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Facial recognition: It’s time for action

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#71

Post by PavlovsCat »

laythea wrote: post #48

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…

> will allow all sort of actual abuses of power occur, in the long run

The abuses already happen and they will get worse, so what abuses of regulation you have in mind that would be worse than completely unregulated use?

> However, the government is run by people and is not ideal.

It is still much much more so than corporations are (run by people, that is), and people can change their degree of influence. As you say at least the government theoretically represents the people (that's the whole justification for it), while that's not the case for corporations, even in theory.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#72

Post by marcinzm »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #21
dontreact wrote: post #18

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…

There's always the call for regulation - if a competitor has a product which is ahead if you in some way wher you for whatever reason can't or won't compete. See for instance Steve Cook's recent comments about GDPR and privacy.

In this case it's almost the opposite I think. MS has good technology and that is why they would want regulation. If there's regulation then any potential competitor will now have a much harder time creating a competing product.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#73

Post by devoply »

vorpalhex wrote: post #53
geephroh wrote: post #11

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…

"Anything I build can and will be abused. I am not responsible for my designs, for my products, and for the data I collect and store. If my technology is used for evil, the corporation employing me is responsible and the government is at fault for not doing something about it."

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#74

Post by criddell »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #26

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…

Disneyland Paris doesn't use biometrics?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#75

Post by jackpirate »

vinay427 wrote: post #60
PaulKeeble wrote: post #26

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…

Sort of a tangent, but I wonder if there are any EU countries that have mandatory biometric ID cards. After a cursory (5-10 minute) search I found countries that either used to have ID cards but currently don't, used to have biometric ID cards but currently don't require biometrics, or have biometric ID cards that are optional. It does seem likely that in the future some country will, if it hasn't already, concede an…

The vast majority of countries (EU or not) only issue biometric passports these days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport#Countries_u...

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#76

Post by justicezyx »

vertexFarm wrote: post #22
star-trek-fleet wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These concerns also apply to China at least to a certain degree (or to a lesser degree from a Western centric perspective) and different emphasis. The point is: whatever being asked for here is to advance a technology for the greater good of the society, and that's government's responsibility. It has little to do with China or geopolitical tensions. At the end of day, everyone nation needs to choose the right path fo…

Kind of squirrely phrasing going on here. "If they believe some other nations are threatening their own ideology, the should build defense or sometimes offenses to counter that." They "believe" their ideology is threatened--so it's okay to clamp down on their own citizens, representing over a billion human beings, censor and intercept all communications, edit out government atrocities and historical facts like Tienan…

> This isn't about western or eastern perspective. This kind of philosophy justifies the actions of any dictator or autocratic fascist.

You read to much into my statement.

What I said is that: - US and China will have their own strategies for their own ideologies. - They might clash if one or both think the other will threaten their ideologies.

I said zero about which is legitimate or a standard to make judgement.

As for the complain to the OP. The statement is contextless. I was merely extend along the most likely line of thinking based on my experience.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#77

Post by seanf »

Nikaoto wrote: post #59
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 that person can't copy your biometric data stored in their brain, convert it to a standardized format, and distribute it to millions of other devices.

You mean like a photo?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#78

Post by eaandkw »

dontreact wrote: post #18

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…

I am kind of wondering what is in it for Microsoft. No public company does anything against their own self interest. Is this just a play to regulate smaller companies out of the market? What are the strategies and tactics that MS is using?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#79

Post by numair »

(Re-posting my comment on this link from yesterday)

This is really interesting. I wonder how much of this is real, versus PR (although, Brad Smith has an excellent track record in this area). The company that has the most to lose, were there to be real regulations concerning facial recognition, is actually a company in Microsoft’s investment portfolio. That company has built the world’s largest database of face and identity information. Facebook.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#80

Post by seanf »

java-man wrote: post #63
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.

the big difference is that the data is stored temporarily in a human brain. as opposed to, you know, somewhere in a poorly designed system which gets hacked. (sorry, apparently joined a chorus)

The photo on the card is already stored in a system somewhere, and already vulnerable to attack. The brain is just for authentication at the door.
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