Live data from Hacker News

America is turning against facial-recognition software

economist.com

21–30 of 149 posts

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#21
I'm ready to sacrifice my extremely convenient way to unlock iPhone just to know this technology is banned worldwide.

This technology opens wide doors for surveillance, for finding, identifying and pursuing political opponents - not just their leaders, but every person who was brave enough to protest on the streets.

It opens wide doors also for cyber bullying, and this issue is a problem for every country, not only for dictatorships.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#22
post #3

This has been debated extensively on HN (and is still being debated actively), but all I hope is that people realise sooner or later that the level of safety you can acquire in a society is inversely related to the level of privacy individuals can have. What I personally hope for is that people achieve a balance between safety and privacy.

I don't think it is inversely related. At a point, you become less safe. I would not feel safe if every moment of my life was broadcast to everyone; I would be walking a razors edge, where I pay for every minor slip up. Life would be one long anxiety attack. Privacy means being able to relax, and absolutely required for mental and physical health. No privacy is inhuman.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ask, safety from what? From citizens or the state? Your statement implies that the freest societies are the least "safe", and the most repressed are the "safest". While you might be able to hinder criminality on the part of citizens with total surveillance, the cost of giving anyone that kind of power is too high. Relinquishing privacy puts a society on a path where all power accrues to the state, to the detriment…

I agree to most, but because solutions like facial recognition are simply easier to engage than educational reforms or welfare-based safety [sic] nets, this is not necessarily something we get to choose. States will prefer the former to the latter and firms will provide, at which point I don't think that the definition of safety-from is necessary.

> States will prefer the former to the latter and firms will provide, at which point I don't think that the definition of safety-from is necessary.

I do believe that, at some point, people will as well. If other options prove too expensive or too inefficient, it's not just states that will prefer near complete mass surveillance.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#24

I'm ready to sacrifice my extremely convenient way to unlock iPhone just to know this technology is banned worldwide. This technology opens wide doors for surveillance, for finding, identifying and pursuing political opponents - not just their leaders, but every person who was brave enough to protest on the streets. It opens wide doors also for cyber bullying, and this issue is a problem for every country, not only f…

What would you expect to be achieved by banning it? Intelligence services will continue with it, which is my major concern over its current use.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#25
post #2

Good. This kind of software is a mirror to the data fed into it. People on the edges of society (that the people making the mirror might either intentionally or accidentally ignore) will get fucked over tremendously by this technology. We should put a complete ban on it. Even if it means gimping my photo organization programs.

I fully agree with your sentiment but I don't agree with a ban. Prohibition doesn't work. You should be able to use it but the legal risks and liability you open yourself up to by using it should be strong enough to deter its use except when there truly is no substitute. Asbestos comes to mind as an example. People (often on HN) often run in circles and scream about the sky falling because "OMG it's not banned" but the reality is that the court of public opinion has basically ruled it is not ok to use. That's how I want to see facial recognition tech and other tech that enables corporations and governments to stalk people at scale treated

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#26
post #4
post #2

Good. This kind of software is a mirror to the data fed into it. People on the edges of society (that the people making the mirror might either intentionally or accidentally ignore) will get fucked over tremendously by this technology. We should put a complete ban on it. Even if it means gimping my photo organization programs.

Just so I have good arguments when talking to someone about this specific point, can you or someone else please go into more detail on why this will happen?

There have been numerous issues where corpora of peoples faces have been insufficiently stocked with a particular racial group, in such cases people's faces might not register as faces and therefore be shut out of whatever the facial recognition is supposed to implement.

For example facial recognition at a high priced building, suddenly non-white people can't get in because you did not show a real face at the scanner. Sorry, it's a bug not a feature.

The same problem would of course apply to anyone with facial deformities etc.

The problem would be essentially of two forms - Automatic exclusion from a group by facial feature, or automatic inclusion in a group by facial feature.

Think of the automatic inclusion as advanced phrenology or other sort of woo, in this scenario company X sells the idea that they will have facial recognition of 'criminal types' based on whatever research they can pull out that criminals often correspond in appearance. Then they fill that corpus up with criminals which then is a nice self-selecting system of find the black/hispanic person and deny them the job, loan etc. because of likelihood for crime past the threshold set.

the reason why this would happen is the same reason why banks used to deny loans to people in certain zip codes, because by doing so they could be racially profiling and excluding but pretend not to do so.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#27
post #3

This has been debated extensively on HN (and is still being debated actively), but all I hope is that people realise sooner or later that the level of safety you can acquire in a society is inversely related to the level of privacy individuals can have. What I personally hope for is that people achieve a balance between safety and privacy.

This is a meaningless statement without a threat profile.

Sure if everyone lives in a police state under the thumb of the government you're safer from petty crime but you're a heck of a lot less safe from government abuse.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#28
post #4
post #2

Good. This kind of software is a mirror to the data fed into it. People on the edges of society (that the people making the mirror might either intentionally or accidentally ignore) will get fucked over tremendously by this technology. We should put a complete ban on it. Even if it means gimping my photo organization programs.

Just so I have good arguments when talking to someone about this specific point, can you or someone else please go into more detail on why this will happen?

For example, let's assume you live in Brunei where homosexuality is a capital crime. Facial-recognition (especially in concert with other pattern-recognition software) drastically reduces the man-power necessary to identify individuals for enforcement.

If you're talking to someone who's more conservatively inclined I'd talk about how Iceland has managed to basically eliminate Down Syndrome. Prenatal pattern recognition has successfully convinced nearly all Icelandic parents who have a pregnancy where the child may have Down Syndrome to abort.

If your listener doesn't care about gay rights AND thinks any fetus with a higher likelihood of having Down Syndrome should be aborted, then they're probably exactly the sort of people working on or hoping to use these tools.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#29
>Jack Marks, who manages Panasonic’s public-safety products, called it “short-sighted and reactive”. The technology exists, he said; “the best thing you can do is help shape it.”

Not using it IS "shaping" it. Just not into a shape profitable for this dishonest huckster.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#30
post #16
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so I have good arguments when talking to someone about this specific point, can you or someone else please go into more detail on why this will happen?

Along the lines of “everyone is breaking some law”, there could be a shift from “technically illegal but generally harmless and tolerated” to “illegal and mindlessly enforced by automated technology”. An example being China’s automated jaywalking-shamer.

The only “good” outcome of this is we get to know how pervasive surveillance affects behavior and whether the benefits outweigh the detriments. In other words does it result in a better or worse society overall. Even if it’s better overall I’d it worth the negative effects on affected populations?

It’s a living laboratory.

Post reply on HN