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Banning facial recognition is missing the point

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Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#111

Post by TeMPOraL »

amelius wrote: post #107
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.

I think it's hard for most people to tell apart cheap nonsense sci-fi for one in which the vision is plausible. E.g. there are many reasons to be concerned about human-level AI, but Terminator robots is not one of them.

Personally, the best approach I've found so far is to assume that everything that is technologically and economically feasible will be attempted by someone, no matter how perverted or evil it is. If you can imagine something as a plausible consequence of the science/technology we have, and if you can imagine someone plausibly making lots of money from it, then it's the right time to talk regulations.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#112

Post by Talanes »

chii wrote: post #31
munmaek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it one or the other? IMO, laws against facial recognition would start a national dialogue on data collection. You have to start somewhere, so it’s better to start with this and then expand, versus trying to pass sweeping legislation, etc.

"we are already safe from privacy concerns because we've already regulated facial recognition! Why spend any more money on privacy, isn't it enough? We have more pressing issues to deal with!"

Statements like that make great TV news commentary, but they have little basis in reality. Governance rarely deals in sweeping structural changes. Even things generally though of as such, like Civil Rights, came from a long series of small reforms leading to bigger reforms.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#113

Post by TeMPOraL »

WA wrote: post #79
mindgam3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“In countries like the United States, it's being built by corporations in order to influence our buying behavior, and is incidentally used by the government.” No, he’s not right about it being “incidental”. The use of facial recognition by police is widespread and widely reported (0). Unlike other forms of digital surveillance, this one has serious and potentially deadly consequences when misused. Banning it at least…

I think nobody says that banning facial recognition is a step backwards. It just doesn’t solve the underlying issue and might even distract from the real problems. Now politicians can say "but we banned facial recognition, isn’t that good enough?".

But this would be "perfect is the enemy of the good" situation. Banning things piece by piece is easier than trying to ban everything at once.

I mean, we could curtail most of the surveillance tech development overnight if we banned most forms of advertising and burned the adtech industry to the ground. But good luck pushing that through politics.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#114

Post by isDiscardable »

dmje wrote: post #110
fsflover wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

Freedom is priceless.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#115

Post by emodendroket »

mirimir wrote: post #72
emodendroket wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wear a mask outside in the winter, usually, but this makes people uncomfortable inside at best and obviously prevents you from eating or drinking. And you would not be comfortable yourself either. So I'm going to say wearing a mask at all times is not practical.

One winter, I canvassed when it was -40 C. So I wore a Neopreme ski mask. Which are, by the way, quite comfortable. I did get a few jokes when people came to the door, but everyone knew why I was wearing it. Some did call me a dumbass for doing it, but whatever. But if it'd been during the summer?

Yeah I think the discomfort would be getting too warm and also having your spit pool up too much.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#116

Post by xioxox »

firediamond wrote: post #42
sircastor wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Gait recognition seems a far easier thing to spoof via a limp, change in shoes...

I had that thought when I heard about gait recognition too, and I'm still curious if the general counterpoint is the same as the next thought I had, or unrelated: It seems surprisingly hard to spoof a limp (or any other biomechanic change, like randomly swapping shoe inserts or some prosthesis to change arm movement patterns or something), consistently, for an extended period. Also, painful. Also, noticeable to human…

A stone or insert in your shoe would probably work (albeit painfully). I don't think people would think you were actively dodging ML if you had a limp, unlike strange face painting or haircuts.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#117

Post by mnl »

speedplane wrote: post #74

We shouldn't ban any technology. However, we should ban a technology when it is used for _____. The ban should cover the use, not the technology itself. It's fine to make building a nuclear bomb illegal, but studying radioactive elements should not be. Similarly, the technologies this article describes "identification, correlation and discrimination" should not be outright banned, but maybe they should be when their…

Why not? Do people trust the potential uses of that technology? If they/we don't and we all live in working democracies we have the right to ban it if we want.

I don't trust anybody having this technology, and the same goes for having samples of my DNA tagged with my name. BTW, I have no problem with my country's compulsory ID, I'm not showing it all the time and it's kind of reasonable when I have to, but having agents around me tracking what I do or don't 24/7 isn't any kind of future I want to live in. And that's what this technology has been developed for, it's not a science project. You're going to be classified and put in behavioural bins, your scores will be sold and you'll end up living in a corporate version of China. The fact that it won't be your state's agencies the ones doing it doesn't make it right.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#118

Post by squarefoot »

A few years from now, cameras and vision software will be advanced enough to recognize a person just by analyzing the small differences in colors of the clothes, how s/he walks or mapping micro scratches on his/her car without any need to take pictures of either the plate or the face. I'm also pretty sure we could already build a model of a walking person or animal just by having it walk or run on a weight sensors equipped mat, so that after due training recording when someone walks in or out of a place would be doable without cameras.

The ban should be on the final purpose, that is, pervasive generic surveillance. Otherwise it keeps being a moving target in which the most powerful party is constantly one or more steps ahead.

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#119

Post by diffeomorphism »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #100
radu_floricica wrote: post #67

Because the conversation is so lopsided, I feel like somebody has to ask: what opportunities are we giving away when banning face recognition tech? Obvious one would be no more purse snatchers, ever. Almost no rapes, much fewer violent crimes. No lost kids. Lives and wallets saved. What else? This feels like the kind of tech that creates its own broad fields of use where there were none before. It might take time or…

> Obvious one would be no more purse snatchers, ever. Almost no rapes, much fewer violent crimes. No lost kids. Lives and wallets saved. That is unrealistically optimistic. At best purse snatchers will move to parts out of view of cameras or wear something. Like all these proposals they are only effective against non-criminals. Also, "car pulls up, kidnaps a kid" or "kid runs away from home and hides" seems entirely…

Looking into it more, it seems that reality is even worse than I thought. Surveillance not only fails to decrease crime, but actually lead to an increase (article in German):

https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/umland/straftaten-in-branden...

Interesting. "Crime in Brandenburg increased ONLY in video-surveiled regions".

Re: Banning facial recognition is missing the point

#120

Post by IAmEveryone »

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…

I don't really see what you're getting at? As is, you seem to be employing some convoluted reserve-psychology scheme in an attempt to square this law in with "HN reality", where all politicians are corrupt and stupid, and all laws are either evil or pointless?
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