7 ms·

One result of doors being controlled by facial recognition -- or any other kind of biometric system -- is that you have to get permission from someone whenever

One result of doors being controlled by facial recognition -- or any other kind of biometric system -- is that you have to get permission from someone whenever you have a regular visitor. You can no longer give your girlfriend, boyfriend, dog sitter, relatives, or whoever you wish a key or access card to your home. You have to enroll that person in the facial database. And whoever is doing the enrolling can ask for lots of further information about your visitor, or take that opportunity of enrolling to impose restrictions on your visitor, or just say no -- you're not allowed that visitor. Wonderful surveillance and control society we're building one piece at a time.

gist 8y ago
> And whoever is doing the enrolling can ask for lots of further information about your visitor Why are you jumping to the conclusion that is has to go this way? Very possible that a landlord would be happy to simply have someone log a face and then go back to that person if there was a particular and legal reason to know who the face was. Now sure if they wanted maybe they could google image search the face and find out who it was. But per my other comment there is nothing to prevent a building owner (landlord or otherwise) from installing a camera and filming everyone that enters a building and actually even posting that face on the internet for everyone to see. (Would not go down very well of course but it would be legal as it's a public place). If you want to hang out in front of Shake Shack (arbitrary) with your camera all day and take pictures of everyone who enters and buys a burger or a shake you can do that.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  > Why are you jumping to the conclusion that is has to go this way? Same reason we put on a seatbelt when we go for a drive.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  >Why are you jumping to the conclusion that is has to go this way? If NSA employees abuse their surveillance powers and get away with it, then so will random landlords.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  Also, keep in mind that in the article, the landlord is already using the cameras to spy on the comings and goings of tenants, and harassing them for meeting to talk about this: > In order to let neighbors who might not have seen the letter know what was potentially coming, five tenants convened in the lobby of one of the two buildings on a late October morning to spread the word. A few days later, those five tenants — like most of the residents at Atlantic, black women — received a notice from property management with pictures of the gathering taken from a security camera; they were told that the lobby was not “a place to solicit, electioneer, hang out or loiter.” > New York State law, in fact, grants tenants the right to meet peacefully in nearly any location in a building as long as they are not obstructing passageways. Management maintains that tenants were getting in the way even if the pictures did not clearly indicate that.
dTal 8y ago
Just give them a paper mask of your face! Much cheaper than a key anyway.
closeparen 8y ago
This is already accomplished by having difficult-to-duplicate keys or fobs for the building entrance, which is a pretty standard feature of apartment living. And yes, some management companies are very stingy with extra fobs, as a control against having extra people in the unit who are not on the lease, or Airbnb, or whatever. You can tell you are in a building with a lot of illegal extra tenants when the keyfob-controlled gates are always propped open, or there are always people waiting to tailgate through them.
- sithadmin 8y ago
  If nothing else: there's a market for fighting back against this. KeyMe kiosks (usually found at US supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.) have had RFID fob/card cloning capabilities for a while now. You scan the fob/card at the kiosk, then they clone it to a sticker and send it to you via mail.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    Interesting. I wonder if they have actually productized the security research on HID iClass, etc. or if they are only supporting simpler credentials with no cryptography.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - C14L 8y ago
    > clone it to a sticker and send it to you via mail. So they have a database full of addresses together with their digital keys? What could possibly go wrong...
    - Cpoll 8y ago
      To be honest, not a lot, they only let you past the building door. So as a thief, I can: A. Scrub through a hypothetical leak of all that data, or B. Tailgate someone (even in security-conscious buildings this isn't much harder than following someone while carrying a box in both hands) Locks are for honest people.
blfr 8y ago
You can't have unattended visitors. If you're there to let them in, they can visit as often as you like. Basically, turning this from an apartment to more of a long term hotel. Is it a fair trade for a rent subsidy? Will it become standard in all rentals?
- Daishiman 8y ago
  What a world where you don't have family members come in to water your plants or feed the fish...
burtonator 8y ago
Let's ignore whether this is dystopian or evil for a minute. Assume that the land lord is right and that this will lower his expenses. I assume he's going to pass that savings to his tenants or just use it to buy more properties?
- antisthenes 8y ago
  If this is NY, and the buildings are rent-stabilized, he could already be losing money on some apartments by charging below market if the mandated maximum rent increases did not keep up with the rents increases elsewhere in the city. So to answer your question - maybe? But most likely not. And it's not necessarily evil.
  - everyone 8y ago
    The landlord is not "losing money" in that case.. merely just not profiting as much as otherwise.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  It's a rent stabilized apartment. The savings have been passed to the tenants even before something was actually saved.
chrisco255 8y ago
This would seem to violate a tenant's rights to Quiet Use and Enjoyment, as is recognized by real estate law: https://www.landlordology.com/implied-covenant-quiet-enjoyment/ https://www.landlordology.com/implied-covenant-quiet-enjoyme...
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  How so? I read your link and can't help to see it is about tenants rights, not visitors of tenants. It seems this would only stop non-tenets from having access to the facilities. At least without being accompanied by actual tenants.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Did you read the part about Privacy and Right of Use? Facial recognition would violate that.
    - javagram 8y ago
      Not sure if legally it would be considered to violate privacy. My guess would be the mentioned privacy is relating to the dwelling itself, that is, the landlord can’t come hang out in your living room or hide cameras in your apartment. Plenty of apartments have 24/7 concierge at the front door and monitored entrances. That isn’t considered violating privacy even though the concierge can see you come in and out. Would a computerized system that does the same thing necessarily violate the legal definition of privacy ? I suspect it would be hard to tell at this point.
      - chrisco255 8y ago
        I think once you start documenting and recording exactly who is coming and going and exactly what apartment they're going to you are violating privacy. No doubt cases like this will be tried as people test the bounds of that legal definition.
        8y ago
Not_a_pizza 8y ago
Rent-stabilized implies individuals that are less successful. This might be because of drugs, or various other distractions. Maybe it's their personal choice. Either way, any time you have rent stabilized, you have increased crime, increased disruption and increased disfunctionality. I think with greater restriction you are actually doing them a favor. I've lived in dozens of non-rent controlled apartments, and it's almost always hell. You always have some douchebag that is above, or below or next to you who can't manage to respect personal boundaries of noise or space or smell. I would have much more enjoyed the experience if there was some level of enforcement.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
  > I think with greater restriction you are actually doing them a favor. Congrats, you are now a certified authoritarian.
m463 8y ago
Having to ask permission for things we didn't used to is sort of the sea change of the computer age. I would love to be able to run my own software on my iPhone in an unfettered way.

gist 8y ago

> And whoever is doing the enrolling can ask for lots of further information about your visitor Why are you jumping to the conclusion that is has to go this way? Very possible that a landlord would be happy to simply have someone log a face and then go back to that person if there was a particular and legal reason to know who the face was. Now sure if they wanted maybe they could google image search the face and find out who it was. But per my other comment there is nothing to prevent a building owner (landlord or otherwise) from installing a camera and filming everyone that enters a building and actually even posting that face on the internet for everyone to see. (Would not go down very well of course but it would be legal as it's a public place). If you want to hang out in front of Shake Shack (arbitrary) with your camera all day and take pictures of everyone who enters and buys a burger or a shake you can do that.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
> Why are you jumping to the conclusion that is has to go this way? Same reason we put on a seatbelt when we go for a drive.
Mirioron 8y ago
>Why are you jumping to the conclusion that is has to go this way? If NSA employees abuse their surveillance powers and get away with it, then so will random landlords.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
Also, keep in mind that in the article, the landlord is already using the cameras to spy on the comings and goings of tenants, and harassing them for meeting to talk about this: > In order to let neighbors who might not have seen the letter know what was potentially coming, five tenants convened in the lobby of one of the two buildings on a late October morning to spread the word. A few days later, those five tenants — like most of the residents at Atlantic, black women — received a notice from property management with pictures of the gathering taken from a security camera; they were told that the lobby was not “a place to solicit, electioneer, hang out or loiter.” > New York State law, in fact, grants tenants the right to meet peacefully in nearly any location in a building as long as they are not obstructing passageways. Management maintains that tenants were getting in the way even if the pictures did not clearly indicate that.

dTal 8y ago

Just give them a paper mask of your face! Much cheaper than a key anyway.

closeparen 8y ago

This is already accomplished by having difficult-to-duplicate keys or fobs for the building entrance, which is a pretty standard feature of apartment living. And yes, some management companies are very stingy with extra fobs, as a control against having extra people in the unit who are not on the lease, or Airbnb, or whatever. You can tell you are in a building with a lot of illegal extra tenants when the keyfob-controlled gates are always propped open, or there are always people waiting to tailgate through them.

sithadmin 8y ago
If nothing else: there's a market for fighting back against this. KeyMe kiosks (usually found at US supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.) have had RFID fob/card cloning capabilities for a while now. You scan the fob/card at the kiosk, then they clone it to a sticker and send it to you via mail.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Interesting. I wonder if they have actually productized the security research on HID iClass, etc. or if they are only supporting simpler credentials with no cryptography.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- C14L 8y ago
  > clone it to a sticker and send it to you via mail. So they have a database full of addresses together with their digital keys? What could possibly go wrong...
  - Cpoll 8y ago
    To be honest, not a lot, they only let you past the building door. So as a thief, I can: A. Scrub through a hypothetical leak of all that data, or B. Tailgate someone (even in security-conscious buildings this isn't much harder than following someone while carrying a box in both hands) Locks are for honest people.

blfr 8y ago

You can't have unattended visitors. If you're there to let them in, they can visit as often as you like. Basically, turning this from an apartment to more of a long term hotel. Is it a fair trade for a rent subsidy? Will it become standard in all rentals?

Daishiman 8y ago
What a world where you don't have family members come in to water your plants or feed the fish...

burtonator 8y ago

Let's ignore whether this is dystopian or evil for a minute. Assume that the land lord is right and that this will lower his expenses. I assume he's going to pass that savings to his tenants or just use it to buy more properties?

antisthenes 8y ago
If this is NY, and the buildings are rent-stabilized, he could already be losing money on some apartments by charging below market if the mandated maximum rent increases did not keep up with the rents increases elsewhere in the city. So to answer your question - maybe? But most likely not. And it's not necessarily evil.
- everyone 8y ago
  The landlord is not "losing money" in that case.. merely just not profiting as much as otherwise.
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
It's a rent stabilized apartment. The savings have been passed to the tenants even before something was actually saved.

chrisco255 8y ago

This would seem to violate a tenant's rights to Quiet Use and Enjoyment, as is recognized by real estate law: https://www.landlordology.com/implied-covenant-quiet-enjoyment/ https://www.landlordology.com/implied-covenant-quiet-enjoyme...

mbrumlow 8y ago
How so? I read your link and can't help to see it is about tenants rights, not visitors of tenants. It seems this would only stop non-tenets from having access to the facilities. At least without being accompanied by actual tenants.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Did you read the part about Privacy and Right of Use? Facial recognition would violate that.
  - javagram 8y ago
    Not sure if legally it would be considered to violate privacy. My guess would be the mentioned privacy is relating to the dwelling itself, that is, the landlord can’t come hang out in your living room or hide cameras in your apartment. Plenty of apartments have 24/7 concierge at the front door and monitored entrances. That isn’t considered violating privacy even though the concierge can see you come in and out. Would a computerized system that does the same thing necessarily violate the legal definition of privacy ? I suspect it would be hard to tell at this point.
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      I think once you start documenting and recording exactly who is coming and going and exactly what apartment they're going to you are violating privacy. No doubt cases like this will be tried as people test the bounds of that legal definition.
      - 8y ago

Not_a_pizza 8y ago

Rent-stabilized implies individuals that are less successful. This might be because of drugs, or various other distractions. Maybe it's their personal choice. Either way, any time you have rent stabilized, you have increased crime, increased disruption and increased disfunctionality. I think with greater restriction you are actually doing them a favor. I've lived in dozens of non-rent controlled apartments, and it's almost always hell. You always have some douchebag that is above, or below or next to you who can't manage to respect personal boundaries of noise or space or smell. I would have much more enjoyed the experience if there was some level of enforcement.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
> I think with greater restriction you are actually doing them a favor. Congrats, you are now a certified authoritarian.

m463 8y ago

Having to ask permission for things we didn't used to is sort of the sea change of the computer age. I would love to be able to run my own software on my iPhone in an unfettered way.