8 ms·

Non-Chinese shouldn't kid ourselves. Our governments want to do this too, and probably will. Drones with gigapixel cameras hovering over metro regions. Security

Non-Chinese shouldn't kid ourselves. Our governments want to do this too, and probably will. Drones with gigapixel cameras hovering over metro regions. Security cameras and police cars that continuously scan the faces of pedestrians and other drivers. It will happen.

dx034 9y ago
But probably not openly, at least not for a while. Can't imagine that the US or a European country could display the faces of jaywalkers on the street without large scale protest (especially since this is not really considered a crime).
- crpatino 9y ago
  There... > (especially since this is not really considered a crime) The seed is already planted: it is ok to display the face of a citizen, as long as he's a criminal. No debate about what kinds of public need does supersede the privacy rights of the individual citizen, or what kind of crimes would justify this kind of behavior from the part of the government. It is all "rulebreakers brought this on themselves" nowadays. All they have to do now is to lower (or I'd say, keep lowering) the threshold; jaywalking is right around the corner.
  - noscopeheadshot 9y ago
    In reality, it doesn't even require that one be a criminal, merely a suspect.
  - zo1 9y ago
    >"It is all "rulebreakers brought this on themselves" nowadays." Whether you display them publicly or not, if they broke the law, they should be punished. We can't live in some magical limbo situation where we simultaneously have laws and not enforce them most of the time. I.e.: If the tech is there to apply the laws that have currently been "agreed" by the public, then there should be no question or overriding factors to consider. Talk of privacy and "individual rights" is just distracting fluff in that context. We've already decided that certain actions merit punishment. We're just now upset that the coming omnipotent presence of surveillance can actually make us adhere to the things we've been whacking other people over the head with. You know, the ones that "got caught" doing it. Either that, or simply start repealing all these non-sense laws that we don't actually want to punish people for. The third alternative is a gigantic mess of exceptions and "buts" that want to enable us to eat our surveillance cake, and sometimes keep it. Make no mistake, that is exactly what the "privacy" folks are advocating for. More bureaucracy.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  I got screamed at by a police officer here in Austin TX for jay-walking. It was only my de-escalation of the situation that allowed me to escape with a warning, after about ten minutes of haranguing and accusatory questions about what I thought I was doing.
blackbagboys 9y ago
Unlike the PRC, most of us live in governments where there is significantly more decentralization of power, and where those power centers are significantly more responsive to public pressure. It's incumbent upon all of us to apply that pressure and work to maintain that decentralization. It's especially incumbent upon technologists to a) refuse to develop or implement these types of systems and b) develop counter-measures.
- djKianoosh 9y ago
  what would be a "socially acceptable" counter-measure to getting your face scanned randomly out in public?
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
    Purportedly there are non-obvious sunglasses/frames that attempt to make it more difficult for such scanners to operate. The success rate of these devices ranges from "not at all" to "seems to work".
  - 921837192391 9y ago
    Institute and promote a brown-paper-bag day, where the citizens (or should I say subjects) wear paper bags over their heads outside. Better, do it all year long.
  - knob 9y ago
    This is an interesting link: http://gajitz.com/about-face-defeat-face-recognition-software-with-makeup/ http://gajitz.com/about-face-defeat-face-recognition-softwar...
  - nyolfen 9y ago
    a visor with (very, very) bright IR LEDs over your face could hide you from camera sensors; i've seen something like this used to defeat license plate scanners, and i know that LEDs have greatly improved power efficiency in the last decade, but i don't have any experience in this kind of thing. maybe someone can pick up this idea and run with it if it's feasible. this wouldn't defeat something like gait detection though: http://www.geradts.com/html/Documents/gait.htm http://www.geradts.com/html/Documents/gait.htm
js2 9y ago
Relevant Radiolab episode and followup: http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-eye-sky/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-eye-sky/
bhhaskin 9y ago
They already do. They are just not as open about it. Here in the us when you get your drivers license, or state ID they ensure the photo is optimal for facial recognition. I also wouldn't be surprised if they where starting to do the same thing for student IDs in middle & high schools.
draugadrotten 9y ago
> Security cameras and police cars that continuously scan the faces of pedestrians and other drivers. It will happen. It's already pervasive: 1998:"Face-recognition CCTV launched" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/face-recognition-cctv-launched-1178300.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/face-recognition-cctv-laun... 2015: "A scheme widely used by UK stores to identify criminals is testing facial recognition technology, the BBC has learned." http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35111363 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35111363 2016: "Retailers are increasingly using facial recognition technology to track your face. With an estimated 59% of UK fashion retailers doing it, is the anonymity of cities an outdated idea?" https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/03/revealed-facial-recognition-software-infiltrating-cities-saks-toronto https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/03/revealed-faci... 2014: "UK, the world’s most surveilled state, begins using automated face recognition to catch criminals" https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186435-uk-the-worlds-most-surveilled-state-begins-using-automated-face-recognition-to-catch-criminals https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186435-uk-the-worlds-mos... 2014: "CCTV cameras on Britain's roads capture 26 million images every day" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/23/cctv-cameras-uk-roads-numberplate-recognition https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/23/cctv-cameras... 2017: "New York plans to install vast system of facial recognition cameras that matches drivers licenses to social media accounts at bridges and tunnels " http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4167854/New-York-install-facial-recognition-cameras.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4167854/New-York-ins... You can google for more, watch out for those black helicopters tonight.
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
  What an odd obsession with preventing crime with cameras from the culture that brought us 1984.
  - wamsachel 9y ago
    It's not odd at all when you consider what works of Orwell are cited in pop culture (1984, Animal Farm) and which ones are not (Homage to Catalonia)
    - 9y ago
Buttons840 9y ago
I agree it will happen. We will become better and better at building hardware and making that hardware do what we want, it will become easier and easier for a government to create such a surveillance system. Still, efforts to protect the privacy of citizens are worthwhile. In addition to trying to protect the privacy of citizens, we should also be trying to make our government as transparent as possible. Ideally, the people would have the government under surveillance more closely than the government has the people under surveillance.
mahyarm 9y ago
Trying to stop this stuff is like trying to make DRM effective unfortunately.
ge96 9y ago
Damn I wasn't aware of gigapixel cameras unless you're talking in the future. I tried to look that up and "gigapixel" photos came up (although none of them/links seemed to work)

dx034 9y ago

But probably not openly, at least not for a while. Can't imagine that the US or a European country could display the faces of jaywalkers on the street without large scale protest (especially since this is not really considered a crime).

crpatino 9y ago
There... > (especially since this is not really considered a crime) The seed is already planted: it is ok to display the face of a citizen, as long as he's a criminal. No debate about what kinds of public need does supersede the privacy rights of the individual citizen, or what kind of crimes would justify this kind of behavior from the part of the government. It is all "rulebreakers brought this on themselves" nowadays. All they have to do now is to lower (or I'd say, keep lowering) the threshold; jaywalking is right around the corner.
- noscopeheadshot 9y ago
  In reality, it doesn't even require that one be a criminal, merely a suspect.
- zo1 9y ago
  >"It is all "rulebreakers brought this on themselves" nowadays." Whether you display them publicly or not, if they broke the law, they should be punished. We can't live in some magical limbo situation where we simultaneously have laws and not enforce them most of the time. I.e.: If the tech is there to apply the laws that have currently been "agreed" by the public, then there should be no question or overriding factors to consider. Talk of privacy and "individual rights" is just distracting fluff in that context. We've already decided that certain actions merit punishment. We're just now upset that the coming omnipotent presence of surveillance can actually make us adhere to the things we've been whacking other people over the head with. You know, the ones that "got caught" doing it. Either that, or simply start repealing all these non-sense laws that we don't actually want to punish people for. The third alternative is a gigantic mess of exceptions and "buts" that want to enable us to eat our surveillance cake, and sometimes keep it. Make no mistake, that is exactly what the "privacy" folks are advocating for. More bureaucracy.
wavefunction 9y ago
I got screamed at by a police officer here in Austin TX for jay-walking. It was only my de-escalation of the situation that allowed me to escape with a warning, after about ten minutes of haranguing and accusatory questions about what I thought I was doing.

blackbagboys 9y ago

Unlike the PRC, most of us live in governments where there is significantly more decentralization of power, and where those power centers are significantly more responsive to public pressure. It's incumbent upon all of us to apply that pressure and work to maintain that decentralization. It's especially incumbent upon technologists to a) refuse to develop or implement these types of systems and b) develop counter-measures.

djKianoosh 9y ago
what would be a "socially acceptable" counter-measure to getting your face scanned randomly out in public?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
  Purportedly there are non-obvious sunglasses/frames that attempt to make it more difficult for such scanners to operate. The success rate of these devices ranges from "not at all" to "seems to work".
- 921837192391 9y ago
  Institute and promote a brown-paper-bag day, where the citizens (or should I say subjects) wear paper bags over their heads outside. Better, do it all year long.
- knob 9y ago
  This is an interesting link: http://gajitz.com/about-face-defeat-face-recognition-software-with-makeup/ http://gajitz.com/about-face-defeat-face-recognition-softwar...
- nyolfen 9y ago
  a visor with (very, very) bright IR LEDs over your face could hide you from camera sensors; i've seen something like this used to defeat license plate scanners, and i know that LEDs have greatly improved power efficiency in the last decade, but i don't have any experience in this kind of thing. maybe someone can pick up this idea and run with it if it's feasible. this wouldn't defeat something like gait detection though: http://www.geradts.com/html/Documents/gait.htm http://www.geradts.com/html/Documents/gait.htm

js2 9y ago

Relevant Radiolab episode and followup: http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-eye-sky/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/update-eye-sky/

bhhaskin 9y ago

They already do. They are just not as open about it. Here in the us when you get your drivers license, or state ID they ensure the photo is optimal for facial recognition. I also wouldn't be surprised if they where starting to do the same thing for student IDs in middle & high schools.

draugadrotten 9y ago

> Security cameras and police cars that continuously scan the faces of pedestrians and other drivers. It will happen. It's already pervasive: 1998:"Face-recognition CCTV launched" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/face-recognition-cctv-launched-1178300.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/face-recognition-cctv-laun... 2015: "A scheme widely used by UK stores to identify criminals is testing facial recognition technology, the BBC has learned." http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35111363 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35111363 2016: "Retailers are increasingly using facial recognition technology to track your face. With an estimated 59% of UK fashion retailers doing it, is the anonymity of cities an outdated idea?" https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/03/revealed-facial-recognition-software-infiltrating-cities-saks-toronto https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/03/revealed-faci... 2014: "UK, the world’s most surveilled state, begins using automated face recognition to catch criminals" https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186435-uk-the-worlds-most-surveilled-state-begins-using-automated-face-recognition-to-catch-criminals https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186435-uk-the-worlds-mos... 2014: "CCTV cameras on Britain's roads capture 26 million images every day" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/23/cctv-cameras-uk-roads-numberplate-recognition https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/23/cctv-cameras... 2017: "New York plans to install vast system of facial recognition cameras that matches drivers licenses to social media accounts at bridges and tunnels " http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4167854/New-York-install-facial-recognition-cameras.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4167854/New-York-ins... You can google for more, watch out for those black helicopters tonight.

dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
What an odd obsession with preventing crime with cameras from the culture that brought us 1984.
- wamsachel 9y ago
  It's not odd at all when you consider what works of Orwell are cited in pop culture (1984, Animal Farm) and which ones are not (Homage to Catalonia)
  - 9y ago

Buttons840 9y ago

I agree it will happen. We will become better and better at building hardware and making that hardware do what we want, it will become easier and easier for a government to create such a surveillance system. Still, efforts to protect the privacy of citizens are worthwhile. In addition to trying to protect the privacy of citizens, we should also be trying to make our government as transparent as possible. Ideally, the people would have the government under surveillance more closely than the government has the people under surveillance.

mahyarm 9y ago

Trying to stop this stuff is like trying to make DRM effective unfortunately.

ge96 9y ago

Damn I wasn't aware of gigapixel cameras unless you're talking in the future. I tried to look that up and "gigapixel" photos came up (although none of them/links seemed to work)