4 ms·

I'm a bit confused as to why this is so controversial, and strikes me as a simplistic "facial recognition bad" kind of argument. A police officer is allowed to

I'm a bit confused as to why this is so controversial, and strikes me as a simplistic "facial recognition bad" kind of argument. A police officer is allowed to approach you and ask for ID if you have it. The Supreme Court has held that although you don't have to answer almost all questions that the police may ask you, you are required to identify yourself. While concerns over misidentification are valid, I don't see the reasoning behind objecting to technology that allows the government to identify people. Am I also supposed to object to fingerprinting, license plates, and issuance of drivers' licenses?

thatoneuser 7y ago
"concerns over misidentification are valid" What else needs said then? This could literally erroneously grant a cop to shoot/tase/arrest you. What more do you need?
seany 7y ago
> you are required to identify yourself Only if they have RAS https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reasonable_suspicion https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reasonable_suspicion
- manfredo 7y ago
  It's worth nothing that reasonable suspicion is a very low bar to met. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop Effectively all traffic stops also count. I also don't see how facial recognition without reasonable suspicion would be forbidden. Say a bank robbery happens and security camera got images of 10 robbers' faces. A police officer goes around the city looking at people and judging whether or not they look like those 10 robbers. How is what the police doing any different from what a facial recognition camera is doing? People forget that the Mk. I eyeball is a facial recognition device.
brenschluss 7y ago
Imagine a police officer automatically IDing someone, automatically pulling up their past criminal history, and actively changing their attitude towards how they treat them. This would make police treat people with prior records worse, and no records better. On a societal level, this would just entrench and amplify existing inequalities of criminalization and inequitable treatment by the police.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  You mean treating people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin? Maybe I’m wrong, but it sure feels right.
- manfredo 7y ago
  > Imagine a police officer automatically IDing someone, automatically pulling up their past criminal history, and actively changing their attitude towards how they treat them I don't need to imagine. We already live in that world. In fact the police officer doesn't even need to see your face. Your license plate, your credit card, etc. can all already provide enough info to let the police find your criminal history. When you get stopped by police and the cop goes back to his car for a few minute that's what (s)he is doing: checking if you have any outstanding warrants, etc. I don't see why you think this is objectionable. The whole point of keeping a record of criminal activity is so that this criminal activity can be retrieved. > This would make police treat people with prior records worse, and no records better. Depending what exactly you mean by "treat people with prior records worse", then this is the law working as intended. If you're a criminal, then the police are going to check if you're violating probation. If you are known to have criminal connection, then police are going to likely monitor more heavily. > On a societal level, this would just entrench and amplify existing inequalities of criminalization and inequitable treatment by the police. You say "inequalities" as though they are all inherently wrong. There are explicit inequalities between sex offenders and those who aren't - the former often can't live in many areas and appear on criminal databases. There are inequalities between felons and those who aren't. That's part of the whole purpose of punitive measures: to lower the social status and restrict privileges of people to commit crimes as a means to disincentive criminal behavior. At this point you're fundamentally arguing against the existence of penal systems at all. If this is referring to racial inequalities and discrimination, then automated facial recognition represents a large ability reduce inequitable treatment. Humans are notorious at recognizing faces, and there are extensive studies that show that police are more likely to erroneously ID blacks as criminals than other groups. Programs may have biases, but it is much easier to identify and correct biases when they are numeric values in a program or coefficients in a hyper-plane or what have you as compared to human biases.

thatoneuser 7y ago

"concerns over misidentification are valid" What else needs said then? This could literally erroneously grant a cop to shoot/tase/arrest you. What more do you need?

seany 7y ago

> you are required to identify yourself Only if they have RAS https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reasonable_suspicion https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reasonable_suspicion

manfredo 7y ago
It's worth nothing that reasonable suspicion is a very low bar to met. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop Effectively all traffic stops also count. I also don't see how facial recognition without reasonable suspicion would be forbidden. Say a bank robbery happens and security camera got images of 10 robbers' faces. A police officer goes around the city looking at people and judging whether or not they look like those 10 robbers. How is what the police doing any different from what a facial recognition camera is doing? People forget that the Mk. I eyeball is a facial recognition device.

brenschluss 7y ago

Imagine a police officer automatically IDing someone, automatically pulling up their past criminal history, and actively changing their attitude towards how they treat them. This would make police treat people with prior records worse, and no records better. On a societal level, this would just entrench and amplify existing inequalities of criminalization and inequitable treatment by the police.

merpnderp 7y ago
You mean treating people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin? Maybe I’m wrong, but it sure feels right.
manfredo 7y ago
> Imagine a police officer automatically IDing someone, automatically pulling up their past criminal history, and actively changing their attitude towards how they treat them I don't need to imagine. We already live in that world. In fact the police officer doesn't even need to see your face. Your license plate, your credit card, etc. can all already provide enough info to let the police find your criminal history. When you get stopped by police and the cop goes back to his car for a few minute that's what (s)he is doing: checking if you have any outstanding warrants, etc. I don't see why you think this is objectionable. The whole point of keeping a record of criminal activity is so that this criminal activity can be retrieved. > This would make police treat people with prior records worse, and no records better. Depending what exactly you mean by "treat people with prior records worse", then this is the law working as intended. If you're a criminal, then the police are going to check if you're violating probation. If you are known to have criminal connection, then police are going to likely monitor more heavily. > On a societal level, this would just entrench and amplify existing inequalities of criminalization and inequitable treatment by the police. You say "inequalities" as though they are all inherently wrong. There are explicit inequalities between sex offenders and those who aren't - the former often can't live in many areas and appear on criminal databases. There are inequalities between felons and those who aren't. That's part of the whole purpose of punitive measures: to lower the social status and restrict privileges of people to commit crimes as a means to disincentive criminal behavior. At this point you're fundamentally arguing against the existence of penal systems at all. If this is referring to racial inequalities and discrimination, then automated facial recognition represents a large ability reduce inequitable treatment. Humans are notorious at recognizing faces, and there are extensive studies that show that police are more likely to erroneously ID blacks as criminals than other groups. Programs may have biases, but it is much easier to identify and correct biases when they are numeric values in a program or coefficients in a hyper-plane or what have you as compared to human biases.