Facial recognition: It’s time for action • Hacker News Board

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#221

Post by dj-wonk » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:11 AM UTC

halr9000 wrote: post #218

benwerd wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure - I don't necessarily think it'll be federal straight away, but I think there's real possibility of state-by-state rules, which will eventually give way to federal.

This is the best way anyways. 50 experiments will lead to a better outcome.

50? That would be nice. For any given forward-thinking issue, I consider us lucky to have a handful of innovators at the state level. Now, when a crisis of some sort comes around, lawmakers from others states will start to pay attention. Ideally, at that point, they will evaluate and adapt other state experiments. In practice, it depends on the timing, committees, etc. Sorry to sound a bit cynical, but really my take-away message is this: if you care about an issue, get involved one way or the other in lobbying for your cause (I'm assuming here that HN people are well-informed, even if we have different policy prescriptions).

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#222

Post by alexnewman » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:13 AM UTC

as someone born in america it amazes me that america sticks its head in the sand while china creams them through embracing tech. this is old tech that is already underused in america

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#223

Post by dj-wonk » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:17 AM UTC

daveheq wrote: post #195

benwerd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This stands in stark contrast to the meeting I attended on Tuesday with Amazon's general counsel regarding their Rekognition service. And I think that cuts to the core of this: this is an anti-Amazon move. Nonetheless, I do also think it's a pro-consumer, pro-civil liberties stance. It's also a recognition that the tide is turning with respect to consumers and privacy; here, Microsoft is getting ahead of this chang…

Why do we always wait until it's too late and the repurcussions almost unbearable to put in any common-sense preventions to abusive technology or practices?

It all comes down to your definition of "we". In short, this is either a collective preference problem (e.g. not enough people care or pay attention) or a collective action problem (if you believe that at least collective intent exists).

More specifically, a common theme in public policy analysis is agenda setting. Unfortunately, in many situations, the agenda is so crowded with priorities that only crises cut through. For more context, see "The Public Policy Primer: Managing the Policy Process" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8727263-the-public-polic...)

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#224

Post by GarrisonPrime » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:49 AM UTC

Microsoft gains the social kudos for speaking up (vaguely) about some "issue" or another. Meanwhile, actual development of the scenario will occur regardless.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#225

Post by asaph » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 6:21 AM UTC

hbbio wrote: post #56

seanf wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My gym also uses facial recognition, but does it via a person sitting behind a desk checking that my member ID matches my face. I don't think many people are uncomfortable with this process, and this biometric method has been used for a long time.

Yes, but there are few chances that the person sitting behind the deck will be the target of a brain cyberattack!

Yet

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#226

Post by lokidokiro » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 7:38 AM UTC

samstave wrote: post #213

AlexCoventry wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a computation. Laws against it are unenforceable in general, absent draconian restrictions on computing devices.

This is HN. I fucking get it. Facial recognition surveillance technology deployed in any public sphere should be expressly illegal. Period.

You clearly don't get it. What if facial recognition technology can be replaced with body recognition technology? Do you ban all forms of recognition technology? That would criminalize a lot of legitimate uses for machine learning.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#227

Post by nl » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 7:41 AM UTC

jackhack wrote: post #135

thelastidiot wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft knows how to talk the enterprise talk. BTW, Amazon competes against Alibaba for their main business, not Microsoft.

Just to clarify: Amazon's "main business" is AWS, not their online store. For many years their store operated at a loss. Don't get me wrong, amazon.com is a HUGE business, but it's not Bezos' breadwinner. https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-of-amazons-2017-operating-...

That's nonsense.

AWS is a very large business, and much more profitable than selling physical goods online.

But Amazon's overall revenue was $56.6B (Q3 2018[1]) and "only" $6.68B of that was AWS. By comparison, revenue from Amazon's advertising business is $2.5B - and no one is claiming that is their main line of business.

Even the article you point to shows Amazon made a profit of $1.69B on North American ecommerce vs $1.35B profit from AWS.

So yeah - AWS is a high margin business, but no where near their "main business".

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/amazon-earnings-q3-2018.html

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#228

Post by visarga » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 7:45 AM UTC

kromem wrote: post #170

phkahler wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology... Perhaps I'm jaded, but I don't agree at all. They're trying to get it regulated so they can be creepy without fear. One of the first "good" uses listed was finding 3000 children. "Think of the children" is a common rallying cry for evil. Nothing else mentioned was really relevant. The line IMHO needs to be drawn at anything that you'd…

Except with a warrant, it's entirely legal (and has been for a long time) currently for a surveillance team to physically stalk you in areas with an expectation of privacy (TEMPEST, wiretaps, etc), and in public areas they don't even need a warrant (actually, in public areas, it's legal for anyone to stalk you - just ask celebrities about their paparazzi stalkers). As best I can tell, from a surveillance standpoint w…

> it's legal for anyone to stalk you - just ask celebrities about their paparazzi stalkers

Yeah, you're talking about human stalkers, but OP's talking about capturing your image with many cameras, logging your presence into databases and sharing that information with other organisations.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#229

Post by reidjs » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 7:47 AM UTC

ukulele wrote: post #153

phkahler wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology... Perhaps I'm jaded, but I don't agree at all. They're trying to get it regulated so they can be creepy without fear. One of the first "good" uses listed was finding 3000 children. "Think of the children" is a common rallying cry for evil. Nothing else mentioned was really relevant. The line IMHO needs to be drawn at anything that you'd…

> "Think of the children" is a common rallying cry for evil. I'm not familiar with this line of reasoning -- can you elaborate, or are there any good examples?

Definitely originated from The Simpsons:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RybNI0KB1bg

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#230

Post by TACIXAT » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 7:55 AM UTC

bergerjac wrote: post #184

Paperweight wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biometrics are the future equivalent of using the same password everywhere.

It seems more like 2FA using body parts instead of a phone.

I leave my U2F token in way fewer places than I leave my fingerprints.