't have a clue about these issues. I tend to agree. I for one am…

It's been my experience that the sort of people on HN who claim the general public don't care about issues like this have a gloating tone which makes their personal stance on the matter clear.

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#12

Post by fitz13 » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

lmkg wrote: post #5

fitz13 wrote: post #2

Thanks to the practice of Parallel Construction and using Third Party vendors, I'm sure there would be a way around this. Hypothetically, the Portland PD sends all the details of the crime, including images, to a Third Party. Third Party, through use of proprietary black-box algorithms, returns a list of likely suspects. Portland PD investigates the suspects, and constructs the parallel case, without the need for the…

I don't think you're fully appreciating what this bans. The concern is not taking picture of a crime scene. The concern is having always-on camera feeds with facial recognition running. I.e., being able to trace the movements of individuals without any crime or suspicion of a crime.

It's true I may not be, but I'm not sure what the material difference is between real-time facial recognition and performing the same analysis on security camera footage after the fact.

I should clarify, I'm not arguing in favor of real time facial recognition, I'm just skeptical of this move's efficacy in preventing the same outcome.

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#13

Post by heavyset_go » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

Good. I'm eternally creeped out by how many cameras are now in residential neighborhoods in urban and suburban areas.

In the city, there's a dozen cameras on every corner. This was a problem a decade ago, but once you left the densely populated areas for the suburbs and rural areas, cameras were few and far between.

Now in the suburbs, there's cameras at the intersections and in parks, and everyone is wiring up their homes with neighborhood surveillance cameras that let law enforcement know if the cameras capture any potential evidence that the government can subpeona or copy via a warrant without ever having to let the cameras' owners know.

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#14

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

dasm wrote: post #7

SmellTheGlove wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement is a touch misleading. Portland's the only thing resembling a city in Maine, so it's going to have a larger government, organized police, etc, compared to the rest of the state. However, I wouldn't describe anywhere in Maine as being remotely authoritarian in the first place. The disclaimer being I haven't really spent any time up north, but I suspect no one is alleging authoritarianism north of Bangor…

I grew up in Maine, and I think the statement is quite accurate. Portland is not authoritarian, but it is by comparison to the northern counties

[deleted]

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#15

Post by heavyset_go » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

heyitsguay wrote: post #9

I agree with the effort to find privacy solutions, but it seems like enforcement of surveillance bans like this will be an uphill battle as long as the physical video hardware remains present. 2020's cutting-edge facial tracking systems will be 2022's Intro to PyTorch tutorial, available to anyone with a $500 GPU. As long as video is being captured and stored, how do you realistically prevent it from being subject to…

Anyone can pick up a HackRF and probably get away with skirting the FCC's ire if they're very careful about it. If they try to use it to develop a product that interferes with licensed RF and that they plan to sell, they won't get very far.

Similarly, some person in their garage won't be stopped from violating this law as long as they're careful about it. This law stops facial recognition products from being mass deployed and being made ubiquitous, though.

The same logic applies to someone cooking meth in their garage. They'll probably get away with it if they're careful, but good luck turning that into a legitimate business.

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#16

Post by lmkg » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

fitz13 wrote: post #12

lmkg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're fully appreciating what this bans. The concern is not taking picture of a crime scene. The concern is having always-on camera feeds with facial recognition running. I.e., being able to trace the movements of individuals without any crime or suspicion of a crime.

It's true I may not be, but I'm not sure what the material difference is between real-time facial recognition and performing the same analysis on security camera footage after the fact. I should clarify, I'm not arguing in favor of real time facial recognition, I'm just skeptical of this move's efficacy in preventing the same outcome.

With ubiquitous surveillance, you can build a database of the location activity of all citizens. This is problematic for several reasons, with top-of-mind right now being targeting individuals for political reasons, but also stuff like what if the database gets hacked, and general fourth- and fifth-amendment concerns.

With a ban in place, the ability to build such a database drops significantly because you need a pretense for every image or piece of video you acquire. You can acquire and send for processing security camera footage when there was a crime, but when there was no crime? How do you justify acquiring the security footage, and how do you justify asking for it to be processed. Whether the footage available to facial recognize is ubiquitous or not makes a qualitative impact.

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#17

Post by mrguyorama » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

dasm wrote: post #7

SmellTheGlove wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement is a touch misleading. Portland's the only thing resembling a city in Maine, so it's going to have a larger government, organized police, etc, compared to the rest of the state. However, I wouldn't describe anywhere in Maine as being remotely authoritarian in the first place. The disclaimer being I haven't really spent any time up north, but I suspect no one is alleging authoritarianism north of Bangor…

I grew up in Maine, and I think the statement is quite accurate. Portland is not authoritarian, but it is by comparison to the northern counties

Only because the northern part of Maine feels like it doesn't even have government.

Yeah, turns out a functioning city might feel more authoritarian than like the three people who do all the work in your local town office

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#18

Post by mrguyorama » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

smitty1e wrote: post #3

> curb government and police use of facial recognition technology So, it's outsourced. A private entity does the spying and tips 911.

you realize laws can be improved upon and changed right?

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#19

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #17

dasm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Maine, and I think the statement is quite accurate. Portland is not authoritarian, but it is by comparison to the northern counties

Only because the northern part of Maine feels like it doesn't even have government. Yeah, turns out a functioning city might feel more authoritarian than like the three people who do all the work in your local town office

A city can function just fine with out a bunch of local by-laws controlling what you can and can't do on your own property and proactive enforcement of local codes and minor civil infractions that aren't harming anyone. I live in one such city (of similar size). It's awesome.

Portland's problem in my observation is the wealth and cultural norms (not the same thing as the politics) of the tourists who become permanent residents and an economic impetus to keep things quaint looking for the tourists. Nobody wants tell the golden goose to stop crapping on the lawn.

Re: Portland, Maine passes referendum banning facial surveillance

#20

Post by joelhoffman » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

Portland, Oregon already passed a similar law. Both of them seem a little ambiguous to me: they both clearly ban the city's use, and ban the city from allowing corporate use in public places, but do they ban the private use of facial recognition by individuals on public property? Does failing to specifically ban this constitute authorization?

It's been reported that protesters in Portland OR and other places have been using facial recognition to identify police who don't have visible badges -- so I am wondering if this is banned.