The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
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Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#2Also available on his blog instead of Forbes' terrible website
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/10/automatic_fac...
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#3How poignant given the end of the 3rd episode of Heroes Reborn that I just saw last night (don't worry, I won't spoil its awesomeness).
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#4I no longer know what to do about this problem. I'm convinced surveillance is here to stay and that making it illegal will only serve to hide the microphones. I'm still extremely grateful for those who fight for privacy, is just that I don't see how we can win.
Not knowing how to treat the cause, I'm at least trying to treat the symptoms. We might not be able to stop them from seeing our secrets, but we might very well stop them from making us feel ashamed and from blackmailing us.
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#5[deleted]
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#6A HN contest: Provide an elevator pitch, to completely non-technical end-users, that will make them aware of this issue and persuade them that it is important to them. Vote up the best ones. [EDIT: The goal is to persuade them about its dangers, not sell them something based on it]
That elevator pitch is key. I have extensive knowledge about this issue but have a hard time coming up with it; I need to be prepared.
Change only will come through political pressure, and that requires public awareness. I had lunch recently with a journalist from a prominent publication, someone very well informed, and they told me that widespread surveillance wasn't real, a sort of urban myth. Organizations like the EFF have been unsuccessful and I think that's because they don't generate mass public awareness. It's up to us to create it, and we need a pitch.
EDIT: [deleted]
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#7I no longer know what to do about this problem. I'm convinced surveillance is here to stay and that making it illegal will only serve to hide the microphones. I'm still extremely grateful for those who fight for privacy, is just that I don't see how we can win. Not knowing how to treat the cause, I'm at least trying to treat the symptoms. We might not be able to stop them from seeing our secrets, but we might very we…
> surveillance is here to stay and that making it illegal will only serve to hide the microphones.
Certainly it's here to stay, but so is murder, theft, fraud, and many other things. We want to maximize the leverage and tools people have to fight it.
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#8I'm not sure what "good as a person" means in the context of large scale facial recognition.
I know software is now scoring as people on various standard AI tests. But most people couldn't recognize a million other people correctly. The situation is kind of odd. It's like how engineering a car to drive automatically in a variety of controlled situations which might represent 90% of the normal driving. They are still nowhere near ready to drive on real roads.
The supposed advantages are perverse; Face recognition with a 1% false positive rate can translate one fugitive to 10 or 100 false arrests of random people.
A store clerk knowing your name when you walk in the store is mostly creepy and wouldn't help sales - the store that had their clerks saying goodbye by name to credit card holds a few years back have stopped.
So, benefits? Changes? The article is kind of light on the whole subject.
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#9This article is a bit alarmist. I agree that government entities using this technology as a tool of oppression is definitely bad & going to happen somewhere but I'm not worried about the shop clerk knowing my political affiliation because there is zero profit motive there. You're talking about a truly massive database of customer info joined with facial info obtained...how? Is the DMV gonna start giving away my license to Home Depot? Is facebook going to torpedo their business by selling this info? I doubt it! Second, why would they want it? to creep me out when I walk into their store?
Re: The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
#10I'm not sure what "good as a person" means in the context of large scale facial recognition. I know software is now scoring as people on various standard AI tests. But most people couldn't recognize a million other people correctly. The situation is kind of odd. It's like how engineering a car to drive automatically in a variety of controlled situations which might represent 90% of the normal driving. They are still…
> store clerk knowing your name when you walk in the store is mostly creepy and wouldn't help sales
Saying your name might be creepy (but maybe people will become accustomed to it). Knowing your identity I think would certainly help sales, the same way it does when you shop online.