At the state level, there are some states that have already implemented facial recognition. I can tell you that even at the state level, integration was not easy. At a federal level, IAFIS is not limited by capability, but by sheer size of the database and the number of requests -- this only for fingerprint packets (I don't remember if they process palm data, but palm data definitely increases packet size significantly).
The point is, sometimes we are mesmerized by prototypes and applications at a small scale, but when you increase the scale, development, integration, and deployment challenges (edit: and costs) increase exponentially.
A few years ago I signed up for a NEXUS pass[1] and was background checked, fingerprinted, photographed, and had my iris scans taken. I can only assume that my information had to have been transferred to other databases such as this as well.
If law enforcement didn't hold such blind faith in technology I'd be encouraged by this development. Instead you're likely to get nabbed for the crime of simply looking like a criminal.
I wonder how difficult it would be to write an app that subtly distorts facial features in photographs, and pass every photo I upload through it.
Is there a point where I would be recognizable to friends and family, and yet make algorithms choke?
And if there is, I wonder what would happen when my grandchildren are looking through old photoalbums, and wondering why Grandpa looks a little weird in all of his photos.
Then they will arrest you for interfering with a law enforcement officer. Not that it will stick, but by the time you get it cleared up you are $100k in the hole from legal expenses and a message has been sent to anyone else thinking of doing the same.
Oh this will end well. Nah it will never be abused or have mission creep.
Now the TSA will have a database to use on everyone while they wait in line for a bus, train or plane.
You protested at OWS? No flying for you. Oh you false match a felon? No flying for you either.
I wonder when they will just start grabbing people left and right off the street to do iris scans like the military does to the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Isn't this at least arguably better than broadcasting a suspect's photo over the local news outlets --which is the current way of dealing with this information deficiency?
It's not being used to convict people, it's used to identify a suspect who could end up being found guilty via normal procedure --but this does not bypass that procedure.
I'm very sorry, but I heavily object to the notion that we should treat everyone like criminals. It completely invalidates the assumption of innocence, which - as far as I am informed as an European - is part of the Constitution).
Besides, as the grandparent mentioned, the potential for abuse is too high. Especially in the hands of a government who shows clear tendencies towards a police state - which most western ones do, including the US.
I'm very sorry, but I heavily object to the notion that we should treat everyone like criminals.
So do I. Automating facial recognition seems preferable to broadcasting mugshots and perp walks. The technology already abounds in the private sector anyway; if you can take a photo with your phone and have Facebook or Picasa ID and tag the people in it, it's unrealistic to demand that law enforcement abstain from using technology available to teenagers.
That's an argumentum ad populum. Just because everyone and their mother uses it is no justification for law enforcement to use it as well - especially considering that these people are (at least in very abstract theory) supposed to be good examples for the general populace. The fact that these technologies are abused to such a degree should be an argument to limit their usage, not further extend it.
>Automating facial recognition seems preferable to broadcasting mugshots and perp walks.
You might know the story of boiling a frog. The fact that you think it's fine is the worst thing about this ordeal. Next thing we know, people will be fine with a totalitarian government for the same reason.
Also, maybe we should consider finding better ways to fight crime instead of fighting criminals, which is, in the long term, pointless. I can never resist to quote Motörhead's March Or Die when it comes to this topic:
Children weep and widows wail,
Our education systems fail,
To hide our guilt we build more jails,
and we shall build still more
I don't understand this response. 'anigbrowl is saying that everyone's privacy is violated by private facial recognition deployments constantly, and law enforcement's alternatives --- which are already universally accepted by our jurisprudence --- are more invasive.
Sometimes it does make sense to tie law enforcement's hands behind its back. But it doesn't always or even often make that kind of sense. So why exactly in this case do we want to hobble them?
I'm also not sure how much productive conversation there is to be had about what technology law enforcement should get access to when you appear to not believe in the concept of law enforcement at all.
> 'anigbrowl is saying that everyone's privacy is violated by private facial recognition deployments constantly, and law enforcement's alternatives --- which are already universally accepted by our jurisprudence --- are more invasive.
And I am saying that instead of allowing law enforcement to use this technologies as well (because hey, everyone is using them), I'm saying we should instead limit everyone else from using it, as well. Especially big corporations like Google and Facebook.
>you appear to not believe in the concept of law enforcement at all.
I never said that. What I've been saying is that law enforcement is merely reactive. It doesn't solve problems, it merely fights the symptoms. The true problems are an entire generation of disillusioned people, a failing society reigned by corporate greed and kept in check by false hopes and dreams (yes, I'm talking about the American one). You have to fight these, not (just) the things they inevitably produce.
That's an argumentum ad populum. Just because everyone and their mother uses it is no justification for law enforcement to use it as well
Yes there is; if private citizens have access routine to technology that law enforcement is barred from using, then you'll have situations where there is photographic evidence of criminality that police are unable to act on (a popular example lately: webcams on laptops being used to ID thieves). If the police can't or won't act on it, while the recognition technology is freely available to web service users, then you're quickly heading for vigilantism and a lack of confidence in law enforcement.
Vigilantism has a poor record in dispensing justice as it has no procedural safeguards or judicial review whatsoever. Historical records show that prior to the establishment of professional police forces, rates of murder and other violent crimes were considerably higher. State-run police forces are what we got after market solutions had failed.
You don't get my argument, it seems. I oppose the carefree usage of this technology as a whole, not just its usage by law enforcement, while you are arguing with a fallacy based on the current situation. This won't lead us anywhere.
Broadcasting a suspect's photo is only done when there's a newsworthy story about a crime. Automated face recognition can be done routinely on a much vaster scale.
IMO, that's super myopic. When intelligence agencies do something visible to the American public that causes any sort of discussion, it forces what they are doing (which is usually supposed to be secret) into the spotlight, which makes them generally more accountable. They do not like to do their job with people looking over their shoulder; they typically avoid this wherever possible. Besides that:
* Even on a very good day, the government is demonstrably bad at deploying new technology, especially at scale.
* Especially when that scale involves training any personnel at all.
* Especially when people are wary of that technology anyway.
* Especially when they are deploying suspicious technology in a visible arena.
* Especially when this technology will be observing US persons.
It doesn't look like it from the outside, but there is a lot of politics and bureaucracy in deploying a system like this, not just internally, but also from places like politicians.
In my experience, people who have never been around an organization like the FBI seem to have a naive view of what is possible. My recommendation is to critically evaluate anything that anyone tells you about what goes on in such places.
The patriot act hasn't been applied at scale though. It's easy to abuse your power at small scales, it's difficult at large scales just because you are relying on many potentially inept people.
I think that's being a little too naive. Let's face it. The trend is turning USA into a police state. How isn't that not clear by now? Every other day they add new stuff like this, or breach more privacy or expand TSA in other areas, and so on.
The TSA is not an intelligence organization. Its job is not to secretly develop intelligence. It does not have the same problem of needing to not be accountable to the public as, say, the FBI or the NSA.
Second, that claim is a lot stronger than you're pretending it is. If you're going to throw around a term like "police state", you will need a lot more proof than hand-wavy "every day they add new stuff like this". Everything in your argument is attributable to selection bias, and if you're going to level a convincing point, you will need to do more than appeal to the fact that people seem to want to believe this stuff. TBH when you say that, it makes me wonder if you really know what a police state even is.
Third, my point is not that there is no abuse or that the government is incapable of doing bad things, it's that we should be evaluating pie-in-the-sky predictions with actual evidence. "We are becoming a police state, DUH" is not evidence. And neither is the ridiculous claim that tomorrow the OWS people will be barred from flying.
The TSA maintains a secret watchlist and black list. The fact that this list seems to be arbitrary and disconnected from intelligence agencies doesn't make it better.
So the revelation that the NSA had been illegally wiretapping hundreds of thousands of Americans led to the NSA being more accountable? As I recall, it was swept under the rug and the blame was placed on the whistleblowers.
What you're describing is an invisible exercise of power. What I'm saying is, exercising power in a public fashion, particularly when such a display involves technology that people are nervous about to begin with, causes there to be more attention focused at the organization in question. Generally they avoid this because it means they have more oversight. Maybe this opens doors to things like the above, maybe it doesn't.
Yes, just like with backscatter radiation, shoe examinations and 3oz liquids at airports. They generated media heat, but didn't lead to any attention or oversight. Everyone is used to them now, I'm generally the only person in line to request the grope-down.
I'm a student, and I'm an RA at my University. I don't work for the government in any way, shape, or form, either directly, or via secondary means (like a contractor), if that's what you're asking.
Anyway, that's bad form to ask. :(
Edit: Also, for those not in the know, "US Person" is a legal term that covers not just US citizens, but also legal aliens and citizens of certain countries like the UK that we hold close ties with.
Less concerned about privacy. More concerned about what this sort of thing means to juries.
A lot of forensic "evidence" is not actually completely conclusive, but people seem to have a built-in notion of how solid, say, fingerprint and DNA analysis are. It's sometimes very hard to convince a jury that these things are not necessarily incriminating, which is very bad because on a surprisingly often basis they are not strong enough to warrant conviction.
Facial recognition is also not completely foolproof, and while I applaud the idea that we should leverage technology to catch criminals who would otherwise go free, I personally am not willing to do so at the cost of innocent convictions. I recommend proceeding down this path cautiously.
On the other hand, "CSI" has made juries expect hard scientific evidence of the sort presented on the show, which rarely if ever actually happens in real life. It's possible that juries will refuse to convict without a positive identification by this new system - which, like all projects, will probably be riddled with bugs, and be useless for awhile.
On the gripping hand, you've got your false positives.
It can take days or weeks to get a result back from AFIS (fingerprint database). 15 minutes for a national face recognition system is mindblowingly awesome.
Do you ever wonder why it is that as a nation, or a species, we have nothing more creative to do with our monetary and intellectual resources than to use them for the creation of weapons of war, or to create new means of imprisonment?
No war? What would you have done if you were a leader of a European country at the onset of WWII? Just let Hitler come in and take everything? Or were you just referring to modern wars?
Invoking Godwin's law so early? Hitler's rise to power probably could have been prevented had the EU existed earlier, or had Ford's german subsidiary not built Hitler's armaments.
No war needs to be fought: If you want to allow evil people to either run the world or continue with atrocities. Because we are not always dealing with rational people, brute force is sometimes the only answer.
I don't know what the rest of the world is like, but in the US prisons are just another economic opportunity. When there's money to be made off of incarceration, there's money to be made by increasing crime.
Cases of rape and murder could be quelled substantially through better economic opportunities and greater access to healthcare, including abortions. Bad men usually had bad upbringings.
We probably can do better as a species, but we need to address all of the issues of the human condition with compassion, research, and empathy, not with guns and cages.
"Cases of rape and murder could be quelled substantially through better economic opportunities and greater access to healthcare, including abortions. Bad men usually had bad upbringings."
This isn't necessarily the case. There are plenty of rapists and murderers that came from a good home. It's hard to say why some people do bad things.
Bad upbringing is usually caused by bad parenting. You can't force a parent to spend time with their child or be there for them.
Some people also just shouldn't be parents. They pass on terrible traits that result in criminals.
"We probably can do better as a species, but we need to address all of the issues of the human condition with compassion, research, and empathy, not with guns and cages."
You make it sound so simple. We will always need guns and cages because no matter how much health care and good upbringing a person has, there will still be criminals.
Look at Norway as an example. Everyone has free health care, easy access to abortions, and the unemployment rate is ~3%. Prisoners are treated very well there and the prison systems are some of the best in the world (if I was a criminal, I would probably move to Norway). Here is an article about it:
By taking away "guns and cages" you will only hurt the honest people in this world. They are there for our protection and no amount of compassion or empathy will prevent our need for them.
"if you don't come to the attention of law enforcement you don't have anything to fear from these systems.", Thomas Bush.
What utter crap. Everyone comes to the attention of law enforcement or some other govt. data collection agency. I was once booked into jail for driving without a license. I had one, just another state. My son was put in a mental hospital and booked into jail for assaulting an officer, because he had a violent reaction to a general anesthetic and the dentist called the police. Ever had a driver's license or a passport? Maybe they'll even collect student ids; protect the children and all that.
63 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadThe point is, sometimes we are mesmerized by prototypes and applications at a small scale, but when you increase the scale, development, integration, and deployment challenges (edit: and costs) increase exponentially.
[1] http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/trusted_traveler/nexus_pro...
If law enforcement didn't hold such blind faith in technology I'd be encouraged by this development. Instead you're likely to get nabbed for the crime of simply looking like a criminal.
Is there a point where I would be recognizable to friends and family, and yet make algorithms choke?
And if there is, I wonder what would happen when my grandchildren are looking through old photoalbums, and wondering why Grandpa looks a little weird in all of his photos.
Edit: downvotes? FB provides law enforcement with step-by-step instructions on getting this information. https://www.eff.org/node/58178
Now the TSA will have a database to use on everyone while they wait in line for a bus, train or plane.
You protested at OWS? No flying for you. Oh you false match a felon? No flying for you either.
I wonder when they will just start grabbing people left and right off the street to do iris scans like the military does to the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's not being used to convict people, it's used to identify a suspect who could end up being found guilty via normal procedure --but this does not bypass that procedure.
Besides, as the grandparent mentioned, the potential for abuse is too high. Especially in the hands of a government who shows clear tendencies towards a police state - which most western ones do, including the US.
So do I. Automating facial recognition seems preferable to broadcasting mugshots and perp walks. The technology already abounds in the private sector anyway; if you can take a photo with your phone and have Facebook or Picasa ID and tag the people in it, it's unrealistic to demand that law enforcement abstain from using technology available to teenagers.
>Automating facial recognition seems preferable to broadcasting mugshots and perp walks.
You might know the story of boiling a frog. The fact that you think it's fine is the worst thing about this ordeal. Next thing we know, people will be fine with a totalitarian government for the same reason.
Also, maybe we should consider finding better ways to fight crime instead of fighting criminals, which is, in the long term, pointless. I can never resist to quote Motörhead's March Or Die when it comes to this topic:
Sometimes it does make sense to tie law enforcement's hands behind its back. But it doesn't always or even often make that kind of sense. So why exactly in this case do we want to hobble them?
I'm also not sure how much productive conversation there is to be had about what technology law enforcement should get access to when you appear to not believe in the concept of law enforcement at all.
And I am saying that instead of allowing law enforcement to use this technologies as well (because hey, everyone is using them), I'm saying we should instead limit everyone else from using it, as well. Especially big corporations like Google and Facebook.
>you appear to not believe in the concept of law enforcement at all.
I never said that. What I've been saying is that law enforcement is merely reactive. It doesn't solve problems, it merely fights the symptoms. The true problems are an entire generation of disillusioned people, a failing society reigned by corporate greed and kept in check by false hopes and dreams (yes, I'm talking about the American one). You have to fight these, not (just) the things they inevitably produce.
Yes there is; if private citizens have access routine to technology that law enforcement is barred from using, then you'll have situations where there is photographic evidence of criminality that police are unable to act on (a popular example lately: webcams on laptops being used to ID thieves). If the police can't or won't act on it, while the recognition technology is freely available to web service users, then you're quickly heading for vigilantism and a lack of confidence in law enforcement.
Vigilantism has a poor record in dispensing justice as it has no procedural safeguards or judicial review whatsoever. Historical records show that prior to the establishment of professional police forces, rates of murder and other violent crimes were considerably higher. State-run police forces are what we got after market solutions had failed.
David D Friedman has studied libertarian approaches to law enforcement in some depth, and points out various shortcomings as well as some apparent benefits: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/England_18thc./Englan...
* Even on a very good day, the government is demonstrably bad at deploying new technology, especially at scale.
* Especially when that scale involves training any personnel at all.
* Especially when people are wary of that technology anyway.
* Especially when they are deploying suspicious technology in a visible arena.
* Especially when this technology will be observing US persons.
It doesn't look like it from the outside, but there is a lot of politics and bureaucracy in deploying a system like this, not just internally, but also from places like politicians.
In my experience, people who have never been around an organization like the FBI seem to have a naive view of what is possible. My recommendation is to critically evaluate anything that anyone tells you about what goes on in such places.
The TSA is not an intelligence organization. Its job is not to secretly develop intelligence. It does not have the same problem of needing to not be accountable to the public as, say, the FBI or the NSA.
Second, that claim is a lot stronger than you're pretending it is. If you're going to throw around a term like "police state", you will need a lot more proof than hand-wavy "every day they add new stuff like this". Everything in your argument is attributable to selection bias, and if you're going to level a convincing point, you will need to do more than appeal to the fact that people seem to want to believe this stuff. TBH when you say that, it makes me wonder if you really know what a police state even is.
Third, my point is not that there is no abuse or that the government is incapable of doing bad things, it's that we should be evaluating pie-in-the-sky predictions with actual evidence. "We are becoming a police state, DUH" is not evidence. And neither is the ridiculous claim that tomorrow the OWS people will be barred from flying.
What you're describing is an invisible exercise of power. What I'm saying is, exercising power in a public fashion, particularly when such a display involves technology that people are nervous about to begin with, causes there to be more attention focused at the organization in question. Generally they avoid this because it means they have more oversight. Maybe this opens doors to things like the above, maybe it doesn't.
Anyway, that's bad form to ask. :(
Edit: Also, for those not in the know, "US Person" is a legal term that covers not just US citizens, but also legal aliens and citizens of certain countries like the UK that we hold close ties with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_person
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
A lot of forensic "evidence" is not actually completely conclusive, but people seem to have a built-in notion of how solid, say, fingerprint and DNA analysis are. It's sometimes very hard to convince a jury that these things are not necessarily incriminating, which is very bad because on a surprisingly often basis they are not strong enough to warrant conviction.
Facial recognition is also not completely foolproof, and while I applaud the idea that we should leverage technology to catch criminals who would otherwise go free, I personally am not willing to do so at the cost of innocent convictions. I recommend proceeding down this path cautiously.
On the gripping hand, you've got your false positives.
[1] http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatic...
Can't we do better?
What I want to know is why we need to have rapists, murderers, and criminals? Can't we do better as a species?
No war needs to be fought.
Well of course if you have power to change history you could avoid any war, but that doesn't seem like it answers my question.
No war needs to be fought: If you want to allow evil people to either run the world or continue with atrocities. Because we are not always dealing with rational people, brute force is sometimes the only answer.
Cases of rape and murder could be quelled substantially through better economic opportunities and greater access to healthcare, including abortions. Bad men usually had bad upbringings.
We probably can do better as a species, but we need to address all of the issues of the human condition with compassion, research, and empathy, not with guns and cages.
This isn't necessarily the case. There are plenty of rapists and murderers that came from a good home. It's hard to say why some people do bad things.
Bad upbringing is usually caused by bad parenting. You can't force a parent to spend time with their child or be there for them.
Some people also just shouldn't be parents. They pass on terrible traits that result in criminals.
"We probably can do better as a species, but we need to address all of the issues of the human condition with compassion, research, and empathy, not with guns and cages."
You make it sound so simple. We will always need guns and cages because no matter how much health care and good upbringing a person has, there will still be criminals.
Look at Norway as an example. Everyone has free health care, easy access to abortions, and the unemployment rate is ~3%. Prisoners are treated very well there and the prison systems are some of the best in the world (if I was a criminal, I would probably move to Norway). Here is an article about it:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1384308/Norw...
By taking away "guns and cages" you will only hurt the honest people in this world. They are there for our protection and no amount of compassion or empathy will prevent our need for them.
What utter crap. Everyone comes to the attention of law enforcement or some other govt. data collection agency. I was once booked into jail for driving without a license. I had one, just another state. My son was put in a mental hospital and booked into jail for assaulting an officer, because he had a violent reaction to a general anesthetic and the dentist called the police. Ever had a driver's license or a passport? Maybe they'll even collect student ids; protect the children and all that.