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European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

politico.eu

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Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#131

Post by brightly-salty »

bko wrote: post #91
brightly-salty wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you can no longer transparently explain the reasoning behind a decision made based on the statistics, and instead have to just shrug and say “because the model told us so”. Accountability is very important in this issue.

Apart from neural networks most models are somewhat transparent in terms of reasoning. Neural networks would be the wrong model to use for this anyway. For instance, decision trees can tell us if the population density between this range and the percentage of single family residence is between this range, the probability of a package being stolen is X. Or regression could tell us that the square of the population den…

Exactly. We don’t disagree, I don’t think. Decision trees and regression analysis should count as statistics for the purpose of this issue, as they are transparent and accountable. Neural networks are another beast entirely, in my opinion.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#133

Post by golemiprague »

throwawaysea wrote: post #88

I don't understand why so many cities and other jurisdictions are trying to ban facial recognition. It's a tool, like anything else. We make policing easier by letting the police department have access to plumbed city water, electricity, computers, cars, and so on. Facial recognition is a way for them to work more efficiently and effectively. In Seattle, we've had rampant property crime to the point where people don'…

Because most of the criminals are from certain groups in society and the political elites, as well as many of the people here in HN, don't really rub shoulders with those people and don't care about solving crimes which affect the rest 80% of the population. They want to keep the police weak and criminals strong so they can keep controlling us.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#134

Post by EastOfTruth »

hef19898 wrote: post #14
smarx007 wrote: post #13

No, EU parliament is not calling for a ban on facial rec. They are proposing to: forbid using it indiscriminately in public places and to forbid the use of any AI/ML in predictive policing.

Which is already more than a first step. Using facial recognition as part of a legitimate investigation is an acceptable thing to do.

> Which is already more than a first step.

How is it more then a first step? What did they do previously?

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#135

Post by adolph »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #31
hef19898 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is already more than a first step. Using facial recognition as part of a legitimate investigation is an acceptable thing to do.

Only if face images also are acquired from a legitimate investigation (ideally a prior criminal conviction). Police cannot observe a face for years until they get a warrant then all suddenly have years of data, that is wrong.

> Only if face images also are acquired from a legitimate investigation (ideally a prior criminal conviction).

Wouldn't that inaccurately bias results towards people already involved with the criminal justice system?

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#136

Post by abecedarius »

yholio wrote: post #84
smarx007 wrote: post #13

No, EU parliament is not calling for a ban on facial rec. They are proposing to: forbid using it indiscriminately in public places and to forbid the use of any AI/ML in predictive policing.

They should ban facial recognition though, in all and every context where the owner of the face has not given explicit consent. Nothing good can come of it.

If I've seen your face before, how can I help but recognize it? This violates freedom of thought.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#137

Post by adolph »

atoav wrote: post #119
nitrogen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a shopkeeper submits footage of a crime to the police, the police should be able to keep it as evidence. What's problematic is proactive gathering and aggregation of footage by police or by corporations.

Sure. But we are talking about a global facial recognition technology, not about someones private surveilance video. There is a slight difference between the state having facial recognition AI-Cameras and a privat citizen submitting surveilance footage of their private shop after a crime has been committed, don't you think?

When the private citizens use services explicitly connected to state police services, is the difference only a matter of latency? For now it looks like Ring is oriented around geography but its probably just a ToS change away from adding a face-print dimension for lookup.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/ring-changed-how-polic...

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#138

Post by adolph »

bko wrote: post #53
smarx007 wrote: post #13

No, EU parliament is not calling for a ban on facial rec. They are proposing to: forbid using it indiscriminately in public places and to forbid the use of any AI/ML in predictive policing.

> forbid the use of any AI/ML in predictive policing I don't get what this means. If you use basic statistical methods and realize that murders are more likely to occur in this location between these hours and adjust your police force accordingly, is this bad? Shouldn't police use basic statistical methods in determining effective policies?

> Shouldn't police use basic statistical methods in determining effective policies?

No. For one, police are not statisticians. Here's a military example from WWII:

During World War II, the statistician Abraham Wald took survivorship bias into his calculations when considering how to minimize bomber losses to enemy fire. The Statistical Research Group (SRG) at Columbia University, which Wald was a part of, examined the damage done to aircraft that had returned from missions and recommended adding armor to the areas that showed the least damage. This contradicted the US military's conclusion that the most-hit areas of the plane needed additional armor. Wald noted that the military only considered the aircraft that had survived their missions – ignoring any bombers that had been shot down or otherwise lost, and thus also been rendered unavailable for assessment. The bullet holes in the returning aircraft represented areas where a bomber could take damage and still fly well enough to return safely to base. Therefore, Wald proposed that the Navy reinforce areas where the returning aircraft were unscathed, inferring that planes hit in those areas were the ones most likely to be lost. His work is considered seminal in the then-nascent discipline of operational research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#139

Post by adolph »

clairity wrote: post #89
bko wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forbid the use of any AI/ML in predictive policing I don't get what this means. If you use basic statistical methods and realize that murders are more likely to occur in this location between these hours and adjust your police force accordingly, is this bad? Shouldn't police use basic statistical methods in determining effective policies?

> “…murders are more likely to occur in this location between these hours…” you’re on the wrong track if murders (and the like) are the crimes you’re targeting. murders, while horrific, are a tiny and very localized danger. the crimes we need to be policing more actively happen around money and power (mass surveillance, corruption, etc.), which are far too common and have broad, highly externalized, and surreptitious…

> murders, while horrific, are a tiny and very localized danger

Because they are naturally uncommon and localized or because they are policed heavily?

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#140

Post by clairity »

adolph wrote: post #139
clairity wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “…murders are more likely to occur in this location between these hours…” you’re on the wrong track if murders (and the like) are the crimes you’re targeting. murders, while horrific, are a tiny and very localized danger. the crimes we need to be policing more actively happen around money and power (mass surveillance, corruption, etc.), which are far too common and have broad, highly externalized, and surreptitious…

> murders, while horrific, are a tiny and very localized danger Because they are naturally uncommon and localized or because they are policed heavily?

the amount of policing has basically no effect. numerous studies show that potential punishments don't deter murder, either pre-meditated or murders of opportunity. further, police rarely ever stop murders, and only solve about 55% of murder cases. lastly, murders are rare: 0.005%, or 16k/yr, in the US. that's because of the severe social, not legal, repercussions. people feeling connected to each other lowers the murder rate, not policing.
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