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I'm trying to decide what makes facial recognition more dangerous than the tracking beacon we carry in our pockets that is famously being used by every bad acto

I'm trying to decide what makes facial recognition more dangerous than the tracking beacon we carry in our pockets that is famously being used by every bad actor on the planet to perform population surveillance for fun and profit. Just riffing, I think the core differences are probably: 1) Your phone has some security, so only your telecom or manufacturer can spy on you easily and consistently if you take some precautions. 2) You can leave your phone at home, switch it off, or put it in airplane mode. 3) There are wiretapping laws already on the books that probably make it difficult to use certain evidence in court. Whereas with facial recognition: 1) The recognizer is controlled by random property managers, both public and private. This makes it easy for bad actors to create systems of surveillance where they share with each other. 2) You can change your phone, but you can't change your face except in bad movies. 3) Fewer laws on the books to make abusing this data easier. 4) It's only semi-accurate, which is a plus, because a random detection gives you probable cause to fuck with people so long as you claim high accuracy on a carefully concocted test sample. The semi-random terror is a feature not a bug. 5) You can find people that are off grid that the community is hiding from the state or private security (undocumented immigrants, leftist activists, etc). So much potential here.

cf498 7y ago
I think the comparison with smartphones misses the point, >You can leave your phone at home, switch it off, or put it in airplane mode. Makes it something entirely different. The core characteristics of facial recognition are 1) No need for a cooperative, consenting subject 2) Not alerting the subject being identified and no protection against being identified without noticing 3) Unchangeable identification characteristic We already have reliable easy to use systems for characteristic 1 and 3, fingerprints, and I see how there might be a need for such systems at specific locations. For example at a police station or border checkpoints. Then we have facial recognition which is a lot less accurate and its only additional benefit is point 2. Point 2 however has no positive use cases, its a purely totalitarian instrument aimed at its scale-ability. For not only being used in specific places but everywhere. You cant even make the argument which makes nuclear weapons a worthwhile technology to have, the possible usage for war against a foreign aggressor. Facial recognition is only beneficial to keep a population suppressed.
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Good analysis. I hadn't thought of the lack of consent angle (though information leakage / hacking from phones renders them able to do similar things).

cf498 7y ago

I think the comparison with smartphones misses the point, >You can leave your phone at home, switch it off, or put it in airplane mode. Makes it something entirely different. The core characteristics of facial recognition are 1) No need for a cooperative, consenting subject 2) Not alerting the subject being identified and no protection against being identified without noticing 3) Unchangeable identification characteristic We already have reliable easy to use systems for characteristic 1 and 3, fingerprints, and I see how there might be a need for such systems at specific locations. For example at a police station or border checkpoints. Then we have facial recognition which is a lot less accurate and its only additional benefit is point 2. Point 2 however has no positive use cases, its a purely totalitarian instrument aimed at its scale-ability. For not only being used in specific places but everywhere. You cant even make the argument which makes nuclear weapons a worthwhile technology to have, the possible usage for war against a foreign aggressor. Facial recognition is only beneficial to keep a population suppressed.

tehjoker 7y ago
Good analysis. I hadn't thought of the lack of consent angle (though information leakage / hacking from phones renders them able to do similar things).