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

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#81

Post by j4kp07 » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

bbddg wrote: post #57

vorpalhex wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's almost as if workers should own and control the means of production.

There is absolutely nothing stopping you and your friends from starting such a company.

I won't be holding my breath as you start on your new venture.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#82

Post by randcraw » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:22 PM UTC

21 wrote: post #44

qwerty456127 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use cash, public transport (which is awesome in Europe), almost always have my cellphone switched to airplane mode (going online via WiFi occasionally e.g. to check for new messages) and only turn its GPS on about 5 times a year for rather short durations of time and am pretty happy.

You are 0.0001% representative of the population. You will be tracked by metadata absence. There are a couple articles about terrorists/spies tracked through data patterns generated when the closed their usual phone and switched to a burner one. Even if you pay cash, your transactions can still be tracked, because your face will be on the cash register camera. Public transport has cameras inside too. It's just a matt…

Agreed. Acting unusually and furtively is a great way to raise red flags and invite more tracking. By repeatedly working to fly under the radar, you've made yourself much more interesting and more likely to be tracked closely whenever/wherever you reappear.

You want to be overlooked? Behave typically, obviously, and boringly.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#83

Post by Nikaoto » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

seanf wrote: post #77

Nikaoto wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They would have to use a camera, which you would have to allow.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#84

Post by bdcravens » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:30 PM UTC

tetha wrote: post #61

qwerty456127 wrote: post #15

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.

Masks are a boring, defensive option. We need t-shirts with patterns that identify as multiple wanted criminals and lots of people wearing them at the same time.

Surely that would be easily filtered out via ML?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#85

Post by paganel » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:31 PM UTC

jackpirate wrote: post #75

vinay427 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

There are still some loopholes which one can use in order to escape this, but they’re getting fewer and fewer. For example here in Romania they don’t ask you for your biometric data if you apply for a short-term one-year passport, but the issue is that over time going that way is more expensive than directly applying for a 5-year or 10-year passport (which do ask for your biometric data). And loopholes like this one will close pretty soon, I fear.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#86

Post by amelius » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:31 PM UTC

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…

My datacenter uses biometrics too.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#87

Post by java-man » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

seanf wrote: post #80

java-man wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

good point, though there might be a bit more biometric data required for a good facial recognition system.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#88

Post by sib » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

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…

So, if I'm an assembly line worker at GM and someone buys a pickup truck and intentionally drives it into a crowd, murdering 20 people, I should get the death penalty as a serial killer?

Obviously hyperbolic, but not very different at the core.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#89

Post by ben_w » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

bbddg wrote: post #57

vorpalhex wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's almost as if workers should own and control the means of production.

We do.

In software, at least.

The world has moved on a lot since 1848 — someone needs to promote genuinely new political ideas for our era, not rehash ones that came from the transition from agrarian-feudalism to industrial-capitalism.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#90

Post by tetha » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:40 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #84

tetha wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masks are a boring, defensive option. We need t-shirts with patterns that identify as multiple wanted criminals and lots of people wearing them at the same time.

Surely that would be easily filtered out via ML?

This would depend on the nature of the movement. In a more realistic way: You should probably develop a simple way to create adverse images from local photographs, and a simple, decently reliable way to put those on t-shirts, hoodies, jackets. Creating imaging adverse to machine recognition is a field of active research, after all.

This would allow local privacy groups to put people from their group on their shirts and distribute them, kind of like facial recognition graffiti. This would be much harder to deal with due to the volume and flux of adverse imaging.