Banning facial recognition is missing the point • Hacker News Board

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#101

Post by DonHopkins » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:03 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #55

jammygit wrote: post #21

> These efforts are well intentioned, but facial recognition bans are the wrong way to fight against modern surveillance. Focusing on one particular identification method misconstrues the nature of the surveillance society we're in the process of building. Ubiquitous mass surveillance is increasingly the norm. In countries like China, a surveillance infrastructure is being built by the government for social control.…

He’s right, but we should take every winning battle we can, no? Even a few notable victories could help to change public opinion about whether things are inevitable or not "Banning" facial recognition is the worse possible outcome for people who are privacy focused. At the moment it's useful to point people at and make them feel "creeped out". If it's "banned" the concern goes away. I'm using scare quotes around "ban…

If they ban facial recognition, they'll just work around it by recognizing every other part of you but your face.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#102

Post by diffeomorphism » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:06 AM UTC

blazespin wrote: post #6

avmich wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the ideology of online anonymity?

I think there is some expectation of privacy online. No such expectation exists in a public space.

Don't I have even more privacy in public space? Sure, people know what I look like, but not my name, my email, the contents of my backpack, since when I have been a member of this forum etc. . If they see me again the next day they might not even be sure that I am the same person (unlike unique usernames with history).

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#103

Post by benjymo » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:06 AM UTC

jammygit wrote: post #23

randomsearch wrote: post #2

I see his point, but practical face recognition is a lot easier to implement and a lot harder to defend against than all the other types of recognition. You could, for example, no carry a phone or turn it off. But your face is expected to be on show (obv exceptions aside). So no, it’s not missing the point. It’s a different point. He’s right, but action against face recognition is also worthwhile.

In Canada, it’s now illegal to hide your face during a protest (a gift from the Harper years)

In Austria it's illegal to wear a face mask if it's not cold enough or for special cultural activities that are "tradition" thanks to the last right wing - far right government.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#104

Post by DonHopkins » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

petre wrote: post #64

schlowmo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is already illegal in some other western countries for quite some time. In Germany for example since 1985 (one year late though). It's often used as legitimation when the police is using violence against otherwise peaceful protests. In the aftermath of the G20 summit in Hamburg there were some advancements to even tighten the law while at the same time the police was using illegal face recognition…

What about fake beards and moustaches? I've heard they're the norm in Korea. Imagine thousands of Santa Claus or Paul von Hindenburg protesting.

Alas, maybe if everyone at the Women's March on Washington wore fake beards and moustaches instead of pink pussy hats, they would have been taken more seriously.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#105

Post by barnabee » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:11 AM UTC

He's right to an extent, but face recognition is instant, silent, works from a distance, allows near perfect identification of a specific individual in many cases, and is particularly onerous on the individual to evade compared to other forms of tracking.

That makes it entirely reasonable to single out and ban it, whilst also thinking about and pushing for further curbs on surveillance.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#106

Post by 3ot » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:16 AM UTC

barnabee wrote: post #105

He's right to an extent, but face recognition is instant, silent, works from a distance, allows near perfect identification of a specific individual in many cases, and is particularly onerous on the individual to evade compared to other forms of tracking. That makes it entirely reasonable to single out and ban it, whilst also thinking about and pushing for further curbs on surveillance.

Is it though? I haven‘t read about any deployed solution, which would fit „near perfect“ identification. I’d be thankful, if you could point me to some „working“ solutions.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#107

Post by amelius » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:18 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #84

While he is right I think Bruce is also missing the point here himself: he states that this law is the wrong way to fight surveillance – but that is not the stated goal of the law. The goal of the law is to prevent the development of a technical reality in Europe, to which a Jurisdiction can only passively react. The technical space moves so fast at times, that reality has been made before the law can even start to t…

> The technical space moves so fast at times, that reality has been made before the law can even start to think about what is okay and what isn't.

I think lawmakers should watch more dystopian science fiction movies.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#108

Post by BLKNSLVR » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:18 AM UTC

matthewheath wrote: post #47

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on both sides of the fence a bit. I agree entirely that victories are piecemeal, but the facial recognition issue just feels like the piece of the iceberg that's above the water. The rest of the iceberg, supporting things such as facial recognition, feels as if it will never be addressed, and that's the war that needs to be won. My original reply written prior to the above: And yet nothing has been done about the…

The EU is not a country, it is a collection of 27 countries.

My apologies, I had incorrectly associated it with just Germany rather than the EU as a whole.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#109

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:25 AM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #91

atoav wrote: post #84

While he is right I think Bruce is also missing the point here himself: he states that this law is the wrong way to fight surveillance – but that is not the stated goal of the law. The goal of the law is to prevent the development of a technical reality in Europe, to which a Jurisdiction can only passively react. The technical space moves so fast at times, that reality has been made before the law can even start to t…

>The technical space moves so fast at times, that reality has been made before the law can even start to think about what is okay and what isn't. In general I think this is exactly how it should work. You cannot stop all technological developments early on and make rules for imagined problems that may or may not arise. Imagine it's 1995. The Web gets banned for five years so that a government committee can meet to fi…

> Imagine it's 1995. The Web gets banned for five years so that a government committee can meet to figure out what could possibly go wrong with that technology.

Fortunately we already know what can go wrong with facial recognition technology. We have China, and we have American and Israeli and various Asian marketing startups inventing abuse after abuse after abuse. So there is already a test bed in place; it doesn't have to be the entire world.

As a general principle, it may not be a bad idea itself. Let a part of the world play with the new toys and other part observe, after that either the tech will be exported to holdouts (the control group, if you like), or the regulations will be exported to the experimenters.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#110

Post by dmje » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 10:28 AM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #96

dmje wrote: post #88

Everyone on HN is no doubt sitting there nodding along sagely but there’s also a pretty good bet that 90% of us (nerdy, apparently in-the-know tech types) have done very little to think about cutting down on smartphone use. It’s the single biggest surveillance vector (a device that you carry everywhere that knows where you are and reports your habits into a data store we know pretty much nothing about!), but we all n…

Once Librem 5 is ready, this problem will be solved for many nerdy people here. It's just the lack of choice now.

Looks pretty sweet until you get to the $750. I went Nokia 3310, a snip at $65 :-)