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Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

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Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#71

Post by vkou »

danlugo92 wrote: post #26
Nextgrid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to operate in a jurisdiction What defines "operating"? Does it mean you are physically based there? Your infrastructure being there? Your company registration? Your bank account? Etc. Back in the day these weren't problems in practice; for physical goods/services you typically were based in a single jurisdiction. If exporting goods, customs take care of it. The internet has no "customs" equivalent thoug…

Someone might be using a VPN as well...

If I run a liquor store in Florida, and a Saudi tourist visits it and buys a bottle of wine, that's not my problem. Saudi Arabia can't do anything to me, regardless of how many of their drug laws I'm breaking.

If I start advertising my store in Saudi Arabia, or move my money into a Saudi bank, or visit their kingdom, then I'll have a problem. Because it can do something to me. It can tell my business partners to cut me off, or seize my money, or, in the latter case, arrest me as a drug kingpin.

Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#72

Post by vkou »

adolph wrote: post #70
reaperducer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can both be bad. You don't stop going after one criminal because there are others.

Seemingly neutral laws can be enforced inequitably or corruptly. A government that goes after the little guys and gives big cos a pass is illegitimate.

> A government that goes after the little guys and gives big cos a pass is illegitimate.

A government that governs without consent of the governed is illegitimate. A government that governs inconsistently is not necessarily illegitimate. The legitimacy of a government is not determined by any particular small-large business axis. Viewing the world through that axis is not helpful in this case.

And while we're at it, just because your government is unfair doesn't make it illegitimate. There are plenty of state governments[1] that were, and are incredibly unfair in their enforcement of their laws, but when they aren't actively stealing elections, I wouldn't call them illegitimate.

[1] For a crystal-clear example, the south under Jim Crow. Unfair laws, unfair enforcement of laws, but I'd be hard-pressed to argue that many of those governments did not have the consent of most of who they governed.

Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#73

Post by shkkmo »

meowface wrote: post #59
kurthr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so impossible that it is the actual use case they are selling? " The system found a match in the background of some photo taken at a trade show (the guy was working a both). It only knew the website the photo was from, which allowed the police the identify the trade show, which allowed them to track down the people working at that booth to find their suspect."

Just as evidence I'm not defending them, I find their project totally unethical, and the owners and their associates are also highly involved with internet fascism and credential phishing (I know the source isn't the best, but I recommend reading the article): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clearview-ai-facial-recogniti... With that said: the order is clearly impossible to execute. There's a huge difference between p…

> With that said: the order is clearly impossible to execute.

It is clearly possible to execute, it would just require much higher costs per image that ClearView processes and the probable need for ClearView to avoid using any images that they can't verify the location of in am economical fashion.

Saying it is "impossible" is different from saying that the costs of compliance would fundamentally change ClearView's business model.

Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#74

Post by thaumasiotes »

vkou wrote: post #72
adolph wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seemingly neutral laws can be enforced inequitably or corruptly. A government that goes after the little guys and gives big cos a pass is illegitimate.

> A government that goes after the little guys and gives big cos a pass is illegitimate. A government that governs without consent of the governed is illegitimate. A government that governs inconsistently is not necessarily illegitimate. The legitimacy of a government is not determined by any particular small-large business axis. Viewing the world through that axis is not helpful in this case. And while we're at it,…

> A government that governs without consent of the governed is illegitimate.

This is not exactly a mainstream viewpoint.

> For a crystal-clear example, the south under Jim Crow. Unfair laws, unfair enforcement of laws, but I'd be hard-pressed to argue that many of those governments did not have the consent of most of who they governed.

But in the other direction, it's trivially easy to argue that many major governments did not have the consent of the governed. e.g. the Qing dynasty was hated by the Chinese people it ruled.

The consent of the governed is not even a theoretically valid concept as applied to large groups. You rule through force.

Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#76

Post by vkou »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #74
vkou wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A government that goes after the little guys and gives big cos a pass is illegitimate. A government that governs without consent of the governed is illegitimate. A government that governs inconsistently is not necessarily illegitimate. The legitimacy of a government is not determined by any particular small-large business axis. Viewing the world through that axis is not helpful in this case. And while we're at it,…

> A government that governs without consent of the governed is illegitimate. This is not exactly a mainstream viewpoint. > For a crystal-clear example, the south under Jim Crow. Unfair laws, unfair enforcement of laws, but I'd be hard-pressed to argue that many of those governments did not have the consent of most of who they governed. But in the other direction, it's trivially easy to argue that many major governmen…

You are correct, it's possible to further expand that definition of legitimacy, to include de-facto legitimacy (I am the guy in charge, I might be in charge because I rule through fear and force, but since I am the guy in charge, I am legitimate.)

My point is that it doesn't make much sense to contract the definition of legitimacy. At a minimum, if a government has the consent of the governed, it is legitimate.

If it does not, well, we can split hairs about whether or not being a warlord, a king, or some other kind of despot counts.

Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#77

Post by azalemeth »

Is it possible to tell if Clearview has my face in their dataset? Legally, they have no right to and I would like to get them to remove it if they do – I am an EU citizen and they have no right to have my data. However, to ask them to do that requires emailing them ID and a headshot [1]!

Does this seem silly, or deliberately obstructive?

[1] https://www.clearview.ai/privacy-policy

Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#78

Post by wyre »

Nextgrid wrote: post #22
kube-system wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet has always stretched through many different legal jurisdictions. It's tech companies who have decided that they can hide fugitive at the other end of a wire.

> The internet has always stretched through many different legal jurisdictions. Back in the early days this wasn't a problem in practice because internet-based entities were operating in good faith, so even if the legal landscape was murky, nobody had a need to resort to it. This has now changed as companies are now acting in bad faith doing things many find reprehensible, and a legal precedent and/or a change in law…

> This has now changed as companies are now acting in bad faith

I wonder what the major impetus for the change has been. Is it akin to having a million monkeys guided by money on computers, eventually one of them will write code enabling a fascist internet?

Re: Clearview AI challenges B.C. privacy watchdog order

#80

Post by rory »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #38

I would love clearview's business model and models like it to be illegal. All sorts of internet businesses claim that they can't know the provenance of their data and therefore can't comply with certain laws. They then argue that that means they shouldn't have to comply. It really should go the other way: if you can't comply, then your business is illegal.

I agree with this sentiment in principal. In this particular case it gets a little hairy since the service is illegal in Canada, but the company is based in the USA and no longer accepting Canadian customers. I'm not sure what the line should be, but certainly we don't want a situation where any internet company can be shut down by any country that interacts with the internet.

Of course, I also think we should make this business model illegal in any country. But that's a different thread.

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