A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings • Hacker News Board

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#81

Post by blfr » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #62

omegaworks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a guy who calls himself an "environmental consultant" subleasing three rooms in his rent-controlled four room Nob Hill apartment. Cycled through a second subtenant in one of the rooms while I was there and raised the rent $400. I doubt he works.

Maybe I'm misreading your tone, but you seem to find this distasteful. If this guy was stopped from doing this, and the landlord evicted him, the landlord would just capture that value. The distinction I don't understand is, why is it might be acceptable for the landlord to try to want market rate for the apartment, but not acceptable for the tenant to want market rate for a room when a new subtenant starts? Perhaps…

We find it acceptable for people to benefit from their property by default. Economists would also add that having the owner benefit encourages investment in the property.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#82

Post by fwip » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

cubano wrote: post #49

pwg wrote: post #19

The privacy concerns here are huge, but the much more direct issue is from this quote from the article: > the same programs failed to identify darker-skinned women up to one-third of the time. A one-third failure rate means that on average, for every three times you try to return home, you are likely to have the system fail to identify you at least once. Being locked out, as a resident, one-third of the number of tim…

That is an almost impossible stat to believe. My last contract I worked developing a biometric system to extract a consistent "headshot" from all the various mugshots from arrest records in the US, and I worked with the Kairos system to extract pixel coordinate data from the images. The API calls gave me a lot more then just pixel information, and one of the data points was skin color and it was correct like 98% of t…

Getting a person's skin color right is not a high enough bar to let them into your apartment.

I don't want every white person getting into mine, and I can't imagine they would be fine with every black person getting into theirs.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#83

Post by Balgair » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

idrios wrote: post #27

pwg wrote: post #19

The privacy concerns here are huge, but the much more direct issue is from this quote from the article: > the same programs failed to identify darker-skinned women up to one-third of the time. A one-third failure rate means that on average, for every three times you try to return home, you are likely to have the system fail to identify you at least once. Being locked out, as a resident, one-third of the number of tim…

Along the same lines, imagine someone allergic to bees getting stung on the face causing their face to swell, so the system doesn't recognize them and they can't get into their apartment to grab their epipen. This system could literally kill a person

Heck, imagine something as mundane a haircut, a beard-shave, or a sunburn from a beach trip.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#84

Post by analyst74 » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

This is actually not that big of a deal, most of the issues with more control like this is that they are enabling enforcement of terrible rules. Those rules were previously tolerated by society at large due to lack of enforcibility, so nobody is sticking their neck out for something thats not a problem.

Now that with better enforcement, it will spark new conversation about if those rules need to be challenged. Also, not all the rules are bad, sometimes they are simply regulating one kind of behaviour (I.e. airbnb) in favor of another (long term rental).

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#85

Post by blfr » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

abakker wrote: post #13

onetimemanytime wrote: post #3

among other things, this might be to track how many people stay in your home and for how long, and that might cause eviction.

It is always interesting to me to contrast the presence of laws, which enforced feel like privacy violations. At least in SF, I have to give my landlord notice if someone is going to stay with me longer than 2 weeks. But, my landlord and I have a great relationship and I never see him. Technically, I am violating the lease if someone stays too long, but he would never find out or care if someone did... Seems like the…

You probably pay market rate and not hearing from you or about you makes you the ideal tenant.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#86

Post by jankotek » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

cubano wrote: post #49

pwg wrote: post #19

The privacy concerns here are huge, but the much more direct issue is from this quote from the article: > the same programs failed to identify darker-skinned women up to one-third of the time. A one-third failure rate means that on average, for every three times you try to return home, you are likely to have the system fail to identify you at least once. Being locked out, as a resident, one-third of the number of tim…

That is an almost impossible stat to believe. My last contract I worked developing a biometric system to extract a consistent "headshot" from all the various mugshots from arrest records in the US, and I worked with the Kairos system to extract pixel coordinate data from the images. The API calls gave me a lot more then just pixel information, and one of the data points was skin color and it was correct like 98% of t…

Sun glasses, haircuts, hats.. 33% failure rate in real life is very plausible.

And even 2% rate would get old very fast. That is once a week...

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#87

Post by envy2 » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

tmp192489 wrote: post #6

envy2 wrote: post #5

This is almost surely about catching "unauthorized" tenants (e.g., medium/long-term guests) and finding grounds for eviction. One of the many sorts of ubiquitous lease provisions that landlords are more than happy to turn a blind eye to for "desirable" market-rate tenants who pay on time each month, but will vigorously enforce against others.

Actually, I would guess catching people that try to Airbnb their rent-stabilized apt (short-term guests). Honestly, I agree it is would be kind of messed up for someone to have the fortune of winning a below-market luxury apartment and turn that around and illegally rent it out for a massive markup on Airbnb.

It's interesting to see that Airbnb is where the HN mindset goes; it reflects a certain degree of privilege that an entrepreneurial opportunity is the first use case surfaced.

Cramming extra family/friends into an apartment who aren't officially on the lease (e.g. the adult son who's lost a job or is on parole, or the parents who can't afford assisted living and are helping raise the grandkids) is actually far more common among low-income, rent-stabilized, and minority tenants. Stopping short-term Airbnb leases isn't particularly controversial; it's going after the medium/long-term unauthorized tenants that really has a disproportionate impact on the underprivileged.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#88

Post by codedokode » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

The article probably is right that the landlord might just want evidence to evict the tenants that pay a low rate. For example, the cameras might determine the exact number and the indentities of visitors and find that someone is staying for too long. Also, the landlord might be worrying that some of the tenants might secretly sublet their apartments or let their friends or relatives live there for free. And even if there is no violations, it can make tenants' life little less pleasant and motivate them to move out.

It is interesting that while Chinese government wants to be able to control its citizens' lives using surveillance, capitalists and businesses have similar wishes. They want to be the dictators at least within their property.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#89

Post by fwip » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #34

mc32 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the system even care about color in the first place? Can't it measure other facial characteristics, measurements?

It doesn't care about color. Dark faces reflect less light, making them more challenging to photograph well. If you have less light illuminating a scene, you'll have more noise and less contrast/dynamic range in the image. You need these things to extract features reliably. It's physics, not racial bias.

They're not really more challenging, they just have different challenges than photographing white people. Most cameras are set up and calibrated on white people.

Also could easily be a result of biased or limited training data.

Re: A Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings

#90

Post by mgleason_3 » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #33

Makes sense for publicly subsidized housing (which is what rent control is, in essence). A lot of people sublet their price controlled housing under the table. It's not like the facial recognition is resulting in any privacy loss for those that legally live there. The government already knows their permanent address.

Hmm, there’s a lot to take exception with in this comment.

“Makes sense for publicly subsidized housing (which is what rent control is, in essence). In the US, rent control is when the government controls the amounts charged for rented housing - it’s not “publicly subsidized”.

“It’s not like the facial recognition is resulting in any privacy loss...” Ouy, where to even start. Of course it is. Every time you’re tracked is a loss of privacy.