4 ms·

Facial recognition tech should really have more regulations in place. What if this was done at the recent protests and there's now a database full of facial dat

by jb775 6y ago

Facial recognition tech should really have more regulations in place. What if this was done at the recent protests and there's now a database full of facial data that associates those people with likely political affiliations, etc. Imagine in hitler had access to this tech and simply purchased a database of "Likely Jewish" facial data?

1over137 6y ago
>What if this was done at the recent protests Seems more likely than not that it was done at recent protests, no?
- jb775 6y ago
  I actually think it's currently being done all over the place. For example, every time I merge on and off of a tolled highway (I live outside Philadelphia), there's a camera with a flash that takes a picture as I drive by. I don't believe for a second they aren't building a facial image database.
  - hundchenkatze 6y ago
    I always assumed the toll cameras were there to capture the license plate numbers of drivers that don't pay the toll / don't have the RFID toll sticker. edit: I'm not suggesting that you're skipping out on the toll. They may be taking a photo at the same time as the attempt to scan the RFID sticker. And then sending a ticket to the scanned plate number if it fails to scan a RFID.
    - jb775 6y ago
      As of 2 or so years ago, there's a bright flash every time a car drives through (taking the pic from the front). In PA, license plates aren't required on the front of cars...so what's the point of taking the pic from the front? I also haven't noticed any pictures being taken from the back. My assumption of why they're doing this is to compile nice clean labeled facial recognition data for ML training. Not only that, they can scan other faces in the car to see who you're traveling with.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gdhbcc 6y ago
That and more has been done at the recent protests. Do you genuinely believe those drones flying over every major city taking high resolution photos of everyone within 30 miles are there for fun?
- peter303 6y ago
  Especially in Hong Kong.
- csteubs 6y ago
  This is a PR issue I'm dealing with right now. I'm the founder of a nascent startup that uses commercial flights to crowdsource aerial imagery on a massive scale. I was anticipating skepticism around the feasibility of our approach, but I ended up entertaining many more concerns about surveillance and governmental access. Because we leverage commercial flights, we're able to update our map hundreds of thousands of times/day. The majority of people immediately start thinking of all the uses cases made possible by that kind of temporal resolution, but there's a very vocal, skeptical few. As much as I'd like to brush them off, skepticism is critical and I'm forcing myself to listen and take notes in order to address those concerns in our marketing and content moving forward. It's a fine line.
  - jb775 6y ago
    Sounds awesome. Is it just cameras attached to actual aircraft that takes pics upon takeoff/landing?
    - csteubs 6y ago
      We're taking a two-pronged approach as we launch and scale up. Short term: camera resolution on the average cell phone is often better than an array onboard a satellite, so the MVP is a native app that window seat passengers use to record in-flight. Because we know the flight route before takeoff and GPS works in Airplane mode, we load in target coordinates and ping the user to begin recording when flying over a target coordinate. They receive free in-flight wifi for their effort, but we also use the wifi connection to stream the video feed. That gets us more exposure to the 77,000 daily flights across the U.S. each day (also boosts general awareness: "Why are you recording out the window?") Long term: we're developing a hardware solution much more powerful than a cell phone camera with a 6-camera array and many more sensors, including an infrared dome for near-field cloud penetration and onboard preprocessor for compressing the stream before sending it back down to earth. The form factor is akin to a headphone case (I actually used a Bose headphone case for the prototype) and is mounted to the window within the cabin, mitigating the need for FAA (but not FCC) approval. There are some teaser images on our Instagram if you're curious - @notasatellite.
fludlight 6y ago
The database you described has existed for a while. It's called social media. People voluntarily post their minute-frequency gps location, workplace, political and religious leanings, sexual preferences, views on current events, and an exhaustive list of friends, family, coworkers, and other associates. Not to mention hundreds, if not thousands, of geo-tagged pictures of themselves over the years, along with a list of the other people in the frame, as well as a written discussion of the events photographed.
- wukerplank 6y ago
  Yes, this also calls for regulations as to what the collecting companies can or can't do. GDPR was a first step into this direction.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  That required big centralized networks. The future is smaller commercial networks. A friend is a detective who essentially looks for and forms relationships with people with security cameras, especially cameras that can be linked to a reference time source (like a red light camera) The cost of things like LPR and soon facial recognition is so low (and going lower) that you’re going to have many federated networks tracking movements of cars and people.
  - fludlight 6y ago
    How does a red light help as a reference time? Does the light log every time it changes or is it for visual synchronization with other nearby cameras?
    - gridspy 6y ago
      Perhaps: The red light camera is taking video footage with a trusted and calibrated time stamp. If you see an object appear in frame in both the red light camera and another camera, you can use this moment to establish a timestamp for the other camera. So perhaps you see a subject walking in the red light camera (establishing time), but another camera lets you observe details about that subject.
bobthepanda 6y ago
> Imagine in hitler had access to this tech and simply purchased a database of "Likely Jewish" facial data? This basically happened with lower-tech stuff; one of the ways that the Holocaust was facilitated was by conducting detailed censuses of the population, courtesy of IBM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

by jb775 6y ago

1over137 6y ago

>What if this was done at the recent protests Seems more likely than not that it was done at recent protests, no?

jb775 6y ago
I actually think it's currently being done all over the place. For example, every time I merge on and off of a tolled highway (I live outside Philadelphia), there's a camera with a flash that takes a picture as I drive by. I don't believe for a second they aren't building a facial image database.
- hundchenkatze 6y ago
  I always assumed the toll cameras were there to capture the license plate numbers of drivers that don't pay the toll / don't have the RFID toll sticker. edit: I'm not suggesting that you're skipping out on the toll. They may be taking a photo at the same time as the attempt to scan the RFID sticker. And then sending a ticket to the scanned plate number if it fails to scan a RFID.
  - jb775 6y ago
    As of 2 or so years ago, there's a bright flash every time a car drives through (taking the pic from the front). In PA, license plates aren't required on the front of cars...so what's the point of taking the pic from the front? I also haven't noticed any pictures being taken from the back. My assumption of why they're doing this is to compile nice clean labeled facial recognition data for ML training. Not only that, they can scan other faces in the car to see who you're traveling with.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gdhbcc 6y ago

That and more has been done at the recent protests. Do you genuinely believe those drones flying over every major city taking high resolution photos of everyone within 30 miles are there for fun?

peter303 6y ago
Especially in Hong Kong.
csteubs 6y ago
This is a PR issue I'm dealing with right now. I'm the founder of a nascent startup that uses commercial flights to crowdsource aerial imagery on a massive scale. I was anticipating skepticism around the feasibility of our approach, but I ended up entertaining many more concerns about surveillance and governmental access. Because we leverage commercial flights, we're able to update our map hundreds of thousands of times/day. The majority of people immediately start thinking of all the uses cases made possible by that kind of temporal resolution, but there's a very vocal, skeptical few. As much as I'd like to brush them off, skepticism is critical and I'm forcing myself to listen and take notes in order to address those concerns in our marketing and content moving forward. It's a fine line.
- jb775 6y ago
  Sounds awesome. Is it just cameras attached to actual aircraft that takes pics upon takeoff/landing?
  - csteubs 6y ago
    We're taking a two-pronged approach as we launch and scale up. Short term: camera resolution on the average cell phone is often better than an array onboard a satellite, so the MVP is a native app that window seat passengers use to record in-flight. Because we know the flight route before takeoff and GPS works in Airplane mode, we load in target coordinates and ping the user to begin recording when flying over a target coordinate. They receive free in-flight wifi for their effort, but we also use the wifi connection to stream the video feed. That gets us more exposure to the 77,000 daily flights across the U.S. each day (also boosts general awareness: "Why are you recording out the window?") Long term: we're developing a hardware solution much more powerful than a cell phone camera with a 6-camera array and many more sensors, including an infrared dome for near-field cloud penetration and onboard preprocessor for compressing the stream before sending it back down to earth. The form factor is akin to a headphone case (I actually used a Bose headphone case for the prototype) and is mounted to the window within the cabin, mitigating the need for FAA (but not FCC) approval. There are some teaser images on our Instagram if you're curious - @notasatellite.

fludlight 6y ago

The database you described has existed for a while. It's called social media. People voluntarily post their minute-frequency gps location, workplace, political and religious leanings, sexual preferences, views on current events, and an exhaustive list of friends, family, coworkers, and other associates. Not to mention hundreds, if not thousands, of geo-tagged pictures of themselves over the years, along with a list of the other people in the frame, as well as a written discussion of the events photographed.

wukerplank 6y ago
Yes, this also calls for regulations as to what the collecting companies can or can't do. GDPR was a first step into this direction.
Spooky23 6y ago
That required big centralized networks. The future is smaller commercial networks. A friend is a detective who essentially looks for and forms relationships with people with security cameras, especially cameras that can be linked to a reference time source (like a red light camera) The cost of things like LPR and soon facial recognition is so low (and going lower) that you’re going to have many federated networks tracking movements of cars and people.
- fludlight 6y ago
  How does a red light help as a reference time? Does the light log every time it changes or is it for visual synchronization with other nearby cameras?
  - gridspy 6y ago
    Perhaps: The red light camera is taking video footage with a trusted and calibrated time stamp. If you see an object appear in frame in both the red light camera and another camera, you can use this moment to establish a timestamp for the other camera. So perhaps you see a subject walking in the red light camera (establishing time), but another camera lets you observe details about that subject.

bobthepanda 6y ago

> Imagine in hitler had access to this tech and simply purchased a database of "Likely Jewish" facial data? This basically happened with lower-tech stuff; one of the ways that the Holocaust was facilitated was by conducting detailed censuses of the population, courtesy of IBM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust