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Am I only the one that thinks the animation on that page of a woman having her face scanned and turning her head looks like something from a modern retelling of

Am I only the one that thinks the animation on that page of a woman having her face scanned and turning her head looks like something from a modern retelling of 1984? I don't like the idea of app developers getting people used to submitting to facial scans; it seems inevitable that public acceptance of the concept will eventually be abused when someone decides that it's necessary to verify your identity before you access the internet in order to prevent terrorism. edit: Upon further reflection, I see no reason why my argument above couldn't be applied to fingerprint sensors on smartphones, which I personally use and don't have much of a problem with... I guess anything that gets even remotely close to the territory of mainstream video surveillance using phone cameras just creeps me out. I'm no longer sure of exactly where I stand on the facial scan issue.

autotune 10y ago
No, and not having this may be a benefit for using other competitors like Lyft or the public transit system.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  The facial-recognition scan is for the drivers, not for the riders.
  - autotune 10y ago
    Drivers can still choose to avoid Uber and use other competitors as well as a result of this feature.
    - pavel_lishin 10y ago
      Sure, but if they're driving for one of those companies, that company already has a high definition photo of their face and lots of other information - I assume that drivers are subjected to considerably more scrutiny than passengers.
    - marcoperaza 10y ago
      What would they possibly gain by doing that? It's not like the trip is a secret. Uber arranged the trip in the first place. Unless they're not who they say they are, in which case Uber is glad to be rid of them.
- throwaway45589 10y ago
  Sending its competitors an influx of drivers who are lying about their identities would be a brilliant move on Uber's part.
romaster 10y ago
On the question of security and privacy - is my face being matched on THEIR cloud? or locally and then a token is matched? Liveness on the whole has its own issues in terms of a spoofing 'arms race' and secondly the more complicated they make it the larger the risk of False Rejection Rate (rejection what should have been accepted) On your latter point, it is a bit of a flaw that I feel inclined to address - Depends on implementation. on iPhone, your "fingerprint" is not exposed when you use that to unlock your phone... but then again when using that to maneuver in an app, you're doing no server side validation. Per Apple Support (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587): Touch ID doesn't store any images of your fingerprint. It stores only a mathematical representation of your fingerprint. It isn't possible for someone to reverse engineer your actual fingerprint image from this mathematical representation. The chip in your device also includes an advanced security architecture called the Secure Enclave which was developed to protect passcode and fingerprint data. Fingerprint data is encrypted and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave. Fingerprint data is used only by the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled fingerprint data. The Secure Enclave is walled off from the rest of the chip and the rest of iOS. Therefore, iOS and other apps never access your fingerprint data, it's never stored on Apple servers, and it's never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else. Only Touch ID uses it, and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases.
oarsinsync 10y ago
> edit: Upon further reflection, I see no reason why my argument above couldn't be applied to fingerprint sensors on smartphones, which I personally use and don't have much of a problem with... I guess anything that gets even remotely close to the territory of mainstream video surveillance using phone cameras just creeps me out. I'm no longer sure of exactly where I stand on the facial scan issue. Your face can be (and in parts of the UK, is) scanned passively very easily. Your fingerprint less easily.

autotune 10y ago

No, and not having this may be a benefit for using other competitors like Lyft or the public transit system.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
The facial-recognition scan is for the drivers, not for the riders.
- autotune 10y ago
  Drivers can still choose to avoid Uber and use other competitors as well as a result of this feature.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    Sure, but if they're driving for one of those companies, that company already has a high definition photo of their face and lots of other information - I assume that drivers are subjected to considerably more scrutiny than passengers.
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    What would they possibly gain by doing that? It's not like the trip is a secret. Uber arranged the trip in the first place. Unless they're not who they say they are, in which case Uber is glad to be rid of them.
throwaway45589 10y ago
Sending its competitors an influx of drivers who are lying about their identities would be a brilliant move on Uber's part.

romaster 10y ago

On the question of security and privacy - is my face being matched on THEIR cloud? or locally and then a token is matched? Liveness on the whole has its own issues in terms of a spoofing 'arms race' and secondly the more complicated they make it the larger the risk of False Rejection Rate (rejection what should have been accepted) On your latter point, it is a bit of a flaw that I feel inclined to address - Depends on implementation. on iPhone, your "fingerprint" is not exposed when you use that to unlock your phone... but then again when using that to maneuver in an app, you're doing no server side validation. Per Apple Support (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204587): Touch ID doesn't store any images of your fingerprint. It stores only a mathematical representation of your fingerprint. It isn't possible for someone to reverse engineer your actual fingerprint image from this mathematical representation. The chip in your device also includes an advanced security architecture called the Secure Enclave which was developed to protect passcode and fingerprint data. Fingerprint data is encrypted and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave. Fingerprint data is used only by the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled fingerprint data. The Secure Enclave is walled off from the rest of the chip and the rest of iOS. Therefore, iOS and other apps never access your fingerprint data, it's never stored on Apple servers, and it's never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else. Only Touch ID uses it, and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases.

oarsinsync 10y ago

> edit: Upon further reflection, I see no reason why my argument above couldn't be applied to fingerprint sensors on smartphones, which I personally use and don't have much of a problem with... I guess anything that gets even remotely close to the territory of mainstream video surveillance using phone cameras just creeps me out. I'm no longer sure of exactly where I stand on the facial scan issue. Your face can be (and in parts of the UK, is) scanned passively very easily. Your fingerprint less easily.