61–70 of 281 posts
Governments are the first in the line to abuse facial recognition. Now as CCTV cams are everywhere, everybody should have a right to wear a mask everywhere without getting discriminated.
Hang on, Hang on. Let's not get too carried away here. The big corps are all scared after what has/is happening to facebook, and this is an attempt at trying to "go down the unsteady river together" with the authorities. Now, in an ideal world, where governments are ideal, then this is a good thing for the population, as the government theoretically represents the people. However, the government is run by people and…
Biometrics are creeping into everyday life. One of my local gyms this week switched to requiring fingerprints or you were barred from access. Another local gym uses facial recognition for entrance, although you can choose to have a member card instead if you ask for it directly, they don't list it as an option. Thankfully in the EU we have GDPR. It considers biometrics as a similar sensitivity to medical data, so unl…
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.
as opposed to, you know, somewhere in a poorly designed system which gets hacked.
(sorry, apparently joined a chorus)
* Rather than merely forbidding biased uses in their TOS, an internal team should review relevant source code & use cases of anyone implementing MSFT facial recognition, a'la Apple's app store.
* Build apis, libraries and easy-to-use tools that allow consumers to destroy their face data.
* Increase the concentration of pressure on Amazon by refusing to engage in the race to the bottom. Specifically, refuse to license facial recognition technology to law enforcement, military, or intelligence agencies until such time as they have independent civilian oversight, direct neutral-party monitoring, transparency, and demonstrated accountability for mis-use.
MSFT (and any corporation) is fundamentally untrustworthy. Principles are easily changed or ignored. Instead, they should begin creating institutions, code, and business process that make abuse difficult. Testing tools and APIs are the right idea - more of this approach please.
This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…
> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…
I'd argue few companies ever reach this level of risk, and those that do are so large that the individual contributor cannot reasonably take on that burden of responsibility.
In the example of some Amazon surveillance 'big-brother' software: Max the software dev is just making facial recognition software to the best of their ability. They aren't privy to the motivations, long-term plans, and potential consequences of those decisions.
The oath is always a fun topic to discuss though: In reality it holds no meaning other than to the one who takes the oath. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in malpractice cases I doubt they cite the oath as evidence since all students are essentially forced to recite it.
We are to the point where commercial entities and governments are full-on stalkers. And that should be illegal, too.
Further, it is immoral. There is a fundamental hypocrisy when people are exhorted to autonomy and personal responsibility -- "by your bootstraps", "entrepreneur", "gig economy", etc. -- at the same time they are, with mass surveillance, being left with none of this, in truth. Your every action monitored, measured, standardized, and compelled to conform.
You are left with no agency, save that granted -- left -- to you by the powers that be.
And with everything recorded and stored, seemingly indefinitely, you become self-monitoring, self-constraining. Will this be used against me in a year? Five years? Does one slip or oversight last a lifetime?
Fy the way, do you see them taking action to swing the cameras, and the monitoring, the other way? Even Obama, with ever and ever more secrets and aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers. The police, who have fought cameras and monitoring for years. NDA's left and right, disparagement suits. On and on and on...
And, I've gone on too much, here.
Never mind just the philosophy of the matter; look, too, at how it works in practice!
Do we all want to spend not just our work hours, but our lives, in virtual cubicles?
The post-modern panopticon.
So that's what Microsoft really wants. Allowed everywhere, minimial notice, no user ownership of data, and no opt-out.
This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…
> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…
This is the first instance I've seen of the tech industry calling for regulation. I admire this and the idea that people running a corporation can understand that despite their best intentions, in the long run the corporation will act to maximize profit via legal means, even if an action is not in the best interest of society. And so in some cases we need to make certain things illegal. I would love to see a company…
This is really interesting and I agree, but I think only addressing facial recognition is missing the forest for a tree. There is an underlying idea here of a person owning information about themselves and having control over it and making sure a company can not use it inappropriately. I think addressing it as only 'facial recognition' wouldn't go far enough.