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MEPs call for European AI rules to ban biometric surveillance in public

72 points by guerrilla 6y ago

freddealmeida 6y ago
I honestly believe that this is a mistake. Current laws in the EU allow for surveillance (mass) that to limit the ability to discover, detect, individuals or groups that are dangerous to society seems self limiting. This is considering that they already have exceptional police powers. In a way, i think they are limiting this technology for society to detect illegal acts by politicians. Rather than the other way around.
- fizzibubbele 6y ago
  Your phrasing isnt quite clear.
- f6v 6y ago
  While I agree with you, the ability to act seems to be a bigger issue. The Berlin Christmas market terrorist was “on the radar” and was supposed to be deported. But the German police did nothing about it.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    Yeah, it's not the police investigation process that's broken here...
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  There is a very simple test to check if something is a good idea or not: What would Hitler have done with it? This is why in Germany there were protests against recording peoples religion during the census. All of these surveillance tools are based on the notion that the people who use them are the good guys. But there is no guarantee that they are now and will forever be.
  - iso1210 6y ago
    > This is why in Germany there were protests against recording peoples religion during the census. Indeed, and Hitler did use census to identify Jews to kill, thanks to the sabotaging actions of René Carmille, tens of thousands of lives were saved (although Carmille himself survived torture, he died in January 45) The first ethical hacker doesn't get enough exposure IMO. "He also hacked his own machines, reprogramming them so that they’d never punch information from Column 11 [which indicated religion] onto any census card"
  - sofixa 6y ago
    > There is a very simple test to check if something is a good idea or not: > What would Hitler have done with it? That's a very simplistic test that falls flat on its face when you realise Hitler loved animals, was a vegetarian, and despised smoking and alcohol. By your test, animal cruelty and self-poisoning are fine because Hitler disproved of them?
    - throw8765 6y ago
      >By your test, animal cruelty and self-poisoning are fine because Hitler disproved of them? AIUI it's not "what would Hitler think" but "what would Hitler do given the opportunity". As in, Hitler couldn't use self-poisoning to further his goals, but he could use mass surveillance.
    - turbinerneiter 6y ago
      You flipped my logic on the head there, you know that, right? I never sad to do the opposite of what Hitler liked. Let me rephrase my statement and then check if people are still that triggered by it: Whenever you grant your government power, think about how this power could be abused if the government changes and your favouvered party is not in charge anymore.
  - f6v 6y ago
    > What would Hitler have done with it? What would Hitler do with space ships? Colonize the Moon, I guess. > This is why in Germany there were protests against recording peoples religion during the census. You already do that for tax purposes, right?
- buran77 6y ago
  Any law that gives regular law abiding citizens privacy is also shielding "terrorists and pedophiles" by affording them the same. Any such law will get blanket application over the whole population. On the other hand the real issue I see is that while the EU will put the breaks on its own development of the tech, the US and China will accelerate it. Sooner or later the EU will likely drop the position when the stakes are high enough and it suits "someone", and just back channel to obtain access to it. Which is possibly the worst position to be in.
  - arthurcolle 6y ago
    Imagine the same argument, for a hypothetical "reality annihilation" technology - justifying research in an area that is actively harmful and creates secondary, tertiary, and ... Nth order effects just because "others will do it" is not a useful baseline by which to decide what to do, IMO. Personally I think this AI stuff is pretty neat, but society must have a larger conversation around the existing power structures before we just let the most well capitalized business entities and their business owners (again, some of the wealthiest figures in recorded history) utilize these tools through which capital will become further concentrated just because some of their employees have a PhD and make 350k and now are able to just spend all their time developing technologies with clear non-linear payoffs, enriching some at the explicit expense of others at a structurally different rate than previous technological innovations. What does everyone think of Palantir? Do they have much of a foothold in Europe? I imagine not since they are direct contractors to the US government, but I mean they are again doing massive data analytics on the human population in ways that are almost as sketchy as Facebook, but with worse implications because of the direct interfacing with the military-industrial complex.
    - ThalesX 6y ago
      > Imagine the same argument, for a hypothetical "reality annihilation" technology - justifying research in an area that is actively harmful and creates secondary, tertiary, and ... Nth order effects just because "others will do it" is not a useful baseline by which to decide what to do, IMO. But why not? Long as we're talking about 'reality annihilation' technology, maybe the researches stumble upon unknown truths about reality. Perhaps they also touch upon 'reality creating' technology, giving them infinite cups of Earl Gray tea. As long as someone is going to use AI to create immense wealth for themselves, and potentially destructive weapons, as a European, I think we'd be fools not to try and at least understand the developments, the risks, and have contingency plans (think Batman) for dealing with what might come out of it. Things we can't do without our own research and know how.
1cvmask 6y ago
Britain, ex-EU, has the biggest mass surveillance in the world in place. London, the global leader, has more cameras per capita than Beijing. I wonder what other cities in the EU have high numbers of cameras per capita as well?
- Milner08 6y ago
  They're not _all_ connected to some central police network though, many (maybe most) are private cameras. While the police can request footage to aid an investigation I don't think there is an obligation to have it stored etc.
- Dobbs 6y ago
  Most cameras in London are private. It is the local off-license having cameras around the shop, and things like that. Not mass surveillance networks.
- ben_w 6y ago
  According to this, nowhere else in Europe is even close for CCTVs: https://www.statista.com/chart/19268/most-surveilled-cities-in-europe/ https://www.statista.com/chart/19268/most-surveilled-cities-... That said, number of cameras is not the only metric. Every house and business having their own camera backed by VHS tapes and watched occasionally by bored humans is much less of an issue than one camera per road but they’re all networked and backed by hard drives and scanned by AI.
neximo64 6y ago
Where are the successful AI companies in the EU to regulate in the first place? They would mostly be American companies
- drawfloat 6y ago
  The regulations would apply to the deployment of AI in public spaces. Where the companies originate from doesn't matter.
  - neximo64 6y ago
    My argument is there are no EU based AI companies doing that in the first place so the regulation will not even be really used.
    - t0mas88 6y ago
      EU regulation also applies to US based companies doing business in Europe. And for tax reasons most "US companies" have all their international business registered in Dublin or Amsterdam.
      - neximo64 6y ago
        So basically its for US companies? Which was my original premise.. Of course you are speaking in the legal sense, but the target of these laws are US companies/companies where decisions are made in the US.
        drawfloat 6y ago
        If they have any interest in ever being allowed to roll out in Europe (a pretty affluent developed market) then they'll need to comply.
      - tephra 6y ago
        To nitpick. Those are EU companies that have parent companies in the U.S. The laws are applied to the EU entity.

72 points by guerrilla 6y ago

I honestly believe that this is a mistake. Current laws in the EU allow for surveillance (mass) that to limit the ability to discover, detect, individuals or groups that are dangerous to society seems self limiting. This is considering that they already have exceptional police powers. In a way, i think they are limiting this technology for society to detect illegal acts by politicians. Rather than the other way around.

fizzibubbele 6y ago
Your phrasing isnt quite clear.
f6v 6y ago
While I agree with you, the ability to act seems to be a bigger issue. The Berlin Christmas market terrorist was “on the radar” and was supposed to be deported. But the German police did nothing about it.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  Yeah, it's not the police investigation process that's broken here...
turbinerneiter 6y ago
There is a very simple test to check if something is a good idea or not: What would Hitler have done with it? This is why in Germany there were protests against recording peoples religion during the census. All of these surveillance tools are based on the notion that the people who use them are the good guys. But there is no guarantee that they are now and will forever be.
- iso1210 6y ago
  > This is why in Germany there were protests against recording peoples religion during the census. Indeed, and Hitler did use census to identify Jews to kill, thanks to the sabotaging actions of René Carmille, tens of thousands of lives were saved (although Carmille himself survived torture, he died in January 45) The first ethical hacker doesn't get enough exposure IMO. "He also hacked his own machines, reprogramming them so that they’d never punch information from Column 11 [which indicated religion] onto any census card"
- sofixa 6y ago
  > There is a very simple test to check if something is a good idea or not: > What would Hitler have done with it? That's a very simplistic test that falls flat on its face when you realise Hitler loved animals, was a vegetarian, and despised smoking and alcohol. By your test, animal cruelty and self-poisoning are fine because Hitler disproved of them?
  - throw8765 6y ago
    >By your test, animal cruelty and self-poisoning are fine because Hitler disproved of them? AIUI it's not "what would Hitler think" but "what would Hitler do given the opportunity". As in, Hitler couldn't use self-poisoning to further his goals, but he could use mass surveillance.
  - turbinerneiter 6y ago
    You flipped my logic on the head there, you know that, right? I never sad to do the opposite of what Hitler liked. Let me rephrase my statement and then check if people are still that triggered by it: Whenever you grant your government power, think about how this power could be abused if the government changes and your favouvered party is not in charge anymore.
- f6v 6y ago
  > What would Hitler have done with it? What would Hitler do with space ships? Colonize the Moon, I guess. > This is why in Germany there were protests against recording peoples religion during the census. You already do that for tax purposes, right?
buran77 6y ago
Any law that gives regular law abiding citizens privacy is also shielding "terrorists and pedophiles" by affording them the same. Any such law will get blanket application over the whole population. On the other hand the real issue I see is that while the EU will put the breaks on its own development of the tech, the US and China will accelerate it. Sooner or later the EU will likely drop the position when the stakes are high enough and it suits "someone", and just back channel to obtain access to it. Which is possibly the worst position to be in.
- arthurcolle 6y ago
  Imagine the same argument, for a hypothetical "reality annihilation" technology - justifying research in an area that is actively harmful and creates secondary, tertiary, and ... Nth order effects just because "others will do it" is not a useful baseline by which to decide what to do, IMO. Personally I think this AI stuff is pretty neat, but society must have a larger conversation around the existing power structures before we just let the most well capitalized business entities and their business owners (again, some of the wealthiest figures in recorded history) utilize these tools through which capital will become further concentrated just because some of their employees have a PhD and make 350k and now are able to just spend all their time developing technologies with clear non-linear payoffs, enriching some at the explicit expense of others at a structurally different rate than previous technological innovations. What does everyone think of Palantir? Do they have much of a foothold in Europe? I imagine not since they are direct contractors to the US government, but I mean they are again doing massive data analytics on the human population in ways that are almost as sketchy as Facebook, but with worse implications because of the direct interfacing with the military-industrial complex.
  - ThalesX 6y ago
    > Imagine the same argument, for a hypothetical "reality annihilation" technology - justifying research in an area that is actively harmful and creates secondary, tertiary, and ... Nth order effects just because "others will do it" is not a useful baseline by which to decide what to do, IMO. But why not? Long as we're talking about 'reality annihilation' technology, maybe the researches stumble upon unknown truths about reality. Perhaps they also touch upon 'reality creating' technology, giving them infinite cups of Earl Gray tea. As long as someone is going to use AI to create immense wealth for themselves, and potentially destructive weapons, as a European, I think we'd be fools not to try and at least understand the developments, the risks, and have contingency plans (think Batman) for dealing with what might come out of it. Things we can't do without our own research and know how.

1cvmask 6y ago

Britain, ex-EU, has the biggest mass surveillance in the world in place. London, the global leader, has more cameras per capita than Beijing. I wonder what other cities in the EU have high numbers of cameras per capita as well?

Milner08 6y ago
They're not _all_ connected to some central police network though, many (maybe most) are private cameras. While the police can request footage to aid an investigation I don't think there is an obligation to have it stored etc.
Dobbs 6y ago
Most cameras in London are private. It is the local off-license having cameras around the shop, and things like that. Not mass surveillance networks.
ben_w 6y ago
According to this, nowhere else in Europe is even close for CCTVs: https://www.statista.com/chart/19268/most-surveilled-cities-in-europe/ https://www.statista.com/chart/19268/most-surveilled-cities-... That said, number of cameras is not the only metric. Every house and business having their own camera backed by VHS tapes and watched occasionally by bored humans is much less of an issue than one camera per road but they’re all networked and backed by hard drives and scanned by AI.

neximo64 6y ago

Where are the successful AI companies in the EU to regulate in the first place? They would mostly be American companies

drawfloat 6y ago
The regulations would apply to the deployment of AI in public spaces. Where the companies originate from doesn't matter.
- neximo64 6y ago
  My argument is there are no EU based AI companies doing that in the first place so the regulation will not even be really used.
  - t0mas88 6y ago
    EU regulation also applies to US based companies doing business in Europe. And for tax reasons most "US companies" have all their international business registered in Dublin or Amsterdam.
    - neximo64 6y ago
      So basically its for US companies? Which was my original premise.. Of course you are speaking in the legal sense, but the target of these laws are US companies/companies where decisions are made in the US.
      - drawfloat 6y ago
        If they have any interest in ever being allowed to roll out in Europe (a pretty affluent developed market) then they'll need to comply.
    - tephra 6y ago
      To nitpick. Those are EU companies that have parent companies in the U.S. The laws are applied to the EU entity.