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Facial recognition: It’s time for action

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#101

Post by MereInterest »

zoul wrote: post #93
PaulKeeble wrote: post #26

Biometrics are creeping into everyday life. One of my local gyms this week switched to requiring fingerprints or you were barred from access. Another local gym uses facial recognition for entrance, although you can choose to have a member card instead if you ask for it directly, they don't list it as an option. Thankfully in the EU we have GDPR. It considers biometrics as a similar sensitivity to medical data, so unl…

If consent is not given then that can not bar you from service. What’s the reasoning for this? Shouldn’t I have the freedom to pick the conditions under which I offer my services, except for discrimination? Is it discrimination if I only offer biometric ID, say for business convenience?

The same reason that you aren't allowed to mix sawdust into the flour you sell, even if it is cheaper. Having a business incentive does not mean that you have a moral justification.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#102

Post by CobrastanJorji »

This is great. I congratulate them and thank them for outlining specific policy objectives.

My immediate next thought, though, is that Microsoft operates its "Cognitive Services," including facial recognition, in China. That's worrying, even if Microsoft would loudly prefer that governments generally pass nice privacy laws.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#103

Post by deadmetheny »

devoply wrote: post #73
vorpalhex wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

"Anything I build can and will be abused. I am not responsible for my designs, for my products, and for the data I collect and store. If my technology is used for evil, the corporation employing me is responsible and the government is at fault for not doing something about it."

Yes, you are. You chose to follow the design and build a system you knew would be abused. This mindset is what got us here to begin with. YOU ARE AT FAULT.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#104

Post by legulere »

zoul wrote: post #93
PaulKeeble wrote: post #26

Biometrics are creeping into everyday life. One of my local gyms this week switched to requiring fingerprints or you were barred from access. Another local gym uses facial recognition for entrance, although you can choose to have a member card instead if you ask for it directly, they don't list it as an option. Thankfully in the EU we have GDPR. It considers biometrics as a similar sensitivity to medical data, so unl…

If consent is not given then that can not bar you from service. What’s the reasoning for this? Shouldn’t I have the freedom to pick the conditions under which I offer my services, except for discrimination? Is it discrimination if I only offer biometric ID, say for business convenience?

What you describe is called freedom of contract, which has the problem that it's the opposite of free when you have inequal parties. For most people contracts have a take it or leave it character, so there needs to be government regulation, to ensure freedom for them.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#105

Post by [deleted] »

zoul wrote: post #93
PaulKeeble wrote: post #26

Biometrics are creeping into everyday life. One of my local gyms this week switched to requiring fingerprints or you were barred from access. Another local gym uses facial recognition for entrance, although you can choose to have a member card instead if you ask for it directly, they don't list it as an option. Thankfully in the EU we have GDPR. It considers biometrics as a similar sensitivity to medical data, so unl…

If consent is not given then that can not bar you from service. What’s the reasoning for this? Shouldn’t I have the freedom to pick the conditions under which I offer my services, except for discrimination? Is it discrimination if I only offer biometric ID, say for business convenience?

[deleted]

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#106

Post by ForHackernews »

vorpalhex wrote: post #53
geephroh wrote: post #11

This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

Has anyone actually quit over this? http://neveragain.tech/

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#107

Post by jessriedel »

_bfhp wrote: post #91
jessriedel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies calling for more regulation is a ubiquitous phenomenon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture More regulation generally gives an advantage to larger companies over smaller ones since it creates barriers to entry; compliance costs usually increase sublinearly with revenue. (E.g., it's a lot easier for Microsoft to hire a dedicated lawyer than it is for a garage start-up.) This idea that "companies…

Maybe if you can't do business without making sure you're not causing harm, you shouldn't do business at all. Of course anti-competitive lobbying happens all the time. But if it's not economically feasible for a Scrappy Gang of Dropouts in The Garage follow to regulations that protect people's lives and freedom in this country, I'm cool with them finding another country, or their own deserted island perhaps.

I think you missed my point and the discussion on Wikipedia. You seem to be assuming that essentially all regulations are correctly aligned with the public interest. If that were the case, you'd be correct that compliance costs would (in an efficient equilibrium) be correctly internalized, merely excluding inefficiently small companies from the market [1]. However, this is not the world we live in. Uncountable historical examples, and the massive size of the corporate lobbying industry, are clear evidence that companies often shape their own regulations to their benefit. So on priors it's much more likely that Microsofts public call for regulation -- which is just a particular form of lobbying -- is in their own interest, not some pure expression of civic duty.

[1] Of course, we are not automatically in an efficient equilibrium, and there exists worlds where the reduced competition due to barrier to entry create costs that are larger than the benefits of the regulation. But I'm happy to put that scenario aside.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#108

Post by samstave »

Facial recognition should be expressly illegal. Period.

As should license plate surveillance.

And for those that think that license plate surveillance should be legal, what you do not know is that municipalities are mandating that private corporations install license tracking cameras on their facilities and report back to the municipality who is driving by that address. Menlo park is just one such municipality.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#109

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

vorpalhex wrote: post #53
geephroh wrote: post #11

This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

So if you write an encrypted chat app, and people use it to plan a crime, are you responsible?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#110

Post by jf- »

vorpalhex wrote: post #53
geephroh wrote: post #11

This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

It depends on how far down the line you want moral culpability to apply. To take this to it’s logical extreme, it effectively makes the developer responsible for anything the end user decides to use their software for. The same reasoning is not only not applied to software, it is not applied to any product class with the exception of those that are immediately and obviously lethal. Engineers in google would be responsible for drug cartels operating in Columbia.

Higher order causation must be separated from moral culpability. In other words, you should not hold people responsible for things that happen far downstream. Things that happen several links down the causal chain have occurred due to the decisions of many other people further along that chain, and a higher culpability should fall upon them.

That is not to say that a software developer cannot be directly responsible for bad outcomes, maybe for example working on weapon systems for a nefarious state, where you’re fairly close causally to the point of application. My point is that it’s not a good idea to push this to it’s limits.

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