On a tangent, the Austrian constitutional court of justice just today ruled that security forces are not allowed to use traffic camera data beyond using it to enforce traffic laws. They also forbid police to install hidden malware on people's phones ("Bundestrojaner"): https://www.vfgh.gv.at/medien/Kfz-Kennzeichenerfassung_und__...
While the use of facial recognition might not be a good thing in any case, it looks to me as if currently police is limited only to use it to retrospectively investigate serious crimes ("schwere Straftat").
Relevant for an exaggerated,fear based perspective. Both is these articles condition the reader to believing in inevitable failure. These are completely black and white views and as we know, everything is grey.
Of course they do. Western technology corporations provide the tools, the Chinese regime proves it works and then everybody else wants it as well. This is the process. It is not democracy though. The police should not dictate the policy.
Was in Korla, Xinjiang. So many cameras. You get a picture of your face taken and then a gate lifts when going into a lot of public areas or communities.
"Even if face recognition can match a face with 99% accuracy, the sheer amount of faces available in police databases makes false positives inevitable. (The 1% error rate means that, if 10,000 people who are not wanted by the police undergo face recognition, 100 will be flagged as wanted)."
The author is not being fair.
Usually with technologies like these, developers will not aim for an accuracy of 99%, but a precision of 99% (that is what we do with Congestion Charging in London, where the ramifications of FPs are much lower [I work in Transport for London]). That means that for 10,000,000 people undergoing facial recognition, only 100 may be flagged as wanted, and only 1 will be a false positive. If we were talking about 99% accuracy, that doesn't necessarily mean what the author claims either. Accuracy is (TP + TN)/(P + N), meaning that the decrease in 1% from 100% can be in any of:- a lowering of TP or TN; or an increase of FP or FN. There is no reason to think that the 1% will all mean false positives.
What are some easy / cheap / unobtrusive ways of thwarting face recognition software? I've read about masks, umbrellas and even makeup, but these are all obvious and difficult to use. Is there an inconspicuous solution that would only prevent face recognition without alerting human authorities? Would using these methods even be legal?
Hiding your face is illegal in Belgium at least. This includes masks, helmets etc. I don't know the exact wording, but I would suspect that it's broad enough to include umbrellas and makeup and anything else that effectively makes it impossible to recognize a person.
Get peal off stickers of realistic eyes and put them on your cheeks and forehead. Simple and 100% effective to defeat ALL KNOWN FR ALGORITHMS. Lead developer of the #3 global FR product.
I do not object to facial recognition as long as a rigorous screen on use is in place. Known paroled felons who are going about their business legally in conformance with their parole might allow us to parole far more people that an excess of punitive zeal keeps locked up. Each one of these would require a warrant and be limited to end of their parole. Once done, they are out of the net.
They need to improve the competence of these types of camera on various racial subtypes to make sure the error rate is the same as the whiter groups to avoid selective over reach on these groups.
Like all things with sharp edges, they can be used badly - as we see in China versus the Uighers as well as Tibetans. Sadly, we lack the power to meddle except via trade restrictions - which misses the crooked rulers and harms the Chinese people - for whom I have great respect.
Whenever I hear about mass surveillance I think that the sci-fi movies with weird haircuts and make-up are starting to look more and more like a possibility.
CV Dazzle [0] (not affiliated) has an interesting set of examples.
In the case of Ireland where they categorise the country as "facial recognition in use" it states:
It is unclear if the Gardaí use face recognition in real time, but face recognition is widely use to spot welfare fraud.
There are no documented cases of the Gardaí using real time facial recognition in Ireland. In the case of welfare fraud, a facial imaging system is used when registering or renewing your welfare status to prevent people registering under multiple or false identities.
Yes, 10 out of 28 is not most but it sets a dangerous precedent as most smaller countries follow big countries. If for example Germany, UK and France implement some draconian surveillance laws, the rest of their smaller neighbors(maybe apart from Scandinavia) will follow suit shortly.
Title on the article is different now - maybe it was changed?
> "at least ten have a police force that uses face recognition. Four plans to introduce it in the coming years."
The only way to get to half of 28 is to sum those using it and those intending to do so soon. I think the majority they refer to is of the 25 they surveyed, but even then it is only a majority of respondents (not all responded). Sensationalism for sure.
This is mainly driven by people around the age of 60 with a profound fear of death and almost no knowledge about implications of certain technologies.
It is not restricted to public safety, surveillance will also be employed against normal employees and workers, your health providers and any form of communication.
The police is trimmed to meet certain quotas and will try to get anything that might give them an advantage.
I want to get off this continent. Not that there are many alternatives left.
I still have to plan to laser any public camera I see. Luckily my region is still too boring to see mass deployment.
It is not important to not getting seen by cameras, it is important to spit on them wherever they surface.
“This is mainly driven by people around the age of 60 with a profound fear of death and almost no knowledge about implications of certain technologies.”
I thought most surveillance tech is developed by young bright people. You are making a big mistake by making this an age issue. You are sort of implying that once these old people are gone things will get better. They won’t.
[+] [-] rsto|6 years ago|reply
On a tangent, the Austrian constitutional court of justice just today ruled that security forces are not allowed to use traffic camera data beyond using it to enforce traffic laws. They also forbid police to install hidden malware on people's phones ("Bundestrojaner"): https://www.vfgh.gv.at/medien/Kfz-Kennzeichenerfassung_und__...
While the use of facial recognition might not be a good thing in any case, it looks to me as if currently police is limited only to use it to retrospectively investigate serious crimes ("schwere Straftat").
[+] [-] koheripbal|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rahuldottech|6 years ago|reply
What facial recognition steals from us: https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/10/21003466/facial-recogn...
How to avoid a dystopian future of facial recognition in law enforcement: https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/10/20996085/ai-facial-rec...
[+] [-] bsenftner|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onreact|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onreact|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] winrid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TurkishPoptart|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ganzuul|6 years ago|reply
It's only the low-end stores which do that around these parts.
[+] [-] superqwert|6 years ago|reply
"Even if face recognition can match a face with 99% accuracy, the sheer amount of faces available in police databases makes false positives inevitable. (The 1% error rate means that, if 10,000 people who are not wanted by the police undergo face recognition, 100 will be flagged as wanted)."
The author is not being fair.
Usually with technologies like these, developers will not aim for an accuracy of 99%, but a precision of 99% (that is what we do with Congestion Charging in London, where the ramifications of FPs are much lower [I work in Transport for London]). That means that for 10,000,000 people undergoing facial recognition, only 100 may be flagged as wanted, and only 1 will be a false positive. If we were talking about 99% accuracy, that doesn't necessarily mean what the author claims either. Accuracy is (TP + TN)/(P + N), meaning that the decrease in 1% from 100% can be in any of:- a lowering of TP or TN; or an increase of FP or FN. There is no reason to think that the 1% will all mean false positives.
[+] [-] imiric|6 years ago|reply
What are some easy / cheap / unobtrusive ways of thwarting face recognition software? I've read about masks, umbrellas and even makeup, but these are all obvious and difficult to use. Is there an inconspicuous solution that would only prevent face recognition without alerting human authorities? Would using these methods even be legal?
[+] [-] ferbivore|6 years ago|reply
Any clever technical solution you can think of will be swiftly declared illegal. Technology won't save you from government abuse.
[+] [-] Tharkun|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsenftner|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burundi_coffee|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onreact|6 years ago|reply
Also you can wear a special headlight that renders CCTV cameras useless.
[+] [-] aurizon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThalesX|6 years ago|reply
CV Dazzle [0] (not affiliated) has an interesting set of examples.
[0] https://cvdazzle.com
[+] [-] StavrosK|6 years ago|reply
"10", says the article, "the majority (that answered questions)".
The EU has 28 member states.
Yes, we should be wary of allowing the police to use face recognition, but this sort of sensationalization helps no one.
Mirror, because the site is not responding well: https://ipfs.eternum.io/ipfs/QmSkQZKnY4mdNmVnya2MVM2ZgnAj5H7...
[+] [-] Peroni|6 years ago|reply
It is unclear if the Gardaí use face recognition in real time, but face recognition is widely use to spot welfare fraud.
There are no documented cases of the Gardaí using real time facial recognition in Ireland. In the case of welfare fraud, a facial imaging system is used when registering or renewing your welfare status to prevent people registering under multiple or false identities.
[+] [-] ChuckNorris89|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] docdeek|6 years ago|reply
> "at least ten have a police force that uses face recognition. Four plans to introduce it in the coming years."
The only way to get to half of 28 is to sum those using it and those intending to do so soon. I think the majority they refer to is of the 25 they surveyed, but even then it is only a majority of respondents (not all responded). Sensationalism for sure.
[+] [-] Katzenjammer|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] baybal2|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] raxxorrax|6 years ago|reply
This is mainly driven by people around the age of 60 with a profound fear of death and almost no knowledge about implications of certain technologies.
It is not restricted to public safety, surveillance will also be employed against normal employees and workers, your health providers and any form of communication.
The police is trimmed to meet certain quotas and will try to get anything that might give them an advantage.
I want to get off this continent. Not that there are many alternatives left.
I still have to plan to laser any public camera I see. Luckily my region is still too boring to see mass deployment.
It is not important to not getting seen by cameras, it is important to spit on them wherever they surface.
[+] [-] Ididntdothis|6 years ago|reply
I thought most surveillance tech is developed by young bright people. You are making a big mistake by making this an age issue. You are sort of implying that once these old people are gone things will get better. They won’t.