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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

#141

Post by bko »

Closi wrote: post #100
bko wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It depends - These models are often non-transparent in terms of how they calculate, so what if the AI/model decides/calculate that a higher percentage of minorities in an area is a high predictor of crime, thus indirectly creates a policy that, for instance, areas with high levels of ethnic minorities require higher levels of policing or harsher restrictions (i.e. curfews, more CCTV e.t.c.). It's pretty simple to m…

> It's pretty simple to make the models transparent. Just select the inputs you want the model to have access to. You shouldn't be feeding your model the percentage of minorities in an area. That doesn't make the model transparent, it just makes the input and output transparent, but it's still a black box. It's nice to say that everyone will ensure that the model isn't fed with information which will allow it to make…

Again, whats the alternative? Human being making this decisions. Human beings with their own biases and life experiences. I trust a model where I can at least control the inputs it considers, is auditable, and created by intelligent thoughtful people than some police chief.

> accidental racial bias has already shown up multiple times in applications where it should be easier to detect than an invisible 'crime prediction' algorithm that the general public won't have access to but public policy will be implemented on the basis of.

The primary victims of violence are often of this same race as the "accidental racial bias" you're talking about. You're not doing anyone any favors by misallocating police resource to be more "equitable" without considering actual need. Only 7% of Americans want less policing in their neighborhoods. I imagine people that live in high crime areas would prefer more policing.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/562738-pol...

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#142

Post by cmrdporcupine »

skywal_l wrote: post #2

The subtitle is also important: Non-binding resolution also asks for AI-based predictive policing ban. AI, by its complexity and opacity should not be used to profile people. Just because it could be so easily manipulated.

I agree with the principle but the problem here is the word "AI" or "ML"; what we are talking about is really just fancy statistics. Are we forbidding statistical modeling of any kind? How would we even describe or enforce that? The ML courses I took started with just running a linear regression on a large data set, and those were considered a form of ML.

This is tricky. And the problem is not just the techniques, but can we trust our institutions and practitioners -- what kind of systemic and unconscious biases are driving the misuses or potential misuses of ML?

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#143

Post by da_big_ghey »

bko wrote: post #98
da_big_ghey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if someone is known to have committed a crime and police look at surveillance footage from nearby red-light cameras? Or if that person is thought to have visited that location in the past, could they use that footage? Which brings another question, what about facial recognition performed by a human? Investigators can presumably scour video or surveillance data by hand, but I guess just not by machine? Can they u…

Well i don't trust government to collect data on movements of every person but only use it with a warrant... i have issue with red-light camera for exactly this reason, we are not london, we should not have constant government surveilling. I am also concerned significantly by ring doorbell and similar, but unsure for what solution we need use. I think maybe as a first step we say they may not record any outside of a person's own property line.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#144

Post by adolph »

clairity wrote: post #140
adolph wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mu…

I wonder what would happen if murder stopped being policed. Would the murder rate remain unchanged as “numerous studies” suggest? Or would an unchanged base rate in murder without official retribution lead to blood feud style relationships between people and increase a secondary, tertiary, … n-terary murder rates?

If police leave 45% of murders unaddressed, I wonder how many current murders are secondary in nature, as in would not have occurred without an unretributed precipitating crime be-it murder, rape, assault, etc.

It’s an interesting idea to think about murder not being policed or have legal repercussions. Would it be comforting to know if you kill somebody drunk driving there wouldn’t be a big problem? I guess somebody like Dallas’ Dr. Death would still have to deal with pesky civil lawsuits.

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

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#145

Post by yholio »

abecedarius wrote: post #136
yholio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I can walk in a crowded mall with my feet, why can't I drive my 18-wheeler there? Traffic laws violate freedom of movement.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#146

Post by clairity »

adolph wrote: post #144
clairity wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mu…

I wonder what would happen if murder stopped being policed. Would the murder rate remain unchanged as “numerous studies” suggest? Or would an unchanged base rate in murder without official retribution lead to blood feud style relationships between people and increase a secondary, tertiary, … n-terary murder rates? If police leave 45% of murders unaddressed, I wonder how many current murders are secondary in nature, a…

the extreme limit (anarchy) isn't a practical possibility, since no government, however small, would give up its coercive power that way. it's more fruitful to talk about varying levels of policing and varying legal consequences, and the prevailing conclusion there is that murder rates aren't particularly sensitive to these variables in the practical bands of interest. but note that "policing" need not be done by a police force--in tribal groups for instance, tribal members generally police each other.

we'd be better served by having many more detectives, and far fewer gun-toting beat cops, if we were interested in solving more murder cases though. that's the kind of policy discussion we should be having, not the politically-driven narratives that currently prevail around the topic.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#147

Post by raxxorrax »

Spivak wrote: post #45
da_big_ghey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not really sure why we've normalized the collection of biometrics during police investigations that are kept forever. I know deleting them would defeat the purpose of the fingerprint/DNA databases but if we're gonna do this either collect and keep everyone's biometrics or no ones because creating two classes of people, those who have had run-ins with the police and not, is gross.

In todays political climate of fear that would mean everyone has to give their biometrics to state enforcement.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#148

Post by raxxorrax »

abecedarius wrote: post #136
yholio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is fundamentally different than digital processing because of multiple reasons.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#149

Post by raxxorrax »

bsenftner wrote: post #127
yholio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's pretty hard to ban - it is not that hard a problem to crack with modern processing and an intermediate understanding of computer vision. The issues related to skin tone bias are practically old news now, with the stress the international press placed on the issue, addressing problem areas and their fixes are well documented. I'd go as far as saying FR is at stage 3 of 5 for the technology life cycle: early major…

OpenCV doesn't deserve to be associated with such trivial applications.

Re: European Parliament Calls for a Ban on Facial Recognition

#150

Post by raxxorrax »

hprotagonist wrote: post #3
skywal_l wrote: post #2

The subtitle is also important: Non-binding resolution also asks for AI-based predictive policing ban. AI, by its complexity and opacity should not be used to profile people. Just because it could be so easily manipulated.

Why are opacity and complexity so often invoked as a reason here? I don’t want to be mass-profiling populations with totally clear and simple technologies, either.

Exactly, it is not that necessity would demand it anyway. Security today is often emotional and if there is no real threat, it will be made up.
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