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The use of the word "legal" in the title seems charged to me. (EDIT: The edited HN title is better now, thanks). Especially given, from the article: > In the

The use of the word "legal" in the title seems charged to me. (EDIT: The edited HN title is better now, thanks). Especially given, from the article: > In the United States, there are no federal laws that restrict the use of facial recognition.

TamDenholm 8y ago
While "Not illegal" may be more contextually accurate to this article, it means the same as "legal" to me personally. If you're instead talking about ethics and morals, thats an entirely different discussion.
nickelcitymario 8y ago
Unless I'm terribly mistaken, laws generally only describe what's illegal. We don't write laws to tell you what you can do, we write them to tell you what you can't. So if there's no laws saying you can't do it, it's legal.
- jessriedel 8y ago
  rgoulter isn't saying that the title is wrong, he's saying that it's unncessarily charged. By explicitly specifying that this technique for face recognition is legal, it suggests that other techniques are illegal and so something bad (but legal) might have been achieved. But in fact, none of this is illegal; the headline is just clickbait.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Yeah the other sense is "legally sufficient for a standard like official government identification". Now it is just testimonial science - not bad enough to be automatically thrown out for attempting to use as evidence.
  - nickelcitymario 8y ago
    Fair enough, I see your point. But, I'd argue the use of "legal" was to make a real point: We assume this isn't legally possible today, and the article is showing how it is. So I'm not saying you're wrong, simply that I disagree.
forgotAgain 8y ago
I think that they are trying to make the point that there are no laws regulating the use of facial recognition. My experience is that most Americans think their privacy is protected; that deploying facial recognition software on them would be illegal. It's not. They're stating it so to overcome the public misconception.

TamDenholm 8y ago

While "Not illegal" may be more contextually accurate to this article, it means the same as "legal" to me personally. If you're instead talking about ethics and morals, thats an entirely different discussion.

nickelcitymario 8y ago

Unless I'm terribly mistaken, laws generally only describe what's illegal. We don't write laws to tell you what you can do, we write them to tell you what you can't. So if there's no laws saying you can't do it, it's legal.

jessriedel 8y ago
rgoulter isn't saying that the title is wrong, he's saying that it's unncessarily charged. By explicitly specifying that this technique for face recognition is legal, it suggests that other techniques are illegal and so something bad (but legal) might have been achieved. But in fact, none of this is illegal; the headline is just clickbait.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Yeah the other sense is "legally sufficient for a standard like official government identification". Now it is just testimonial science - not bad enough to be automatically thrown out for attempting to use as evidence.
- nickelcitymario 8y ago
  Fair enough, I see your point. But, I'd argue the use of "legal" was to make a real point: We assume this isn't legally possible today, and the article is showing how it is. So I'm not saying you're wrong, simply that I disagree.

forgotAgain 8y ago

I think that they are trying to make the point that there are no laws regulating the use of facial recognition. My experience is that most Americans think their privacy is protected; that deploying facial recognition software on them would be illegal. It's not. They're stating it so to overcome the public misconception.