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Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

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Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#91

Post by godelski »

AlbertCory wrote: post #31

The issue with governments implementing mass warrantless surveillance is not training or standards, NIST or otherwise. It should be straight-out illegal. Governments do not have "free speech" rights. As for private citizens doing it: I think there are already sufficient laws about recording people without their consent. You can hire someone to stand on a corner and watch for a specific person to walk by, but a law pr…

I just want to piggy back here. There's often counter arguments about how laws say that when you're in public you have no expectation or right to privacy.

First off, this is not true, you definitely have some rights to privacy in public (an trivial example is using a public restroom). The law also is based on what is reasonable, and I don't think nearly everyone would think it is reasonable to expect some privacy if you walked down an alley to get away from others or went to a more secluded area. These are often explicitly why people do such things.

Second, recognize that many of these laws were written long before the average person had a camera and microphone in their pockets (not to mention high quality). The environment changed and it makes sense that our laws should change to. So even if you reject the first point these arguments about "what the law says" are still not enough to dispel concerns because we can in fact change the laws. More so, we _should_ constantly be updating laws due to our changing environments and how we learn about things as they happen.

And yeah, there's also a significant difference between a private person and a government doing these tasks. The government has a lot more power, and this does mean they require higher scrutiny and accountability even if you have complete faith in them (yes, this also means corporate entities, since the concern is power dynamics). Scale certainly has changed in the last 100, 50, 20, and even 10 years. It happened fast and no matter what side you are on, you can't ignore that things have changed and are about to change even more.

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#92

Post by worik »

krapp wrote: post #29
kurthr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you can differentiate between humans and corporations. They are both fundamentally the same. They are born... and oh wait, yeah. But still under the 14th ammendment's equal protection clause the Supreme court determined they were in 1886 (some argue 1819). Maybe we shouldn't treat corporate speech the same as human speech under the 1st amendment, but that would allow regulation of corporations giving…

We treat corporate speech as an extension of human speech because corporations are made up of humans, and there is no way of abridging the speech of corporations without also abridging the speech of the humans within that corporation. Also, abridging corporate speech creates a precedent for abridging the speech of all human collective entities like religions, political parties, advocacy groups and the press, because…

> We treat corporate speech as an extension of human speech because...

...corporations have thrown tons of money at making it so

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#93

Post by monksy »

frickinLasers wrote: post #36
rty32 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't "appalled" but definitely felt uneasy about it. I am aware I could opt out and read all the discussions about it here on HN. I didn't do anything about it, despite being a very privacy conscious person (using firefox, use max adblocking/anti tracking etc). Why? I don't want to be an asshole, hold the queue and cause trouble for a TSA agent who is just doing the job and likely have no idea what "opt out" mean…

I had a perfectly pleasant experience opting out. The agent simply smiled at me, asked a question to verify that I was the person on the ID I had handed him, and off I went. It was much easier and less gropey than opting out of the mm wave scans.

I've had the same experience with the opt out in the pre-check line.

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#94

Post by monksy »

i80and wrote: post #5
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #3

I was appalled to see TSA facial recognition scanners at airports recently, where instead of checking your ID and boarding pass they scan your face. Almost everyone simply accepted the new process instead of opting out. I’m not sure how the eventual forced violation of biometrics can be stopped when most people don’t care.

While you can opt out, not every document check station has signage to that effect in my experience; the TSA individual only tells you to put your head in the camera frame; and most people have had An Experience with TSA officials becoming belligerent and even aggressive over small things. Frankly, it's intimidating, and I don't blame people for not opting out even assuming they know that's possible

Theres an implied threat when flying. It's that you won't be able to take the flight you purchased because they feel vindictive.

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#95

Post by bentley »

BadHumans wrote: post #16
curiouscavalier wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they basic RGB cameras or do they collect depth as well? Would even know if they decided to change the system to start collecting depth data, even if comparisons are to flat images? Honest questions, as that’s where my concerns are. Boil the frog. If they start to collect more, it’s not as simple as “they already have my picture.” Should there be a breach, I can’t easily change my face. I’m generally of the opini…

I have no idea and don't know the difference but I could say the same thing of the camera they used to take my passport photo or my state ID.

It’s still possible to take one’s own passport photos with a plain old digital camera.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-app...

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#96

Post by bentley »

frickinLasers wrote: post #36
rty32 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't "appalled" but definitely felt uneasy about it. I am aware I could opt out and read all the discussions about it here on HN. I didn't do anything about it, despite being a very privacy conscious person (using firefox, use max adblocking/anti tracking etc). Why? I don't want to be an asshole, hold the queue and cause trouble for a TSA agent who is just doing the job and likely have no idea what "opt out" mean…

I had a perfectly pleasant experience opting out. The agent simply smiled at me, asked a question to verify that I was the person on the ID I had handed him, and off I went. It was much easier and less gropey than opting out of the mm wave scans.

I too find the domestic TSA photo opt‐out to be quite painless. I recommend simply saying “I’d like to opt out of the photo” as soon as you walk to the platform, because saying so as soon as possible minimizes the chance of holding up the line and irritating the agent. The only observable difference in processing is that the agent takes my ID, holds it up, and compares it to my face.

CBP is another matter. When returning from abroad I find their agents to be more aggressive or snarky when I (politely) opt out, although I wouldn’t say it’s gone as far as retaliation. I often get asked why I’m opting out, and sometimes they follow that with additional questions. Several times I’ve received a standard spiel explaining that the photo is not stored permanently or transmitted; the vibe I get is that they’re trained to respond this way to “kooks.”

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#97

Post by mmooss »

mncharity wrote: post #33
mmooss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't understand and also they despair - both in part because the people who should help them (people like us) also buy into despair.

I wonder if there's a "missing infrastructure opportunity" here. An isolated individual opt-out has the uninspiring cost/risk-vs-benefit/principle tradeoff others have mentioned. But what if that equation could be shifted? Perhaps "I'll do the scan just now, but also, while it has my motivation and attention, I'll press the easy button to donate $N to some org effectively fighting it". Or "I'll opt out, and press the…

> An isolated individual opt-out has the uninspiring cost/risk-vs-benefit/principle tradeoff others have mentioned.

One way to shift the equation is to shift understanding of the tradeoff:

Some minor inconvenience - I think none in this case - for freedom and other human rights is hardly a tradeoff that needs much consideration. Honestly, I think it's people following the herd to the cultural trend of despair, powerlessness, and worship of strongmen - a incredible reversal from American individualism I'd read has dominated the culture for centuries.

More practically, a little courage and action has a large effect on others. Imagine you are in a meeting where something obviously morally wrong is likely to be approved, and there is pressure to go along:

Imagine nobody raises their hand to object. Imagine the despair and powerlessness everyone would feel, that it just passes without objection, that everyone is cowed.

Imagine one person raises their hand. Not only does it greatly reduce the feeling of despair and powerlessness, it heartens people, and even more it makes it far easier for a second person to raise their hand, or for others to object to this issue or to others later.

Imagine two raise their hand ...

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#98

Post by rockskon »

AlbertCory wrote: post #31

The issue with governments implementing mass warrantless surveillance is not training or standards, NIST or otherwise. It should be straight-out illegal. Governments do not have "free speech" rights. As for private citizens doing it: I think there are already sufficient laws about recording people without their consent. You can hire someone to stand on a corner and watch for a specific person to walk by, but a law pr…

Generally something that's okay to do to one person is okay to do to a billion in the law.

Something legal applied a billion times doesn't make it illegal.

That's also one of the legal principles underlying mass warrantless surveillance with the third party doctrine.

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#99

Post by rockskon »

erikaww wrote: post #70
derektank wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be illegal for the government to monitor what is, in most cases, public property (airports and border crossings)?

I think it would be a fantastic idea for the government to surveil road infrastructure. We spend a crap ton of our GDP just on healthcare addressing the negative impact of traffic violence. Not to mention everyone knows someone that has been killed or affected by this. Outright saying the government shouldn’t monitor this is in bad taste. You can argue that the solution is to stop doubling down on our bad investment,…

I don't know anyone who has been affected by "traffic violence".

As big of a source of death it is, it's still an infinitesimally small one in he grand scheme of things.

Re: Federal civil rights watchdog sounds alarm over Feds use of facial recognition

#100

Post by rockskon »

rty32 wrote: post #17
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #3

I was appalled to see TSA facial recognition scanners at airports recently, where instead of checking your ID and boarding pass they scan your face. Almost everyone simply accepted the new process instead of opting out. I’m not sure how the eventual forced violation of biometrics can be stopped when most people don’t care.

I wasn't "appalled" but definitely felt uneasy about it. I am aware I could opt out and read all the discussions about it here on HN. I didn't do anything about it, despite being a very privacy conscious person (using firefox, use max adblocking/anti tracking etc). Why? I don't want to be an asshole, hold the queue and cause trouble for a TSA agent who is just doing the job and likely have no idea what "opt out" mean…

I've opted out every time I've flown. It's very quick.
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