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N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

nytimes.com

11–20 of 112 posts

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#11

Honestly, I have no problem with a database of public images showing/tracking people's public actions. It used to be in a small town you knew who was good and bad by their actions. With the population explosion, the only way we have a practical means to return to that is with facial recognition databases.

You may not. I don't want my government spying on me.

What if I was gay and was seen leaving a gay club? Now what if I ended up in the Kingdom of Saud and that data was shared or leaked?

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#12

I know that this might be an unpopular opinion, but if privacy really is dead, why don't we just make this data public? I know there's significant risks, but I feel like it's a better step forward than having this technology developed and deployed in secret.

I'd be ok with that if we also a) make public every time the data is accessed, including who is doing it, and b) require that anybody accessing the data have at least as much data public as they are accessing.

I think the worst problems here are around asymmetries. If I secretly have all your data but you don't know that and have none of mine, there's a power imbalance. But if we have equal amounts of data and know when each is looking at the other, that seems far more reasonable to me.

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#14
The whole problem is how do you selectively use facial recognition? It's not like there's a human judging whether the camera took a photo of someone underage, and somehow classify it by hands. The system is probably deployed by 90% software engineer and NONE of them probably even saw 0.01% of the actual database outside of the few example they used to debug. Those images will never be visited again unless there's a specific need to see them.

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#15

I know that this might be an unpopular opinion, but if privacy really is dead, why don't we just make this data public? I know there's significant risks, but I feel like it's a better step forward than having this technology developed and deployed in secret.

why do you think privacy is dead? Where I travel, (digital and otherwise) privacy is quite alive and well. (This is definitely outside of highly populated first-world cities.)

My point is that if corporate surveillance with creepy camera technology and facial recognition is going to be rolled out everywhere (for the real safety benefits) then isn't it better for us all to spread the power out as much as possible rather than it being concentrated in the hands of a few giant entities?

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#16
>The New York Police Department has been loading thousands of arrest photos of children and teenagers into a facial recognition database despite evidence the technology has a higher risk of false matches in younger faces.

They already have the photos from arrest records. They already have footage from security cameras, etc. I don't see a problem in using computer algorithms to try to find possible matches between these two data sets. We do this for fingerprints and DNA all the time, matching data that was collected during an arrest to that from a crime scene.

Frankly, I do not have a problem with this, and actually think the police would be derelict in their duty if they were not doing this.

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#17

Honestly, I have no problem with a database of public images showing/tracking people's public actions. It used to be in a small town you knew who was good and bad by their actions. With the population explosion, the only way we have a practical means to return to that is with facial recognition databases.

have you considered the obvious fallout from that? one example: bad actors use database of people's public actions to privately harass them (e.g. following them to work => ID employer => extort/blackmail)

what is your solution to this outside of panopticon?

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#18
post #11

Honestly, I have no problem with a database of public images showing/tracking people's public actions. It used to be in a small town you knew who was good and bad by their actions. With the population explosion, the only way we have a practical means to return to that is with facial recognition databases.

You may not. I don't want my government spying on me. What if I was gay and was seen leaving a gay club? Now what if I ended up in the Kingdom of Saud and that data was shared or leaked?

If you're gay, you should know the risks about going to Saudi Arabia or any place with similar laws and avoid going there. One does not usually "end up" in a different country unless they're kidnapped and at that point the homosexuality laws are really the least of your problems.

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#19

I know that this might be an unpopular opinion, but if privacy really is dead, why don't we just make this data public? I know there's significant risks, but I feel like it's a better step forward than having this technology developed and deployed in secret.

Yes, transparency for all, and I mean all, is the only other way to balance the scales of power.

It's either privacy for everyone, or transparency for all, but this in between is the worst where some entities get leverage over others because they have access to information that others don't have about them.

Re: N.Y.P.D. Adds Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

#20

I know that this might be an unpopular opinion, but if privacy really is dead, why don't we just make this data public? I know there's significant risks, but I feel like it's a better step forward than having this technology developed and deployed in secret.

People will start walking around with masks on at all times.
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