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Ubiquitous facial recognition is inevitable. Governments that are prohibited by law from tracking faces and locations/times will just buy it from private compan

Ubiquitous facial recognition is inevitable. Governments that are prohibited by law from tracking faces and locations/times will just buy it from private companies, like has happened with automated license plate readers on tow trucks. It is pointless to argue about legislation at this point. We have to assume governments and corporations will have this data. The only mitigation is to limit the overall power of governments and corporations.

colechristensen 5y ago
It really isn’t pointless. Building, selling, or possessing facial recognition products or data obtained could easily be made illegal or extremely restricted. We need to build an expectation of public privacy concept where everyone has the right to go about their public lives with only human levels of tracking, recognition, and memories. That is being seen and remembered a short while is acceptable, having every move recorded and attributed to me is not.
- mcculley 5y ago
  How could it easily be restricted? As long as people or corporations are allowed to sell timestamped, geostamped photos and videos, the aggregation can be done.
  - rt4mn 5y ago
    Just because something can be technically done does not mean that we cant impose restrictions that make it to costly to use except in the most constrained and extreme circumstances. This is an oversimplification of a complicated story, but a great example is when the NSA stopped doing mass phone / text analysis because of the additional regulatory burdens imposed by the USA Freedom Act. The NSA contends that the data is still useful, but also that the difficulties of complying with the law make it not worth it.
    - mcculley 5y ago
      I am not understanding how you get to possible restrictions. How could I, as a private citizen or owner of a property be prevented from selling photos/videos with timestamps and geostamps? How could a company be prevented from buying and aggregating that data (even in other jurisdictions)? How could an end user be prevented from buying aggregated data as the cost plummets? Do you really think the NSA is not buying all available data sets?
      - rhn_mk1 5y ago
        The problem of preventing the transfer of uncomfortable data has already been tackled by copyright.
        mcculley 5y ago
        Please elaborate. There are many markets for buying and selling photos and other data.
        rhn_mk1 5y ago
        Copyright is a law that by design prevents the selling or buying or other transfer of some data, and it even sometimes works (black markets notwithstanding). If your goal is to restrict the transfer of some other kind of data, copyright is already a legal and practical framework that had tackled the same problems, and offers solutions.
        mcculley 5y ago
        Copyright protects intellectual property. It does not protect those captured in photos taken by others. Trademark law maybe would work here. Is that what you meant?
      - acover 5y ago
        How can you be prevented from murder? How was private ownership of gold illegal for decades? How was a farmer growing hay to feed their own horses illegal? The government has pretty wide reaching powers.
  - only_as_i_fall 5y ago
    Many states have two party consent laws that make it illegal to record private conversations without consent even in a public place. I fail to see how the same thing couldn't be done with video. Of course finding the political will to restrict things like security cameras is a different matter, but I don't think it'd it'd case that we couldn't write effective laws to prevent this.
    - mcculley 5y ago
      As I wrote, we are already seeing this. Tow truck companies sell ALPR data to aggregators. Ring and Amazon are collecting security camera data. Please explain what legislation you would propose.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Write data privacy laws which apply to surveillance cameras which require commercial entities to disclose what information is being collected, how it is being shared with provisions banning certain kinds of collecting, sharing, and storage with regulatory fines, criminal penalties, and provisions enabling class action lawsuits for misuse or other banned disclosures.
    - mcculley 5y ago
      Disclosure is insufficient to prevent aggregation. The same kind of people who sold browsing data to advertisers are selling this data. If you do not want to be tracked, you have to get those around you to not provide the data.
      - colechristensen 5y ago
        That would be why i listed many things more than disclosure.
        mcculley 5y ago
        I misunderstood. Would you eliminate Facebook and the existing ALPR data aggregators? I am wondering how such restrictions would be possible.
        colechristensen 5y ago
        You would come up with a decent legal definition of a surveillance camera with a distinction from a person taking pictures. You would add disclosure provisions, if an observed person could reasonably be expected to see and make a choice (say entering a business) there would be one set of rules, when a person couldn’t see a notice or make a choice (say a camera on a vehicle) there would be much more restrictive rules. You would make it a crime to violate the rules but administered like and possible to sue in civil court for victims. The crime would be on the owner/operator of the camera and special provisions would be added for storage providers.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  >could easily be made illegal or extremely restricted. What bunker do you live in?
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    This is an inappropriate comment for HN.
humanistbot 5y ago
> Governments that are prohibited by law from tracking faces and locations/times will just buy it from private companies, like has happened with automated license plate readers on tow trucks. Because of this, the current battles that many anti-surveillance activists are fighting is in procurement and vendor/contractor policies, mostly at the city and county levels. Lots of West Coast cities and counties (Santa Clara, Oakland, Seattle, San Diego) have enacted all kinds of new bureaucratic hurdles on any public funds used to pay for surveillance. These include requiring RFPs with open competitive bidding, public hearings, testing and certification that it actually works with an acceptable false positive rate, and approval in a public vote by the city/county council. The Nation has a good overview of this shift in tactics, which is also opposed by some progressives who take a more abolitionist stance to surveillance and say that they don't want it to be legitimized if it passes all the bureaucratic hurtles: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/mass-surveillance-begins-at-the-local-level-so-does-the-resistance-to-it/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/mass-surveillance-...
- mcculley 5y ago
  I respect the intent behind these efforts. I just don't see how they will prevent ubiquitous surveillance. Imagine this possible near future: Many property owners have installed smart doorbells and security systems with cameras. The data is being fed into aggregation systems and sold, just like clicks today. I can subscribe to an app on my phone for a few dollars a month (below the limit required to get formal approval in most organizations) that shows me where a face has been seen. How will this not happen?
  - 542458 5y ago
    I don’t see why we couldn’t pass a law that says that the government can’t use $technology_x, and that this applies to government contractors and services purchased by the government or used by government employees acting in their professional capacity.
    - mcculley 5y ago
      What technology would you prohibit? If a police officer can look up a suspect on Facebook, why couldn't he use one of many other services that are aggregating data?
inspector-g 5y ago
> like has happened with automated license plate readers on tow trucks. Do you have any good links that provide more info on this?
- mcculley 5y ago
  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/license-plate-data-not-just-cops-private-companies-are-tracking-flna6c10684677 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/license-plate-data-not-ju... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190918/14224343020/private-companies-gathering-plate-data-are-selling-access-to-peoples-movements-20-search.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190918/14224343020/priva...
alexashka 5y ago
> The only mitigation is to limit the overall power of governments and corporations. Why is this the only mitigation? By the way, who is going to limit the overall power and who is going to limit the power of those limiting the power and why? :) At the end of the day it's people making decisions. The best way to have them making better decisions, is having more of them having a view of the world that reflects reality. More reality, less bullshit -> better outcomes. Pretty simple.
- mcculley 5y ago
  I don't think anyone will successfully limit these systems. That is why it is inevitable.

colechristensen 5y ago

It really isn’t pointless. Building, selling, or possessing facial recognition products or data obtained could easily be made illegal or extremely restricted. We need to build an expectation of public privacy concept where everyone has the right to go about their public lives with only human levels of tracking, recognition, and memories. That is being seen and remembered a short while is acceptable, having every move recorded and attributed to me is not.

mcculley 5y ago
How could it easily be restricted? As long as people or corporations are allowed to sell timestamped, geostamped photos and videos, the aggregation can be done.
- rt4mn 5y ago
  Just because something can be technically done does not mean that we cant impose restrictions that make it to costly to use except in the most constrained and extreme circumstances. This is an oversimplification of a complicated story, but a great example is when the NSA stopped doing mass phone / text analysis because of the additional regulatory burdens imposed by the USA Freedom Act. The NSA contends that the data is still useful, but also that the difficulties of complying with the law make it not worth it.
  - mcculley 5y ago
    I am not understanding how you get to possible restrictions. How could I, as a private citizen or owner of a property be prevented from selling photos/videos with timestamps and geostamps? How could a company be prevented from buying and aggregating that data (even in other jurisdictions)? How could an end user be prevented from buying aggregated data as the cost plummets? Do you really think the NSA is not buying all available data sets?
    - rhn_mk1 5y ago
      The problem of preventing the transfer of uncomfortable data has already been tackled by copyright.
      - mcculley 5y ago
        Please elaborate. There are many markets for buying and selling photos and other data.
        rhn_mk1 5y ago
        Copyright is a law that by design prevents the selling or buying or other transfer of some data, and it even sometimes works (black markets notwithstanding). If your goal is to restrict the transfer of some other kind of data, copyright is already a legal and practical framework that had tackled the same problems, and offers solutions.
        mcculley 5y ago
        Copyright protects intellectual property. It does not protect those captured in photos taken by others. Trademark law maybe would work here. Is that what you meant?
    - acover 5y ago
      How can you be prevented from murder? How was private ownership of gold illegal for decades? How was a farmer growing hay to feed their own horses illegal? The government has pretty wide reaching powers.
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  Many states have two party consent laws that make it illegal to record private conversations without consent even in a public place. I fail to see how the same thing couldn't be done with video. Of course finding the political will to restrict things like security cameras is a different matter, but I don't think it'd it'd case that we couldn't write effective laws to prevent this.
  - mcculley 5y ago
    As I wrote, we are already seeing this. Tow truck companies sell ALPR data to aggregators. Ring and Amazon are collecting security camera data. Please explain what legislation you would propose.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Write data privacy laws which apply to surveillance cameras which require commercial entities to disclose what information is being collected, how it is being shared with provisions banning certain kinds of collecting, sharing, and storage with regulatory fines, criminal penalties, and provisions enabling class action lawsuits for misuse or other banned disclosures.
  - mcculley 5y ago
    Disclosure is insufficient to prevent aggregation. The same kind of people who sold browsing data to advertisers are selling this data. If you do not want to be tracked, you have to get those around you to not provide the data.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      That would be why i listed many things more than disclosure.
      - mcculley 5y ago
        I misunderstood. Would you eliminate Facebook and the existing ALPR data aggregators? I am wondering how such restrictions would be possible.
        colechristensen 5y ago
        You would come up with a decent legal definition of a surveillance camera with a distinction from a person taking pictures. You would add disclosure provisions, if an observed person could reasonably be expected to see and make a choice (say entering a business) there would be one set of rules, when a person couldn’t see a notice or make a choice (say a camera on a vehicle) there would be much more restrictive rules. You would make it a crime to violate the rules but administered like and possible to sue in civil court for victims. The crime would be on the owner/operator of the camera and special provisions would be added for storage providers.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
>could easily be made illegal or extremely restricted. What bunker do you live in?
- colechristensen 5y ago
  This is an inappropriate comment for HN.

humanistbot 5y ago

> Governments that are prohibited by law from tracking faces and locations/times will just buy it from private companies, like has happened with automated license plate readers on tow trucks. Because of this, the current battles that many anti-surveillance activists are fighting is in procurement and vendor/contractor policies, mostly at the city and county levels. Lots of West Coast cities and counties (Santa Clara, Oakland, Seattle, San Diego) have enacted all kinds of new bureaucratic hurdles on any public funds used to pay for surveillance. These include requiring RFPs with open competitive bidding, public hearings, testing and certification that it actually works with an acceptable false positive rate, and approval in a public vote by the city/county council. The Nation has a good overview of this shift in tactics, which is also opposed by some progressives who take a more abolitionist stance to surveillance and say that they don't want it to be legitimized if it passes all the bureaucratic hurtles: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/mass-surveillance-begins-at-the-local-level-so-does-the-resistance-to-it/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/mass-surveillance-...

mcculley 5y ago
I respect the intent behind these efforts. I just don't see how they will prevent ubiquitous surveillance. Imagine this possible near future: Many property owners have installed smart doorbells and security systems with cameras. The data is being fed into aggregation systems and sold, just like clicks today. I can subscribe to an app on my phone for a few dollars a month (below the limit required to get formal approval in most organizations) that shows me where a face has been seen. How will this not happen?
- 542458 5y ago
  I don’t see why we couldn’t pass a law that says that the government can’t use $technology_x, and that this applies to government contractors and services purchased by the government or used by government employees acting in their professional capacity.
  - mcculley 5y ago
    What technology would you prohibit? If a police officer can look up a suspect on Facebook, why couldn't he use one of many other services that are aggregating data?

inspector-g 5y ago

> like has happened with automated license plate readers on tow trucks. Do you have any good links that provide more info on this?

mcculley 5y ago
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/license-plate-data-not-just-cops-private-companies-are-tracking-flna6c10684677 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/license-plate-data-not-ju... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190918/14224343020/private-companies-gathering-plate-data-are-selling-access-to-peoples-movements-20-search.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190918/14224343020/priva...

alexashka 5y ago

> The only mitigation is to limit the overall power of governments and corporations. Why is this the only mitigation? By the way, who is going to limit the overall power and who is going to limit the power of those limiting the power and why? :) At the end of the day it's people making decisions. The best way to have them making better decisions, is having more of them having a view of the world that reflects reality. More reality, less bullshit -> better outcomes. Pretty simple.

mcculley 5y ago
I don't think anyone will successfully limit these systems. That is why it is inevitable.