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> Pictures of people’s faces shouldn’t be combined in one giant central database, the official proposal says, but police forces will be linked together through
by i_like_waiting 5y ago
> Pictures of people’s faces shouldn’t be combined in one giant central database, the official proposal says, but police forces will be linked together through a “central router.” This router won’t store any data, the European Commission spokesperson says, adding that it will “only act as a message broker” between nations.
From professional perspective, interesting to see real relevant use case of data mesh structure.
From practical use case, what difference does it make for anybody outside IT?
- bigDinosaur 5y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just the same abstraction as the Internet? Lots of separate databases linked together by a router (well, millions)? With something like Google as an obvious way to search and index it? What exactly do you mean by 'data mesh structure'?
- jq-r 5y agoSo instead of one big centralised database they'll make couple of smaller ones which are all connected. In other words, same result, different implementation.
- FrenchDevRemote 5y agoNo, not really. For example, if one of the databases get hacked they can't just dump the pictures of all european citizens, just from the database they got access too It's slightly less worse.
- SiempreViernes 5y agoThe obvious one is that each national level server will be firmly under the national data protection authority, and so can be ordered censor or even completely withhold replies to (some) outside requests.
- matthewdgreen 5y agoThere are subtle differences in the sense that individual databases can be detached, queries can be monitored and throttled by local authorities, etc. It will be much harder to have a single breach leak the whole database (e.g., the OPM hack [1].) It also makes automated surveillance (e.g., "track this person around and constantly notify the secret police of their location") much harder to implement without at least a few different countries cooperating to implement the system. However, as far as the core functionality ("look up a face, find a match from any country's data") the operation of this federated database will be nearly identical. I suspect that politicians/regulators either don't fully understand this, or else they don't want their constituents to understand this. [1] https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/ https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/
- SiempreViernes 5y agoWhy would they hide that from their constituents? What is the reason to go "Hey, I worked to cripple the ability of our law enforcement to identify the criminals coming to our country from abroad! (Only secretly the system actually works fine)"?
- mattnewton 5y agoProbably anticipating arguments about losing their sovereignty over domestic data. This way they can claim that data bout their citizens is still owned by their citizens and not other nations in the EU?
- SiempreViernes 5y agoWell sure, they could want to stay out entirely because of data sovereignty concerns. But I don't see why you would join a intel sharing system holding the position that you won't share your own intel (nor why you would be allowed to join).
- matthewdgreen 5y agoMy guess is that there is some tension in the voting population between wanting police to use this tech to solve crimes, and fear that a continent-wide database will enable surveillance abuses. A federated solution might reduce the abuse potential. But more cynically, it allows for the effective creation of a continent-wide database while reassuring voters that there is no continent-wide database.