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I have to admit my naivety on this, but: What exactly is the problem here? Both the airlines and the involved law enforcement have a right or even a duty to kn

I have to admit my naivety on this, but: What exactly is the problem here? Both the airlines and the involved law enforcement have a right or even a duty to know who you are when you are boarding the plane. They also have facial recognition data, either from a passport photo or putting a camera in front of the check-in, and arguably they have a right to that. People walk around with their faces all the time. They post it on social media. Would it be a problem if a security guard lets you through a gate because he recognizes you? Is it more troublesome that all security guards of the airline now can recognize you at the gate? I think we need to be more precise about what exactly is spooking us and why. Using facial recognition for boarding security is not as big as a problem as facial recognition being used for law enforcement or whatever they do in China now. But that's a topic for legislation and regulation. If companies are prohibited from storing personal data without consent, that should be enough to stop almost any legal infringement. If such legislation is impossible, because your government is completely unaccountable, or because companies are unaccountable to such laws, then that is a much bigger problem than the potential for violations of privacy... With regards to privacy I keep coming back to the conclusion that it is more important and effective to improve and enforce regulations than to beat up on particular technologies.

skohan 8y ago
> I think we need to be more precise about what exactly is spooking us and why. What's spooking me is the normalization of facial recognition technology for identification without adequate public agreement over what the limits of its applications should be. A machine recognizing me is a lot different than a human recognizing me. If a machine can recognize me, there can be cameras posted at every street corner, and some organization can reconstruct my movements based on where and when my face is pinged by the system. It's sort of possible for humans with access to surveillance footage to do that, but the amount of human effort required to accomplish it makes it impossible to do at scale. An automated system could do this for everyone, always.
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  So it's still not the problem that a machine can recognize you, but rather that somebody is tracking and storing such recognitions. Which is an entirely different thing. The former is a technological reality. It's impossible to legislate away devices who can do that. Tracking and storing personal data on the other hand, is very much within the reach of regulation. The GDPR for example restricts this. Even if somebody has devices who can recognize you is not allowed to store and track data about such recognition incidences without your approval. In this particular case, they don't need your approval because the camera is used in lieu of a boarding pass, and the airline has every right and duty to know you are boarding right now. In case you are worried that the airline connects your travel patterns with other companies interested in other patterns, well, that works with a boarding pass or even a simple check mark on a pen-on-paper boarding list just fine.
  - reallymental 8y ago
    The machine recognizing you was the harder problem. That's the "Minority Report" stuff that people thought was in the _far far_ future that we don't have to worry about constantly. Storing and using that model across various devices is trivial. So if we've done the hard part, the easy part is _definitely_ going to be done. There's no doubt about that. States, companies that can convince the state that they somehow need the data (cough insurance companies) will, I repeat, WILL utilize it. And now, suddenly your premiums for this month have gone up cause in that ski trip you took last weekend, a camera noticed the lack of headgear for about 5 mins. That's the kind of risk the insurance company cannot take. Pay up.
    - bayesian_horse 8y ago
      "Minority Report" was about something that Humans couldn't really do, meaning to look into the future, and they even needed psychics to do it... Good luck trying to advance science by avoiding to invent anything that can recognize image!
      - skohan 8y ago
        Taken metaphorically we’re not far away. Imagine if we come to trust ML to make decisions for us in everyday life, and we build a system which can predict with high confidence that someone will commit a mass shooting. Is it so hard to believe that might be acted on?
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  Add to that that the convenience argument is pretty much bullshit. At least when you apply it to travels in the Schengen countries. On such flights you essentially (can) check in remotely, receive the QR code via mail and essentially badge yourself into the plane all the way without ever showing ID. I can't fathom that scanning my face is any faster than that.
  - vinay427 8y ago
    This isn't quite accurate for some parts of the Schengen area. Everyone on my flight was required to go through ID controlled when flying out of "Switzerland" [1] to an EU Schengen area country, though I'm very aware that CH is usually an oddball in these matters. [1] The Basel airport is technically in France, though the Swiss part of the airport which I entered is treated like it's in Switzerland and not in the EU, as far as I understand.
    - CaptainZapp 8y ago
      I took dozens of flghts out of and into ZRH and was checked exactly twice. Both times upon arrival at the gate: Once upon arrival in Prague and once in Zurich upon arrival from Athens. In all other cases the whole process, at least in ZRH, was completely automated. It does depend on country and airport, though. Customs is a whole different kettle of fish. But as for id, I'm very rarely asked.
      - vinay427 8y ago
        Hmm, this may be unique to the Basel airport, and perhaps the airline I was flying on. The gate was actually past a physical barrier with booths for checking IDs, similar to the Schengen borders in airports.
tareqak 8y ago
What if the system makes a mistake? There is another article currently on the front page that is just the sort of mistake that some people fear could end up much, much worse[0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19726528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19726528
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  In the case of the boarding situation, there are too worst-case scenarios: One being the system doesn't recognize a valid passenger, then he does have to show his boarding pass or another passport. Worse would be accepting someone who isn't allowed to board, but such things are easily mitigated. The potential to be mistaken for a wanted criminal has always been real. Facial recognition may even be more accurate overall in that regard. But it's nothing new. Drug sniffing dogs have false alarms all the time, some even cheat intentionally. And police officers better not shoot someone on sight when they recognize them from a mugshot.
  - tareqak 8y ago
    The secondary issue with the story I linked was that there was an incorrect match that was made using details of the plaintiff obtained from a stolen ID and the plaintiff’s face. The primary issue was that the plaintiff had no idea that Apple’s Face ID was being used to help law enforcement with thefts at Apple Stores. The plaintiff had no idea that this was the case (it’s even news to me). It’s this sort of surreptitious sharing of images in facial recognition programs that’s worrying: a user might not know a priori because the details are buried in the terms of service that isn’t in plain language. What if this information is used to blacklist people who take advantage of hidden city flights using sites like skiplagged? You start off blacklisted by one airline, but they might have a database-sharing deal amongst them that’s presented to the user in TOS saying that it is a “cost-saving, fraud prevention program”. What if different carriers of different kinds of transportation start sharing the same database and synchronize in minutes? You might show up at the airport, get denied boarding for your flight for a reason you know how to fix, but then your Uber app denies you a ride because your face now matches their updated passenger blacklist database? Yes, these last two examples are contrived, but the technology is clearly there to hook it all up. Do we now need a to visit the local police station or some kind of PII credit bureau just to ensure that our record is clean and our identity has not been stolen? The EU government is already combining the biometric databases of its member states as seen here [0], so this sharing is starting to take place more openly. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19717808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19717808
CPLX 8y ago
Quantity has a quality all its own, as they say. If you live in a town and there’s a couple security guards or even cops that can recognize you, that’s pretty normal. If there were thousands of private security guards as well as cops hired by the government stationed all around you, in every part of your life, gazing at you from every corner, and they had all been trained to recognize you, and every time you walked by one they whipped out a notepad and took detailed notes on what you were doing, you’d freak the fuck out, justifiably.
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  And you'd justifiably tell them to not do it... And if you are not able to stop them from doing that, may I suggest you have a bigger problem with your government or the security guards than being tracked by them? Again: Tracking personal data is regulateable, facial recognition technology is not. And the mere act of checking the identity of a person for legitimate access control purposes is no unreasonable infringement on privacy.
  - justwalt 8y ago
    Wouldn’t agencies like the NSA use it regardless of what regulations say? Wouldn’t policy be shaped by what large corporations saw as valuable? I think that big problem already exists to a degree, and it’s only a matter of time before this sort of thing gets uncomfortably out of hand.
j16sdiz 8y ago
What if it goes wrong? We know facial recognition is not that fair. Makeups and hairstyle sometimes affect the result.. It is particular bad for dark skin color: Part of it is poor training data set. Another part of the problem is lower contrast in photo (need better lighting / extra infra-red channel).
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  Hold people accountable for how well their shit works.
ballenf 8y ago
> I think we need to be more precise about what exactly is spooking us and why. When technology and law enforcement cross paths, I'd argue we'll be better served by placing the burden of proof on proponents of the new tech instead of on those spooked by it.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> Both the airlines and the involved law enforcement have a right or even a duty to know who you are when you are boarding the plane. Is facial recognition actually able to do this? Does matching images by a machine prove it is me?
mhb 8y ago
Why does the airline need to associate an identity with the seat they have sold you? Though it is a distant memory now, there was a time when you showed a ticket and got on the plane and the ticket could be transferred to anyone. But, yes - terrorism and the children.
chapium 8y ago
Her follow up questiom to Jetblue was "where did you get a reference photo of me?" thats the creepy part. For example if I were to walk into Starbucks and they say "hi $adult how is $child", and then i ask how do you know that. The reply is we got that info from the DHS. Yes, very creepy.
Proven 8y ago
> I keep coming back to the conclusion that it is more important and effective to improve and enforce regulations than to beat up on particular technologies. Another tech expert who hasn't a clue about freedoms. He'd "improve" and enforce whatever regulations are in effect. Where have we seen that before? Oh yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders > What exactly is the problem here? I am afraid it'd a waste of time to try to explain.

skohan 8y ago

> I think we need to be more precise about what exactly is spooking us and why. What's spooking me is the normalization of facial recognition technology for identification without adequate public agreement over what the limits of its applications should be. A machine recognizing me is a lot different than a human recognizing me. If a machine can recognize me, there can be cameras posted at every street corner, and some organization can reconstruct my movements based on where and when my face is pinged by the system. It's sort of possible for humans with access to surveillance footage to do that, but the amount of human effort required to accomplish it makes it impossible to do at scale. An automated system could do this for everyone, always.

bayesian_horse 8y ago
So it's still not the problem that a machine can recognize you, but rather that somebody is tracking and storing such recognitions. Which is an entirely different thing. The former is a technological reality. It's impossible to legislate away devices who can do that. Tracking and storing personal data on the other hand, is very much within the reach of regulation. The GDPR for example restricts this. Even if somebody has devices who can recognize you is not allowed to store and track data about such recognition incidences without your approval. In this particular case, they don't need your approval because the camera is used in lieu of a boarding pass, and the airline has every right and duty to know you are boarding right now. In case you are worried that the airline connects your travel patterns with other companies interested in other patterns, well, that works with a boarding pass or even a simple check mark on a pen-on-paper boarding list just fine.
- reallymental 8y ago
  The machine recognizing you was the harder problem. That's the "Minority Report" stuff that people thought was in the _far far_ future that we don't have to worry about constantly. Storing and using that model across various devices is trivial. So if we've done the hard part, the easy part is _definitely_ going to be done. There's no doubt about that. States, companies that can convince the state that they somehow need the data (cough insurance companies) will, I repeat, WILL utilize it. And now, suddenly your premiums for this month have gone up cause in that ski trip you took last weekend, a camera noticed the lack of headgear for about 5 mins. That's the kind of risk the insurance company cannot take. Pay up.
  - bayesian_horse 8y ago
    "Minority Report" was about something that Humans couldn't really do, meaning to look into the future, and they even needed psychics to do it... Good luck trying to advance science by avoiding to invent anything that can recognize image!
    - skohan 8y ago
      Taken metaphorically we’re not far away. Imagine if we come to trust ML to make decisions for us in everyday life, and we build a system which can predict with high confidence that someone will commit a mass shooting. Is it so hard to believe that might be acted on?
CaptainZapp 8y ago
Add to that that the convenience argument is pretty much bullshit. At least when you apply it to travels in the Schengen countries. On such flights you essentially (can) check in remotely, receive the QR code via mail and essentially badge yourself into the plane all the way without ever showing ID. I can't fathom that scanning my face is any faster than that.
- vinay427 8y ago
  This isn't quite accurate for some parts of the Schengen area. Everyone on my flight was required to go through ID controlled when flying out of "Switzerland" [1] to an EU Schengen area country, though I'm very aware that CH is usually an oddball in these matters. [1] The Basel airport is technically in France, though the Swiss part of the airport which I entered is treated like it's in Switzerland and not in the EU, as far as I understand.
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    I took dozens of flghts out of and into ZRH and was checked exactly twice. Both times upon arrival at the gate: Once upon arrival in Prague and once in Zurich upon arrival from Athens. In all other cases the whole process, at least in ZRH, was completely automated. It does depend on country and airport, though. Customs is a whole different kettle of fish. But as for id, I'm very rarely asked.
    - vinay427 8y ago
      Hmm, this may be unique to the Basel airport, and perhaps the airline I was flying on. The gate was actually past a physical barrier with booths for checking IDs, similar to the Schengen borders in airports.

tareqak 8y ago

What if the system makes a mistake? There is another article currently on the front page that is just the sort of mistake that some people fear could end up much, much worse[0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19726528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19726528

bayesian_horse 8y ago
In the case of the boarding situation, there are too worst-case scenarios: One being the system doesn't recognize a valid passenger, then he does have to show his boarding pass or another passport. Worse would be accepting someone who isn't allowed to board, but such things are easily mitigated. The potential to be mistaken for a wanted criminal has always been real. Facial recognition may even be more accurate overall in that regard. But it's nothing new. Drug sniffing dogs have false alarms all the time, some even cheat intentionally. And police officers better not shoot someone on sight when they recognize them from a mugshot.
- tareqak 8y ago
  The secondary issue with the story I linked was that there was an incorrect match that was made using details of the plaintiff obtained from a stolen ID and the plaintiff’s face. The primary issue was that the plaintiff had no idea that Apple’s Face ID was being used to help law enforcement with thefts at Apple Stores. The plaintiff had no idea that this was the case (it’s even news to me). It’s this sort of surreptitious sharing of images in facial recognition programs that’s worrying: a user might not know a priori because the details are buried in the terms of service that isn’t in plain language. What if this information is used to blacklist people who take advantage of hidden city flights using sites like skiplagged? You start off blacklisted by one airline, but they might have a database-sharing deal amongst them that’s presented to the user in TOS saying that it is a “cost-saving, fraud prevention program”. What if different carriers of different kinds of transportation start sharing the same database and synchronize in minutes? You might show up at the airport, get denied boarding for your flight for a reason you know how to fix, but then your Uber app denies you a ride because your face now matches their updated passenger blacklist database? Yes, these last two examples are contrived, but the technology is clearly there to hook it all up. Do we now need a to visit the local police station or some kind of PII credit bureau just to ensure that our record is clean and our identity has not been stolen? The EU government is already combining the biometric databases of its member states as seen here [0], so this sharing is starting to take place more openly. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19717808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19717808

CPLX 8y ago

Quantity has a quality all its own, as they say. If you live in a town and there’s a couple security guards or even cops that can recognize you, that’s pretty normal. If there were thousands of private security guards as well as cops hired by the government stationed all around you, in every part of your life, gazing at you from every corner, and they had all been trained to recognize you, and every time you walked by one they whipped out a notepad and took detailed notes on what you were doing, you’d freak the fuck out, justifiably.

bayesian_horse 8y ago
And you'd justifiably tell them to not do it... And if you are not able to stop them from doing that, may I suggest you have a bigger problem with your government or the security guards than being tracked by them? Again: Tracking personal data is regulateable, facial recognition technology is not. And the mere act of checking the identity of a person for legitimate access control purposes is no unreasonable infringement on privacy.
- justwalt 8y ago
  Wouldn’t agencies like the NSA use it regardless of what regulations say? Wouldn’t policy be shaped by what large corporations saw as valuable? I think that big problem already exists to a degree, and it’s only a matter of time before this sort of thing gets uncomfortably out of hand.

j16sdiz 8y ago

What if it goes wrong? We know facial recognition is not that fair. Makeups and hairstyle sometimes affect the result.. It is particular bad for dark skin color: Part of it is poor training data set. Another part of the problem is lower contrast in photo (need better lighting / extra infra-red channel).

bayesian_horse 8y ago
Hold people accountable for how well their shit works.

ballenf 8y ago

> I think we need to be more precise about what exactly is spooking us and why. When technology and law enforcement cross paths, I'd argue we'll be better served by placing the burden of proof on proponents of the new tech instead of on those spooked by it.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> Both the airlines and the involved law enforcement have a right or even a duty to know who you are when you are boarding the plane. Is facial recognition actually able to do this? Does matching images by a machine prove it is me?

mhb 8y ago

Why does the airline need to associate an identity with the seat they have sold you? Though it is a distant memory now, there was a time when you showed a ticket and got on the plane and the ticket could be transferred to anyone. But, yes - terrorism and the children.

chapium 8y ago

Her follow up questiom to Jetblue was "where did you get a reference photo of me?" thats the creepy part. For example if I were to walk into Starbucks and they say "hi $adult how is $child", and then i ask how do you know that. The reply is we got that info from the DHS. Yes, very creepy.

Proven 8y ago

> I keep coming back to the conclusion that it is more important and effective to improve and enforce regulations than to beat up on particular technologies. Another tech expert who hasn't a clue about freedoms. He'd "improve" and enforce whatever regulations are in effect. Where have we seen that before? Oh yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders > What exactly is the problem here? I am afraid it'd a waste of time to try to explain.