6 ms·

Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed. I upload photos to Google Pho

Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed. I upload photos to Google Photos because I want them to be grouped and categorized so I can easily find them. That is, if I click on a picture of my daughter, or my wife, I want to see ALL pictures of I took of them grouped together. Looking at the text of the law itself, it seems to exclude photographs, here's the relevant section: " (740 ILCS 14/10) Sec. 10. Definitions. In this Act: "Biometric identifier" means a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or scan of hand or face geometry. Biometric identifiers do not include writing samples, written signatures, photographs, human biological samples used for valid scientific testing or screening, demographic data, tattoo descriptions, or physical descriptions such as height, weight, hair color, or eye color." I'm not really sure what they mean by "face geometry" whereas at the same time, excluding photographs. Does this mean if my service measures the distance between the eyes, and the width of the mouth, and clusters photos by that, or by eye or hair color by using say, segmentation or histogram clustering, all of a sudden it's illegal? That would seem to be a fairly absurd and broad definition of biometric security information. In theory, I suppose, the computation of the features, could be done on the client, and then have the features cloud-synced and replicated to all clients, but this would make for a shitty search experience, especially if the machine learning or feature extraction technique improvements overtime, and all of a sudden, you've got to download 20,000 photos and recompute everything on your phone.

smadge 8y ago
There’s a difference between offering facial recognition as a feature to users of the software and collecting biometric data as a additional revenue source. In one case the user owns their biometric data and is granting the company access to it for the limited use of tagging photos. In the other case the company owns the biometric data and is using it for god knows what.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  Where's the evidence Facebook is using it for a revenue source?
  - Ballantara 8y ago
    Whether it's a revenue source or not, fb still owns the biometric data and is using it for god knows what (and asking "evidence?" like this comes off as a way of avoiding the point)
  - RyanZAG 8y ago
    That's what court cases are about, and why we don't declare innocent or guilty before the verdict. The evidence (or lack of) will come up during the court proceedings, you'd expect.
    - workinthehead 8y ago
      Semantic nitpick, we don't declare innocence, but only that guilt was not proven.
      - sametmax 8y ago
        Not a nitpick, pretty fundamental IMO. This should be repeated over and over. People forget it every day.
      - adanto6840 8y ago
        As far as I'm aware or have ever been taught, they're one in the same -- "presumption of innocence until proven guilty".
        workinthehead 8y ago
        Nope, your quote is irrelevant, and it's "one and the same" besides. Why do you think people are pronounced "guilty" or "not guilty"?
        coding123 8y ago
        In a civil suit there is no guilty party. There may be a liable party.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
perl4ever 8y ago
I have to admit, I don't intentionally upload photos to Google Photos because I want them categorized. It seemed to be the default on my phone, and it seems like a pretty neat feature when I noticed it, but the reason it's being used is because I'm too apathetic to prevent it. It makes me kind of sad, not for the lack of privacy, but for the feeling of getting older and just not caring about fighting the technology to make it do what I want.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  If the core value proposition of a piece of software, that it's marketed for, is automatic photo organization, it kind of defeats to purpose to have to configure something to make it do what you want. Most people don't want to configure software, they want it to make their lives easier out of the box as much as possible. If the only thing you care about is backup, Dropbox and other services offer that (e.g. Keepsafe). I use Google Photos because of peace of mind. I know I never have to worry about losing photos, and when I need to find them, it's easy. I've got like 20 years of photos backup. Just yesterday, I wanted to show someone a picture of my daughter from a trip we took in 2012, and I found it in about 5 seconds. When I take photos of my kids, they are automatically shared with my wife, instead of having to constantly manually be asked for them, and manually select them. I focus on just taking pictures and spending time with my kids, I never worry about photo backup, or photo organizing anymore.
  - SiempreViernes 8y ago
    It seems you also use it mainly for backup? Would you still use it if the grouping feature didn't save pictures it could not confidently group?
    - Tyr42 8y ago
      I mean, at some point you take the first photo of your kid. If it threw that away, then when you take the second photo, there's nothing to group with and it throws that away too. Pretty useless if it throws away singleton sets.
saagarjha 8y ago
There are ways to do clustering on-device without sending everything back to Facebook.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  Yes, but it doesn't scale as your photo collection scales up, since if the algorithm is updated, you need all the data on device to reprocess every photo. You need something like CryptoDL: deep learning over homomorphic encryption, that would let the photos stay encrypted in the cloud, but still allow DL computations to be run.
  - aikinai 8y ago
    Apple has the same functionality and does all processing locally, though I'm not sure if that's an argument for or against your assertion that it doesn't scale. It does work, but it's not nearly as seamless as Google's cloud implementation. I have many tens of thousands of photos in my Apple Photos library and I think it takes over a month to process everything if I start from scratch on a new computer. Somehow it seems much faster on the phone, and I'm not sure if that's because the processing is better hidden from me, it's much more efficient on the custom chip, or maybe a bit of both.
    - jsjohnst 8y ago
      > I'm not sure if that's because the processing is better hidden from me, it's much more efficient on the custom chip, or maybe a bit of both. The later, a bit of both. It’s also probable that your phone is turned on and plugged in more often than your computer (especially for laptops).
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Regardless of how it's done, I treasure my iPhone performing the facial recognition of my Photos library locally (10+ years of photos) as I continue to extricate my data from Google services.
  - personjerry 8y ago
Retric 8y ago
A photo provides a "scan of hand or face geometry" so that seems directly relevant.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
"Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed." Absolutely not. Companies should not be able to do this without explicit opt in. They need to learn that they are not free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, users be damned.
- morgosmaci 8y ago
  But who has to opt in, the person taking the picture, the person uploading the picture, any and all people in the picture?
rayiner 8y ago
> Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed. Analyzing peoples' biometric data from pictures of their faces is a special case. > I upload photos to Google Photos because I want them to be grouped and categorized so I can easily find them. So make it opt in. Most people just want to show their images to friends, not have Facebook analyze them.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  IIRC, it is opt-in for Google Photos (something like Photos -> Settings -> Group Faces), but that's you the uploader consenting, not the person whose's face it is opting in. The person in the photo need not even have an online presence at all, so there's no way to actually ask them for permission. (In FB's case, they can do it if the other person is a FB user) What's your definition of biometric data? if I cluster by eye-color, is that biometric data? "Show me everyone with green eyes". Have a run afoul?
CodeMage 8y ago
> Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed. Fundamental to what, though? This court case is not about somehow criminalizing the existence or the use of this particular tech. > I upload photos to Google Photos because I want them to be grouped and categorized so I can easily find them. That is, if I click on a picture of my daughter, or my wife, I want to see ALL pictures of I took of them grouped together. Facebook is not Google Photos. The former is a social network, the latter is a service for storing, organizing and sharing photos. In my opinion, even Google Photos should implement a setting that disables this. > Does this mean if my service measures the distance between the eyes, and the width of the mouth, and clusters photos by that, or by eye or hair color by using say, segmentation or histogram clustering, all of a sudden it's illegal? That would seem to be a fairly absurd and broad definition of biometric security information. Come on, if you made the effort to read that part of the law, why did you stop there? No, it's not "suddenly illegal" to measure and gather that information. It's illegal to do without following certain rules about retention, destruction and usage of that information. It's in the very next section, here's an excerpt: "(740 ILCS 14/15) Sec. 15. Retention; collection; disclosure; destruction. (a) A private entity in possession of biometric identifiers or biometric information must develop a written policy, made available to the public, establishing a retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying biometric identifiers and biometric information when the initial purpose for collecting or obtaining such identifiers or information has been satisfied or within 3 years of the individual's last interaction with the private entity, whichever occurs first. Absent a valid warrant or subpoena issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, a private entity in possession of biometric identifiers or biometric information must comply with its established retention schedule and destruction guidelines."

smadge 8y ago

There’s a difference between offering facial recognition as a feature to users of the software and collecting biometric data as a additional revenue source. In one case the user owns their biometric data and is granting the company access to it for the limited use of tagging photos. In the other case the company owns the biometric data and is using it for god knows what.

cromwellian 8y ago
Where's the evidence Facebook is using it for a revenue source?
- Ballantara 8y ago
  Whether it's a revenue source or not, fb still owns the biometric data and is using it for god knows what (and asking "evidence?" like this comes off as a way of avoiding the point)
- RyanZAG 8y ago
  That's what court cases are about, and why we don't declare innocent or guilty before the verdict. The evidence (or lack of) will come up during the court proceedings, you'd expect.
  - workinthehead 8y ago
    Semantic nitpick, we don't declare innocence, but only that guilt was not proven.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      Not a nitpick, pretty fundamental IMO. This should be repeated over and over. People forget it every day.
    - adanto6840 8y ago
      As far as I'm aware or have ever been taught, they're one in the same -- "presumption of innocence until proven guilty".
      - workinthehead 8y ago
        Nope, your quote is irrelevant, and it's "one and the same" besides. Why do you think people are pronounced "guilty" or "not guilty"?
        coding123 8y ago
        In a civil suit there is no guilty party. There may be a liable party.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

perl4ever 8y ago

I have to admit, I don't intentionally upload photos to Google Photos because I want them categorized. It seemed to be the default on my phone, and it seems like a pretty neat feature when I noticed it, but the reason it's being used is because I'm too apathetic to prevent it. It makes me kind of sad, not for the lack of privacy, but for the feeling of getting older and just not caring about fighting the technology to make it do what I want.

cromwellian 8y ago
If the core value proposition of a piece of software, that it's marketed for, is automatic photo organization, it kind of defeats to purpose to have to configure something to make it do what you want. Most people don't want to configure software, they want it to make their lives easier out of the box as much as possible. If the only thing you care about is backup, Dropbox and other services offer that (e.g. Keepsafe). I use Google Photos because of peace of mind. I know I never have to worry about losing photos, and when I need to find them, it's easy. I've got like 20 years of photos backup. Just yesterday, I wanted to show someone a picture of my daughter from a trip we took in 2012, and I found it in about 5 seconds. When I take photos of my kids, they are automatically shared with my wife, instead of having to constantly manually be asked for them, and manually select them. I focus on just taking pictures and spending time with my kids, I never worry about photo backup, or photo organizing anymore.
- SiempreViernes 8y ago
  It seems you also use it mainly for backup? Would you still use it if the grouping feature didn't save pictures it could not confidently group?
  - Tyr42 8y ago
    I mean, at some point you take the first photo of your kid. If it threw that away, then when you take the second photo, there's nothing to group with and it throws that away too. Pretty useless if it throws away singleton sets.

saagarjha 8y ago

There are ways to do clustering on-device without sending everything back to Facebook.

cromwellian 8y ago
Yes, but it doesn't scale as your photo collection scales up, since if the algorithm is updated, you need all the data on device to reprocess every photo. You need something like CryptoDL: deep learning over homomorphic encryption, that would let the photos stay encrypted in the cloud, but still allow DL computations to be run.
- aikinai 8y ago
  Apple has the same functionality and does all processing locally, though I'm not sure if that's an argument for or against your assertion that it doesn't scale. It does work, but it's not nearly as seamless as Google's cloud implementation. I have many tens of thousands of photos in my Apple Photos library and I think it takes over a month to process everything if I start from scratch on a new computer. Somehow it seems much faster on the phone, and I'm not sure if that's because the processing is better hidden from me, it's much more efficient on the custom chip, or maybe a bit of both.
  - jsjohnst 8y ago
    > I'm not sure if that's because the processing is better hidden from me, it's much more efficient on the custom chip, or maybe a bit of both. The later, a bit of both. It’s also probable that your phone is turned on and plugged in more often than your computer (especially for laptops).
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Regardless of how it's done, I treasure my iPhone performing the facial recognition of my Photos library locally (10+ years of photos) as I continue to extricate my data from Google services.
- personjerry 8y ago

Retric 8y ago

A photo provides a "scan of hand or face geometry" so that seems directly relevant.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

"Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed." Absolutely not. Companies should not be able to do this without explicit opt in. They need to learn that they are not free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, users be damned.

morgosmaci 8y ago
But who has to opt in, the person taking the picture, the person uploading the picture, any and all people in the picture?

rayiner 8y ago

> Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed. Analyzing peoples' biometric data from pictures of their faces is a special case. > I upload photos to Google Photos because I want them to be grouped and categorized so I can easily find them. So make it opt in. Most people just want to show their images to friends, not have Facebook analyze them.

cromwellian 8y ago
IIRC, it is opt-in for Google Photos (something like Photos -> Settings -> Group Faces), but that's you the uploader consenting, not the person whose's face it is opting in. The person in the photo need not even have an online presence at all, so there's no way to actually ask them for permission. (In FB's case, they can do it if the other person is a FB user) What's your definition of biometric data? if I cluster by eye-color, is that biometric data? "Show me everyone with green eyes". Have a run afoul?

CodeMage 8y ago

> Clustering images by features seems to be pretty fundamental, and if it runs afoul of this law, then the law needs to be changed. Fundamental to what, though? This court case is not about somehow criminalizing the existence or the use of this particular tech. > I upload photos to Google Photos because I want them to be grouped and categorized so I can easily find them. That is, if I click on a picture of my daughter, or my wife, I want to see ALL pictures of I took of them grouped together. Facebook is not Google Photos. The former is a social network, the latter is a service for storing, organizing and sharing photos. In my opinion, even Google Photos should implement a setting that disables this. > Does this mean if my service measures the distance between the eyes, and the width of the mouth, and clusters photos by that, or by eye or hair color by using say, segmentation or histogram clustering, all of a sudden it's illegal? That would seem to be a fairly absurd and broad definition of biometric security information. Come on, if you made the effort to read that part of the law, why did you stop there? No, it's not "suddenly illegal" to measure and gather that information. It's illegal to do without following certain rules about retention, destruction and usage of that information. It's in the very next section, here's an excerpt: "(740 ILCS 14/15) Sec. 15. Retention; collection; disclosure; destruction. (a) A private entity in possession of biometric identifiers or biometric information must develop a written policy, made available to the public, establishing a retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying biometric identifiers and biometric information when the initial purpose for collecting or obtaining such identifiers or information has been satisfied or within 3 years of the individual's last interaction with the private entity, whichever occurs first. Absent a valid warrant or subpoena issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, a private entity in possession of biometric identifiers or biometric information must comply with its established retention schedule and destruction guidelines."