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Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

theverge.com

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Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#81
post #69
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you or anyone: - Provides a link or method to create the scan that takes just a few minutes (on Ubuntu) - Sends $5 to kauffj@gmail.com via PayPal or via BTC to 17h2GtaBzivnNtP24qoGg4a3pjgShkw7MD I will complete the process and post the result in this thread.

What's your point? You choose to do it because you don't care about giving your face picture to someone, fine. You're in a totally different position, financially independent I assume, you can weigh your options. A homeless person might not be in a situation like that. They're much more vulnerable and possibly willing to do things out of sheer desperation. Things they wouldn't do if they were in a different situation…

Is there any right to privacy on a public street? I thought anyone can photograph you in public, you have zero recourse, and most times you won't even get $5.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#82
post #51
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think most people care about privacy all that much. Most live publicly with their faces on display for all to see and others taking it a step further, participating in Facebook alongside billions of others. It doesn’t scream facial identity being a major concern.

I don't think most people care much about carcinogens. Most people have them in their homes, breathe them, eat them, and others take it a step further, participating in the creation of them. It doesn't scream fear of cancer being a major concern.

You're applying your fear of carcinogens to others. My parents smoke a pack-a-day; I think that's horrifying. There's looking out for others and then there's overreach. It can be hard to discern the difference sometimes.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#83
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would happily sell anyone a picture or scan of my face for $5. But I even more happily have that chance go to someone who needs it more than myself. Would you really? My gut feeling tells me that's not the case for most people for privacy or ethical reasons. Just because those people are poor, we expect them to have lower privacy or ethical standards. The link you posted has the following example, I think you're…

Everyone who has uploaded a picture of themselves to Facebook, Linkedin or similar has already sold their face for free. That group includes almost everyone in the western world. $5 seems like a bargain compared to that.

to be clear, who has uploaded or had their photo uploaded; or potentially even attended any event someone bothered to setup a camera at.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#84
post #2

At least the Verge has the less clickbait headline, mentioning that it was contractors. The original source mentions Google in the headline but the rest of articles only refers to Randstad. One part that is a bit confusing to me is, the original source makes no references whatsoever to any consent form. Usually you can't collect this sort of data without signed consent, and previous reports [0] do mention such a form…

> ...I’m curious how you can get away with telling someone you’re just playing a game and lie so much... Since you’re curious: homeless people aren’t important to Google or society in general because they have so little and everyone has all but stopped caring about them. They’re poor, they’re unfortunate, and so they’re exploited. This has been happening since... leafs through book forever. Serfs used to toil away in…

I think they may have even been executed under older English common law.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I order a pizza and the stoned teenager from the local joint runs over a pedestrian, am I ethically responsible? I didn't tell them to not hit people when getting my meat lovers to me and did say I wanted it ASAP.

Why would you order pizza from a joint where stoned teenagers make the deliveries in the first place? If you knew that then yes, you're morally responsible.

Because in some places the only pizza employees you can find are stoned. Your local Papa John's or Domino's is probably a great place to find info for a local weed hookup.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#86

Anyone knows why they were giving gift cards instead of cash? I suppose there's a legal reason.

I can think of several reasons that homeless activism groups would suggest as reasons to use gift cards instead of cash. Most of them are pretty evident if you consider what kinds of goods are only available through cash-only purchases.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#87
post #81
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? You choose to do it because you don't care about giving your face picture to someone, fine. You're in a totally different position, financially independent I assume, you can weigh your options. A homeless person might not be in a situation like that. They're much more vulnerable and possibly willing to do things out of sheer desperation. Things they wouldn't do if they were in a different situation…

Is there any right to privacy on a public street? I thought anyone can photograph you in public, you have zero recourse, and most times you won't even get $5.

True but the $5 is more paying for data hygiene and organization because you can't get people to standardize naturally and the fewer confusing factors the better.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#88
post #82
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most people care much about carcinogens. Most people have them in their homes, breathe them, eat them, and others take it a step further, participating in the creation of them. It doesn't scream fear of cancer being a major concern.

You're applying your fear of carcinogens to others. My parents smoke a pack-a-day; I think that's horrifying. There's looking out for others and then there's overreach. It can be hard to discern the difference sometimes.

No, in fact, that's not what I'm doing here at all. The point I'm making has nothing at all to do with my personal feelings about either cancer or privacy issues.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#89
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did google authorize (or even think) that their staff would contract with a company that would hire folks who would scan homeless people's faces in a way that was improper?

I don't know. I do know that in these kinds of situations, the contract typically spells out clearly what, exactly, the contractor is going to do and how, though.

Even though it is usually reviewed, the methods of data gathering are usually not spelled out in the contracts themselves. Instead you have a distribution of liability where the data broker agency assumes the risk of having gathered and/or sold the data incorrectly to the purchaser.

Re: Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for facial recognition

#90

I remember the outrage when people discovered that Google's AI wasn't properly trained on black faces. It makes sense that they try hard to avoid that happening again by paying black people to let Google scan their faces. It is not unethical to try to diversify your training data. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/11710136/Googl... Anyway, this part sounds directly illegal, seems like it was just Randstad…

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