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King County, WA bans facial recognition software

komonews.com

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Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#31

Post by anigbrowl »

cryptoz wrote: post #18
anigbrowl wrote: post #3

It's not the first county int he country; as noted int he article San Francisco (which is both a city and a county) instituted such a ban in 2019. California has a statewide ban in place already. It's good news but needlessly and inaccurately sensationalized.

The linked source is a Sinclair News outlet. They are probably the worst media conglomerate in America honestly. Their news is constant fear and I view anything by them as poisonous information because it is just as likely meant to mislead as it is to inform. Sure, KOMO publishes some real news. They also publish lies and wildly misleading stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo https://www.youtube.com/wat…

Did not realize that it's a Sinclair affiliate, worth bearing in mind.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#34

Post by amelius »

sharken wrote: post #29
WalterBright wrote: post #25

At last, KC did something right. Hooray! There's nowhere near enough unsolved violent crime to justify the surveillance state. And yes, I have been the victim of an unsolved violent robbery. P.S. who cares if KC is first or not. What matters is it got done.

It's great to see the US leading the way on this, i hope that Europe takes notice.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-21/facial-re...

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#35

Post by kyleblarson »

WalterBright wrote: post #25

At last, KC did something right. Hooray! There's nowhere near enough unsolved violent crime to justify the surveillance state. And yes, I have been the victim of an unsolved violent robbery. P.S. who cares if KC is first or not. What matters is it got done.

There may not be enough unsolved violent crime to justify facial recognition, but one thing there is too much of in Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, NYC is un-prosecuted violent crime.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#36

Post by cactus2093 »

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient.

It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace the jury or public defenders with robots. But facial recognition could just be a way to look through a large amount of footage to find relevant clips that would then be reviewed in more detail by humans. Without facial recognition, you just pay cops overtime to look through footage themselves. It doesn't necessarily affect the outcome of the process at all.

I think facial recognition just needs some help with its image, it's just a tool that would save tax dollars. Or a means to Defund The Police, if that's your thing.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#37

Post by vecinu »

sharken wrote: post #29
WalterBright wrote: post #25

At last, KC did something right. Hooray! There's nowhere near enough unsolved violent crime to justify the surveillance state. And yes, I have been the victim of an unsolved violent robbery. P.S. who cares if KC is first or not. What matters is it got done.

It's great to see the US leading the way on this, i hope that Europe takes notice.

Specifically on this, yes but keep in mind the US is far behind Europe in terms of civil rights / privacy and other protections for citizens (See GDPR for ex.).

I just learned about this "traffic light labelling" going on in the EU and was blown away that this was implemented 4 YEARS ago. [1] I'm hoping the US catches to Europe for everything else, we're far behind.

[1] https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/traff...

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#38

Post by zorpner »

kyleblarson wrote: post #35
WalterBright wrote: post #25

At last, KC did something right. Hooray! There's nowhere near enough unsolved violent crime to justify the surveillance state. And yes, I have been the victim of an unsolved violent robbery. P.S. who cares if KC is first or not. What matters is it got done.

There may not be enough unsolved violent crime to justify facial recognition, but one thing there is too much of in Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, NYC is un-prosecuted violent crime.

If we forced the cops to wear their badge numbers, we'd know who was committing the violence and they could be prosecuted for it.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#39

Post by throwaway1959 »

My instinct for self-preservation tells me that this is not a good thing. I understand the need for privacy, but what happens if somebody puts a gun (or a knife) to your face? I think that the need for privacy could be solved through the legislation: we can have very severe restrictions on who could look at this data and why. Also, we can have severe restrictions on the admissibility of such data in court. Unfortunately, I have not seen any credible efforts from politicians, right or left, to introduce privacy protections from the surveillance abuses.

Re: King County, WA bans facial recognition software

#40

Post by microdrum »

cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Genuine question - why not ban cameras altogether? Or ban the use of computers in police stations, make them write up all their reports by hand. I truly don't understand why there would be a line at facial recognition, it's just a law against making a process more efficient. It's clear to me that there should be a line to prevent fully convicting someone of a crime without any humans in the loop at all. Don't replace…

This is the right take. Can't ban math. Facial rec is here. If you don't like it, win a public policy debate about making it evidentially weak in front of a judge. Banning facial rec is like saying "you can have security cameras and iPhones, but only human eyeballs can look through them, not computers!" Arbitrary, and doomed to fail.
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