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King County, WA bans facial recognition software

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Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#41

Post by cryptoz »

throwaway1959 wrote: post #39

My instinct for self-preservation tells me that this is not a good thing. I understand the need for privacy, but what happens if somebody puts a gun (or a knife) to your face? I think that the need for privacy could be solved through the legislation: we can have very severe restrictions on who could look at this data and why. Also, we can have severe restrictions on the admissibility of such data in court. Unfortunat…

The article and discussion is not about privacy. The people against facial recognition are against it, at least in this case, because it is racist - or at least, it produces racist outcomes.

Removing bias from facial recognition is the problem you would have to solve to appease the concerns right now, not privacy.

When innocent minorities are getting locked up because the software running it was trained with poor data, the outcomes of using the software is a racism-entrenched legal and justice system.

Which is why people are fighting against it.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#42

Post by diamond_hands »

throwaway1959 wrote: post #39

My instinct for self-preservation tells me that this is not a good thing. I understand the need for privacy, but what happens if somebody puts a gun (or a knife) to your face? I think that the need for privacy could be solved through the legislation: we can have very severe restrictions on who could look at this data and why. Also, we can have severe restrictions on the admissibility of such data in court. Unfortunat…

We have survived as a society for long time without the need for this.

You could say the same thing about the 1st, 4th, and 5th amendments. "what about the children"

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#43

Post by [deleted] »

kyleblarson wrote: post #35
WalterBright wrote: post #25

At last, KC did something right. Hooray! There's nowhere near enough unsolved violent crime to justify the surveillance state. And yes, I have been the victim of an unsolved violent robbery. P.S. who cares if KC is first or not. What matters is it got done.

There may not be enough unsolved violent crime to justify facial recognition, but one thing there is too much of in Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, NYC is un-prosecuted violent crime.

[deleted]

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#44

Post by matz1 »

cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient. It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace…

Right, this is like banning knife because it can be used to kill people. I much prefer they try to fix whatever it is that cause misery with the use of facial recognition, instead of banning it altogether.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#45

Post by _jal »

cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient. It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace…

I think there are very good reasons to keep the government out of the FR business, at least for now.

Facial recognition is the enabling technology for automated real-world repression. Maybe it is true that we can find a way to tame it to gain efficiency gains without destroying open society. But right now it looks like a dangerous one-way ratchet.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#46

Post by diamond_hands »

microdrum wrote: post #40
cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient. It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace…

This is the right take. Can't ban math. Facial rec is here. If you don't like it, win a public policy debate about making it evidentially weak in front of a judge. Banning facial rec is like saying "you can have security cameras and iPhones, but only human eyeballs can look through them, not computers!" Arbitrary, and doomed to fail.

The math is incorrect with Black people's faces more than White people's faces.

"Can't ban math", that's like saying "can't ban words". Yes, but you can ban a combination of words in a location, such a "There's a fire!" in a crowded theater. You can ban a combination of math in a police station that leads to people going to jail.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#47

Post by WalterBright »

zorpner wrote: post #38
kyleblarson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may not be enough unsolved violent crime to justify facial recognition, but one thing there is too much of in Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, NYC is un-prosecuted violent crime.

If we forced the cops to wear their badge numbers, we'd know who was committing the violence and they could be prosecuted for it.

If someone is beating me, I'm not likely to be able to focus on his number and memorize it. When a thug put his gun in my face to rob me, I later could describe the gun in great detail, but not his face.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#48

Post by [deleted] »

cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient. It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace…

[deleted]

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#49

Post by NegativeLatency »

cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient. It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace…

Laws can always be changed, seems sensible to me to prevent this stuff being rolled out when there are so many unresolved problems and abuses with it.

I generally don’t want my government to “move fast and break things”

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#50

Post by bsenftner »

cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient. It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace…

There is a subtle misdirection when some jurisdiction "bans government use of facial recognition" - that ends up, or is by design, how private agencies are created that law enforcement then contracts with less oversight than before.
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