6 ms·

I’m not American, but isn’t the police about the only people you should ever trust (if any) with facial-recognition technology? If you can’t trust your police

by moksly 6y ago

I’m not American, but isn’t the police about the only people you should ever trust (if any) with facial-recognition technology? If you can’t trust your police with it, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your society.

intopieces 6y ago
The police have the power of the government behind them, which in the US literally has the ability to kill you in some states. At least if it's in the hands of corporations there's still a chance that the only entity more powerful (the government) will do something about it (through regulation). There is something fundamentally wrong with American society, though. No arguments there.
jfengel 6y ago
You got it in one: we don't trust our police with it, and there is something fundamentally wrong with society. That is why there have been calls to radically re-think, or even eliminate, policing in the US. This announcement coincides with protests against police brutality, at which many police have behaved brutally. That was sparked by an outright homicide by a police officer, captured on video, of a man who was subdued and presented no threat -- while other police officers watched, and many others have subsequently attempted to justify. The "something fundamentally wrong" is very complex and subject to genuine debate, but it's not subject to debate that whatever it is, people don't trust the police.
- Lendal 6y ago
  It's less complex if you look at all these problems as symptoms. At the core is the racism. The gratuitous brutality, the lying, the planting of evidence, the us-versus-them attitude, the lawlessness, the replacement of the American flag with a Thin Blue Line flag, all of that could never have gotten so bad if racism wasn't at the core driving everything else.
  - phkahler 6y ago
    >> It's less complex if you look at all these problems as symptoms. At the core is the racism. I dont agree. Racism is a problem but I think corruption is the core. The police are often taught that they are above the law, starting with quotas - which encourage ticketing people for minor, subjective, or fictitious infractions. Moving up to things like parallel construction (lying in court), civil forfeiture (stealing from people), coercing confessions, and more. Then sprinkle in speeding when on duty when there is no reason, or illegally parking at McDonalds to run in for a burger. From small to significant infractions they give themselves and each other a pass, or are taught or encouraged to do wrong. In an environment like that you drop in a couple racists and well... There are studies on workplace safety. If you want to prevent fatal accidents you start by creating a culture of safety from the bottom. You clean up work spaces. You take care of trip hazards. You measure the number of bandages used each month and take measures to prevent those accidents. Over time this results in fewer fatalities even on large construction projects. I think the same applies to corruption.
    - AcerbicZero 6y ago
      I'm in agreement with you. While its obvious that race is a factor in at least a subset of incidents with the police (and those incidents should be investigated to the fullest), the vast majority of issues stemming from police interaction can effect anyone of any color. This is a legislative and judicial issue as well. Politicians, a fair number of whom are former judges, pass terrible legislation that is then prosecuted by DA's with little to no regard for justice (only conviction rates matter, right?), while cases are judged by former DA's who've managed to move up the chain a little. The management layer is a circle of incestuous self aggrandizing bullshit, and while cops are the boots stepping on the people, someone else to managing where, and how most of that stepping happens.
  - themacguffinman 6y ago
    It's more than racism. There are plenty of cases where police brutality was exercised against "white" people. There's a consistent theme of police using violent force as a first resort rather than a last resort. Police are armed to the teeth and trained to preemptively strike at the faintest sign of trouble. There's a gif that humorously demonstrates this mentality [1] and shows a police officer instinctively pepper spraying the air around him in response to falling down, even though there's no one around him. Personally, I blame the laws & culture that encourage excessive civilian gun ownership. The common excuse for preemptive police brutality is the fear that a civilian could be reaching for a gun which puts the officer's life in danger. Without guns, police have no excuse to strike preemptively and it'd be much easier to gain political support for de-arming the police. [1] https://i.imgur.com/mx6faSk.gifv https://i.imgur.com/mx6faSk.gifv
- luckylion 6y ago
  > That is why there have been calls to radically re-think, or even eliminate, policing in the US. Isn't "defund the police" 99% "that's a nice slogan", not actually "we'll be good without any form of law enforcement"? From what I understand it's a play to break unions: you defund and dismantle the police department and then you can create a new department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc pp. Might work, might not, but it's certainly not "eliminate policing".
  - drewwwwww 6y ago
    that is how the message has been coopted. when meant sincerely it aims to drastically reduce both the responsibilities and budgets of law enforcement as close to zero as is practicable by replacing militarized violent enforcement with evidence-based programs that reduce criminality, often at much reduced cost. you can google for more details.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Isn't "defund the police" 99% "that's a nice slogan No. > not actually "we'll be good without any form of law enforcement"? Not that, either. “Defund the police” is about shifting substantial amounts of funding from police to supportive/responsive social service instead of law enforcement. > From what I understand it's a play to break unions: That's probably true of some supporters of the related-but-distinct abolish/dismantle effort, but even there it's not the main focus. > you defund and dismantle the police department and then you can create a new department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc pp. Dismantle/abolish does allow that, but most of the push for it is not for abolish-and-directly-replace, but for rethinking public safety and community services more generally and redesigning how law enforcement fits into it. While any replacement includes law enforcement personnel employed somewhere, they may not include a single large centralized paramilitary organization like the dominant model for city police / county sheriffs offices, and might (for instance) involve domain-specific law enforcement officers embedded in a variety of different public agencies. It can, and for many people does, mean abolishing (not merely replacing) police departments as institutions, but, yes, it does not mean abolishing the law enforcement function of government.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AlexandrB 6y ago
> If you can’t trust your police with it, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your society. I disagree. Why should anyone at all be trusted with facial recognition technology? What if facial recognition technology is a fundamental enabler of dictatorship?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dblohm7 6y ago
The police should not have access to that kind of tech regardless of country, IMHO.
- shultays 6y ago
  Why? Assuming we have a non-corrupt police force it is a great tool for finding criminals with warrants
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - GiorgioG 6y ago
    Such a police force only exists in fiction novels and on TV. It's not even just corruption that we have to be concerned about, it's just general incompetence - which exists in every facet of life. The problem is the police can arrest someone who has done nothing wrong and there are very few meaningful consequences. Once you are embroiled in the system, it is an expensive, slow process to get out of (if that's even possible.)
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Assuming we have a non-corrupt police force it is a great tool for finding criminals with warrants It's actually kind of terrible at that, because it's not perfectly accurate. Even if they could make it 99% accurate, the country has 300+ million people in it and for every person you told it to match, it'd give you three million false positives. What it's used for is mass surveillance. You capture a face and there are millions of possible matches, but hey, one of the matches just bought something with a credit card 50 meters from there. Or they're carrying a cell phone billed to a person whose DMV photo matches that face. Then they put the cell phone down and travel on a vector from there past twelve more cameras. You get everyone's location history and meatspace social graph in a database. That's way more useful to an oppressive regime than any kind of legitimate use, because you can get the same information from a suspect under investigation by conducting surveillance of only them, e.g. put a GPS on their car. Retroactive surveillance can be used by future regimes to observe past behavior. Even if your existing government is trustworthy, there is an election every four years and turnkey fascism is inherently dangerous. Meanwhile retroactivity not all that useful for legitimate purposes because criminals who are actively committing new crimes can be caught by non-retroactive surveillance specifically of them, whereas there is a much weaker state interest in interest in catching criminals who have already reformed and stopped committing new crimes.
GiorgioG 6y ago
I'm generalizing here, but many Americans don't trust the government with surveilling the general populous. What if they use facial recognition to arrest you and that facial-recognition is flawed? How do you prove it? If a corporation uses facial recognition to count how many times I walked into a 7-11, I care much less about that than I do about the authorities building a database and watching every step people take in public. Yes maybe it's a little tinfoil hat to say, but the police/district attorneys are people and some of them are good, some bad. Why give them a tool that can be abused and misused against you?
Nasrudith 6y ago
The exact opposite, they are the only ones you should never trust because of other powers. To everybody else because they lack the enforcement powers they would mostly just be annoying with it. With police powers combined with a surveilance apparatus it becomes a horrifyingly abusable justification and tracking engine along with a wonderful way to insert pretexts for arresting anybody they don't like. Previously the search process would get slapped down along the way either from warrants or being judged a waste of resources. It is sort of a bleach and ammonia thing. One or the other is more or less fine with some potential for both legitimate use and abuse but together are a horribly toxic combination which is guaranteed to hurt and kill innocent people.

by moksly 6y ago

intopieces 6y ago

The police have the power of the government behind them, which in the US literally has the ability to kill you in some states. At least if it's in the hands of corporations there's still a chance that the only entity more powerful (the government) will do something about it (through regulation). There is something fundamentally wrong with American society, though. No arguments there.

jfengel 6y ago

You got it in one: we don't trust our police with it, and there is something fundamentally wrong with society. That is why there have been calls to radically re-think, or even eliminate, policing in the US. This announcement coincides with protests against police brutality, at which many police have behaved brutally. That was sparked by an outright homicide by a police officer, captured on video, of a man who was subdued and presented no threat -- while other police officers watched, and many others have subsequently attempted to justify. The "something fundamentally wrong" is very complex and subject to genuine debate, but it's not subject to debate that whatever it is, people don't trust the police.

Lendal 6y ago
It's less complex if you look at all these problems as symptoms. At the core is the racism. The gratuitous brutality, the lying, the planting of evidence, the us-versus-them attitude, the lawlessness, the replacement of the American flag with a Thin Blue Line flag, all of that could never have gotten so bad if racism wasn't at the core driving everything else.
- phkahler 6y ago
  >> It's less complex if you look at all these problems as symptoms. At the core is the racism. I dont agree. Racism is a problem but I think corruption is the core. The police are often taught that they are above the law, starting with quotas - which encourage ticketing people for minor, subjective, or fictitious infractions. Moving up to things like parallel construction (lying in court), civil forfeiture (stealing from people), coercing confessions, and more. Then sprinkle in speeding when on duty when there is no reason, or illegally parking at McDonalds to run in for a burger. From small to significant infractions they give themselves and each other a pass, or are taught or encouraged to do wrong. In an environment like that you drop in a couple racists and well... There are studies on workplace safety. If you want to prevent fatal accidents you start by creating a culture of safety from the bottom. You clean up work spaces. You take care of trip hazards. You measure the number of bandages used each month and take measures to prevent those accidents. Over time this results in fewer fatalities even on large construction projects. I think the same applies to corruption.
  - AcerbicZero 6y ago
    I'm in agreement with you. While its obvious that race is a factor in at least a subset of incidents with the police (and those incidents should be investigated to the fullest), the vast majority of issues stemming from police interaction can effect anyone of any color. This is a legislative and judicial issue as well. Politicians, a fair number of whom are former judges, pass terrible legislation that is then prosecuted by DA's with little to no regard for justice (only conviction rates matter, right?), while cases are judged by former DA's who've managed to move up the chain a little. The management layer is a circle of incestuous self aggrandizing bullshit, and while cops are the boots stepping on the people, someone else to managing where, and how most of that stepping happens.
- themacguffinman 6y ago
  It's more than racism. There are plenty of cases where police brutality was exercised against "white" people. There's a consistent theme of police using violent force as a first resort rather than a last resort. Police are armed to the teeth and trained to preemptively strike at the faintest sign of trouble. There's a gif that humorously demonstrates this mentality [1] and shows a police officer instinctively pepper spraying the air around him in response to falling down, even though there's no one around him. Personally, I blame the laws & culture that encourage excessive civilian gun ownership. The common excuse for preemptive police brutality is the fear that a civilian could be reaching for a gun which puts the officer's life in danger. Without guns, police have no excuse to strike preemptively and it'd be much easier to gain political support for de-arming the police. [1] https://i.imgur.com/mx6faSk.gifv https://i.imgur.com/mx6faSk.gifv
luckylion 6y ago
> That is why there have been calls to radically re-think, or even eliminate, policing in the US. Isn't "defund the police" 99% "that's a nice slogan", not actually "we'll be good without any form of law enforcement"? From what I understand it's a play to break unions: you defund and dismantle the police department and then you can create a new department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc pp. Might work, might not, but it's certainly not "eliminate policing".
- drewwwwww 6y ago
  that is how the message has been coopted. when meant sincerely it aims to drastically reduce both the responsibilities and budgets of law enforcement as close to zero as is practicable by replacing militarized violent enforcement with evidence-based programs that reduce criminality, often at much reduced cost. you can google for more details.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Isn't "defund the police" 99% "that's a nice slogan No. > not actually "we'll be good without any form of law enforcement"? Not that, either. “Defund the police” is about shifting substantial amounts of funding from police to supportive/responsive social service instead of law enforcement. > From what I understand it's a play to break unions: That's probably true of some supporters of the related-but-distinct abolish/dismantle effort, but even there it's not the main focus. > you defund and dismantle the police department and then you can create a new department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc pp. Dismantle/abolish does allow that, but most of the push for it is not for abolish-and-directly-replace, but for rethinking public safety and community services more generally and redesigning how law enforcement fits into it. While any replacement includes law enforcement personnel employed somewhere, they may not include a single large centralized paramilitary organization like the dominant model for city police / county sheriffs offices, and might (for instance) involve domain-specific law enforcement officers embedded in a variety of different public agencies. It can, and for many people does, mean abolishing (not merely replacing) police departments as institutions, but, yes, it does not mean abolishing the law enforcement function of government.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

AlexandrB 6y ago

> If you can’t trust your police with it, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your society. I disagree. Why should anyone at all be trusted with facial recognition technology? What if facial recognition technology is a fundamental enabler of dictatorship?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dblohm7 6y ago

The police should not have access to that kind of tech regardless of country, IMHO.

shultays 6y ago
Why? Assuming we have a non-corrupt police force it is a great tool for finding criminals with warrants
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- GiorgioG 6y ago
  Such a police force only exists in fiction novels and on TV. It's not even just corruption that we have to be concerned about, it's just general incompetence - which exists in every facet of life. The problem is the police can arrest someone who has done nothing wrong and there are very few meaningful consequences. Once you are embroiled in the system, it is an expensive, slow process to get out of (if that's even possible.)
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > Assuming we have a non-corrupt police force it is a great tool for finding criminals with warrants It's actually kind of terrible at that, because it's not perfectly accurate. Even if they could make it 99% accurate, the country has 300+ million people in it and for every person you told it to match, it'd give you three million false positives. What it's used for is mass surveillance. You capture a face and there are millions of possible matches, but hey, one of the matches just bought something with a credit card 50 meters from there. Or they're carrying a cell phone billed to a person whose DMV photo matches that face. Then they put the cell phone down and travel on a vector from there past twelve more cameras. You get everyone's location history and meatspace social graph in a database. That's way more useful to an oppressive regime than any kind of legitimate use, because you can get the same information from a suspect under investigation by conducting surveillance of only them, e.g. put a GPS on their car. Retroactive surveillance can be used by future regimes to observe past behavior. Even if your existing government is trustworthy, there is an election every four years and turnkey fascism is inherently dangerous. Meanwhile retroactivity not all that useful for legitimate purposes because criminals who are actively committing new crimes can be caught by non-retroactive surveillance specifically of them, whereas there is a much weaker state interest in interest in catching criminals who have already reformed and stopped committing new crimes.

GiorgioG 6y ago

I'm generalizing here, but many Americans don't trust the government with surveilling the general populous. What if they use facial recognition to arrest you and that facial-recognition is flawed? How do you prove it? If a corporation uses facial recognition to count how many times I walked into a 7-11, I care much less about that than I do about the authorities building a database and watching every step people take in public. Yes maybe it's a little tinfoil hat to say, but the police/district attorneys are people and some of them are good, some bad. Why give them a tool that can be abused and misused against you?

Nasrudith 6y ago

The exact opposite, they are the only ones you should never trust because of other powers. To everybody else because they lack the enforcement powers they would mostly just be annoying with it. With police powers combined with a surveilance apparatus it becomes a horrifyingly abusable justification and tracking engine along with a wonderful way to insert pretexts for arresting anybody they don't like. Previously the search process would get slapped down along the way either from warrants or being judged a waste of resources. It is sort of a bleach and ammonia thing. One or the other is more or less fine with some potential for both legitimate use and abuse but together are a horribly toxic combination which is guaranteed to hurt and kill innocent people.