5 ms·

Sounds like a step in the right direction but some part of me can't stop thinking some three letter agency is holding onto all the data they can get. Just like

by gleenn 5y ago

Sounds like a step in the right direction but some part of me can't stop thinking some three letter agency is holding onto all the data they can get. Just like the story that Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich exposed about the CIA retaining US citizen bulk data in the Deep Dive I and II programs.

hwers 5y ago
Surely the three letter agencies you're referring to already has access to your passport and/or drivers license photo/selfie anyway.
- gleenn 5y ago
  A video would give them 3D data for better facial recognition.
- dijonman2 5y ago
  Pictures of your room are also valuable. I imagine their implementation forced you to use the hw cam and not OBS et al for fraud prevention. The real danger is the precedent it sets. CBP wants to force you to take a photo on departure for example. I don’t think facial recognition is near accurate enough. A bug or misidentification could put you through hell.
LeftHandPath 5y ago
Or the ATF maintaining an illegal registry of 900 million firearms.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  AFAIK, it's not illegal. The compromise on gun registration was that gun shops retain the registration data. The ATF only gets ownership over that data if the shop goes out of business. The only legal restriction is that they can't index it with a computer... which is stupid and silly, but hey, I don't write the laws.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    And it isn't 900 million firearms. It is ~900 million firearm dealer transactions, over 50 years.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    A computerized index is easily lost or stolen. It is more difficult to steal a warehouse of paper.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      It is, of course, also more difficult to use a warehouse of paper [1]. Requests against that information can take hours to process. There are over a thousand requests a day. As a federal job-creation program, congratulations I guess, but what a waste of human time. https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-non-searchable-databases/ https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-non-searchable-database... [1] ... technically, the data is, in fact, digitally stored so that an electronic equivalent of microfiche-scanning can be used to find information. That scanning is still done by hand because of the 1986 law banning registry creation.
      - CheezeIt 5y ago
        The purpose is to protect Americans’ human rights.
        shadowgovt 5y ago
        There is no human right to not have it discovered a person purchased a firearm that was later used in the commission of a crime. In the same sense that there is no human right to not have it discovered that a car that ran someone over is registered to a particular person, or that a plane that crashes into a neighborhood was scheduled to fly under a particular flight-plan and be operated by a particular pilot. In general, society (American society included) assigns additional responsibilities of care and auditing to ownership and operation of machines and equipment with a high probability of causing the death of a third party if they are mis-used.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  Neither illegal nor a real "registry" in any useful sense, since they're not allowed to digitize or automatically index the paper records, which are frequently mangled or water damaged beyond discernibility[1]. Edit: the National Tracing Center is currently so burdened with paper copies that their floor is literally collapsing[2]. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185530763/the-low-tech-way-guns-get-traced https://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185530763/the-low-tech-way-gu... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/us/politics/atf-nra-guns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/us/politics/atf-nra-guns....
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    IIUC, digitize yes, index no. Incoming records are photographed and stored into a non-indexed image repository (otherwise, using the data would be completely impractical because of the literally-collapsing-floor problem you mentioned).

by gleenn 5y ago

hwers 5y ago

Surely the three letter agencies you're referring to already has access to your passport and/or drivers license photo/selfie anyway.

gleenn 5y ago
A video would give them 3D data for better facial recognition.
dijonman2 5y ago
Pictures of your room are also valuable. I imagine their implementation forced you to use the hw cam and not OBS et al for fraud prevention. The real danger is the precedent it sets. CBP wants to force you to take a photo on departure for example. I don’t think facial recognition is near accurate enough. A bug or misidentification could put you through hell.

LeftHandPath 5y ago

Or the ATF maintaining an illegal registry of 900 million firearms.

kmeisthax 5y ago
AFAIK, it's not illegal. The compromise on gun registration was that gun shops retain the registration data. The ATF only gets ownership over that data if the shop goes out of business. The only legal restriction is that they can't index it with a computer... which is stupid and silly, but hey, I don't write the laws.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  And it isn't 900 million firearms. It is ~900 million firearm dealer transactions, over 50 years.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  A computerized index is easily lost or stolen. It is more difficult to steal a warehouse of paper.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    It is, of course, also more difficult to use a warehouse of paper [1]. Requests against that information can take hours to process. There are over a thousand requests a day. As a federal job-creation program, congratulations I guess, but what a waste of human time. https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-non-searchable-databases/ https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-non-searchable-database... [1] ... technically, the data is, in fact, digitally stored so that an electronic equivalent of microfiche-scanning can be used to find information. That scanning is still done by hand because of the 1986 law banning registry creation.
    - CheezeIt 5y ago
      The purpose is to protect Americans’ human rights.
      - shadowgovt 5y ago
        There is no human right to not have it discovered a person purchased a firearm that was later used in the commission of a crime. In the same sense that there is no human right to not have it discovered that a car that ran someone over is registered to a particular person, or that a plane that crashes into a neighborhood was scheduled to fly under a particular flight-plan and be operated by a particular pilot. In general, society (American society included) assigns additional responsibilities of care and auditing to ownership and operation of machines and equipment with a high probability of causing the death of a third party if they are mis-used.
woodruffw 5y ago
Neither illegal nor a real "registry" in any useful sense, since they're not allowed to digitize or automatically index the paper records, which are frequently mangled or water damaged beyond discernibility[1]. Edit: the National Tracing Center is currently so burdened with paper copies that their floor is literally collapsing[2]. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185530763/the-low-tech-way-guns-get-traced https://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185530763/the-low-tech-way-gu... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/us/politics/atf-nra-guns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/us/politics/atf-nra-guns....
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  IIUC, digitize yes, index no. Incoming records are photographed and stored into a non-indexed image repository (otherwise, using the data would be completely impractical because of the literally-collapsing-floor problem you mentioned).