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Illinois prohibits weapons, facial recognition on police drones

447 points by Kon-Peki 3y ago

rootusrootus 3y ago
Is this a new restriction on existing practices, or legislation that enables more functionality with police drones as long as it doesn't include weapons or facial recognition? I get an entirely different vibe from every other discussion on this legislation than from the headline of this post.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  As you can see from the text (signed by the governor today; effective immediately), this is a new restriction. All underlined text is newly added to the law. Text with a strikethrough is removed from the law. The law also adds many new data reporting obligations, and empowers the Attorney General to investigate (with teeth) violations.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  Police departments in the US basically don’t require legislation to add new functionality to their policing mechanisms, they require laws to tell them what they cannot do. So more the former than the latter. But it doesn’t really matter with this for the average citizen, most likely. They’ll only ever use the drones for big busts. Most cops just sit in traffic until they get bored and chase down random beater cars that were going 5 over the speed limit, or pulled slightly too far forward at a stop sign that had shrubs blocking the left and right view.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    > Most cops just sit in traffic until they get bored and chase down random beater cars that were going 5 over the speed limit, or pulled slightly too far forward at a stop sign that had shrubs blocking the left and right view. That's also problematic!
    - chasd00 3y ago
      not really, break the law get a ticket, that's how things are suppose to work. The problematic thing is the laws are rarely enforced.
      - RajT88 3y ago
        > The problematic thing is the laws are rarely enforced. You're almost right. In the post I was replying to is a description on who typically gets those laws enforced against them.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ERUIONKP 3y ago
[flagged]
samwillis 3y ago
As a Brit, watching the militarisation of the US police force is kinda scary. Hearing about successful push back and positive legislation is good. A quick bit of Googling, I can't find any evidence of weapons a being placed on police drones in Illinois, so this seems preemptive, which is good to see! (Our own police force has many of its own problems)
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Wait until you see how we've militarized the domestically-incorporated information systems that we export.
- femiagbabiaka 3y ago
  I knew it was an issue when a rural town of at best 2000 people adjacent to where my wife grew up successfully purchased multiple Humvees for "riot control" through 1033 (a program instituted by a president from the equivalent of a blairite-ish labour party in our country, no less). More about that here: https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-1033-military-equipment-weapons/ https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-10...
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    Nitpick about purchased “It’s a transfer, so that means that the agencies don’t have to pay for this equipment. So because the government has already possessed it, paid for it, it’s the Department of Defense’s property.” It seems technically it is still DoD property? But alltogether it is indeed worrysome. Here in germany we have the same trend, even though quite light in comparison. It is rare nowdays, that I see police without bulletproof wests and machine pistols are more and more common. It creates a very different impression ... Speaking of it: my car broke down once and I parked it on the side of a rural road (not in the way). It was weekend and I put a big note in it, saying it will be towed away very soon. Monday morning my wife with the baby were suprised by police on the door. And the first thing they see is the machine pistol and fighting gear. Surely totally necessary to get the same information, they could have gotten from the note in the car (that this very day it will be moved away). I seriously don't know what they were thinking. Probably nothing at all and war gear becomes just standard for engaging with potentially dangerous civilians, who park their car next to the road.
jollyllama 3y ago
The facial recognition isn't on the drone, the cop just uploads the footage to a tagging service *trollface*
- bs7280 3y ago
  Illinois has very strong anti facial recognition / biometric law. Theres been a lot of class action lawsuits recently. I got like $300 from the facebook settlement alone. So this loophole wouldn't work either fortunately
  - stonedge 3y ago
    This is true, but that law (BIPA) applies to private entities. i.e., government orgs and contractors are exempt. Regardless, this new legislation is good. I would like to see the complete inclusion of government organizations into needing to acquire consent. https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004&ChapterID=57 https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004&C...
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  The law covers both scenarios, as shown in the linked text: > A law enforcement agency operating a drone under this Act is prohibited from using, during a flight, onboard facial recognition software that works in conjunction with the drone. A law enforcement agency operating a drone under this Act is prohibited from using any information gathered by a drone with any facial recognition software
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    That depends on the grouping of clauses. Grouped as (prohibited from using any information gathered by a drone) (with any facial recognition software), you might be right. Grouped as (prohibited from using any information gathered by a (drone with any facial recognition software)), I don't think you're right. Personally, I would naturally group the clauses in this way and conclude that off-drone facial recognition was not effectively barred by this statute but onboard facial recognition was.
HumblyTossed 3y ago
What? You mean we don't need a bunch of people dying because cops misinterpreted what they saw on crappy, jittery 1080p night time footage? Instant downvote. I guess someone wants to see that on YouTube.
shipscode 3y ago
The title confused me a bit, Illinois isn't prohibiting weapon recognition on drones, it's prohibiting putting weapons on drones. Also, the act doesn't appear to have any legal consequences, so I wonder if it actually holds any teeth.
- DonaldPShimoda 3y ago
  > The title confused me a bit, Illinois isn't prohibiting weapon recognition on drones, it's prohibiting putting weapons on drones. This is normal title style for a news headline and has been for a very long time; the comma here is short for "and".
  - piperswe 3y ago
    "weapons" should be missing the "s" to reduce ambiguity in that case. Right now it reads like (weapons) and (facial recognition). "weapons recognition" doesn't quite sound right to me.
    - DonaldPShimoda 3y ago
      > Right now it reads like (weapons) and (facial recognition). That's because that is what it says. The parent comment's confusion was due to both parsing the comma as a list separator instead of a conjunction as well as not recognizing the implication of the "s" at the end of "weapons".
      - piperswe 3y ago
        Oh. Ignore me then, I'm just misinterpreting everything.
- LadyCailin 3y ago
  If they did, then you could successfully sue them for an injunction. Further use would then be contempt of court, a separate crime. Further, any evidence derived from that would be inadmissible in any proceedings.
remyp 3y ago
As an Illinois resident, voter, and taxpayer, I'm pleased by this. I don't think I've never been _happy_ with Illinois politicians, but this current set is meaningfully productive enough for me to consider plausible the idea of being happy with my government.
- hisnameishank 3y ago
  Illinois also just banned the practice of banning books :)
  - eksx 3y ago
    I have to say that definitely makes me happy!
  - hinkley 3y ago
    The Illinois education board always had a soft spot for banned books. I was legally required to read two of them for my schools to retain accreditation. But we actually read 3 1/2.
- RajT88 3y ago
  >I don't think I've never been _happy_ with Illinois politicians Occasionally, I'm happy with the amount of jail time they get.
  - faitswulff 3y ago
    It's a treasured Illinois tradition
  - hinkley 3y ago
    A particular treat for residents of Illinois and New York.
- monksy 3y ago
  The state reps seem to be better. But our federal senators are pretty awful tankies. (Durban and Duckworth.. they'll full on send you a tone death letter about why encryption is awful after you send them your concerns)
djha-skin 3y ago
[flagged]
- collegeburner 3y ago
  i am anti the current chicago status quo and agree the policies are dumb. but all this does is prohibit surveillance and weapons via drone. which i both support. the answer is some amount of improved traditional policing (necessary evil) and arming all the non-gang people to the teeth bc the gang ones are already armed
- mb7733 3y ago
  The police can still carry guns. Their drones cannot.
- jonathankoren 3y ago
  Literally, none of this is true.
- mcbutterbunz 3y ago
  > Now they can't carry weapons. Is this accurate? I haven’t read the full text of the law but I thought it meant no weaponized drones.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > I thought it meant no weaponized drones. That is correct. It says this: " Sec. 18. Use of weapons. A law enforcement agency operating a drone under this Act is prohibited from equipping or using on a drone any firearm, weaponized laser, kinetic impact projectile, chemical agent or irritant, or any other lethal or non-lethal weapon."
    - chasd00 3y ago
      someone was probably floating the idea of dropping tear gas down a chimney using a drone and they wanted to nip it in the bud.
  - 3y ago
oh_sigh 3y ago
I don't understand the issue with facial recognition if it is only used as a lead, and isn't considered evidence in and of itself, and a person's rights are respected even if they are flagged by the facial recognition software. If the issue is disparate success rates between races or other demographics, then let's just fuzz the incoming data until it's all equal. Facial recognition still sounds like an incredibly useful tool. Banning facial recognition sounds to me like the legislature knows that the police force abuses people and will abuse people even more with facial recognition. Instead of banning tools that can increase the scope for abuse, why not try rooting out the people and culture perpetrating abuse in the first place?
- mulmen 3y ago
  If I am flagged by facial recognition software my rights have already been violated. This is a bad idea even before we consider that LEO is composed of fallible human beings with an established history of abusing the information systems they already possess.
  - oh_sigh 3y ago
    What right of yours was violated if you were flagged by facial recognition?
    - mulmen 3y ago
      The 4th amendment.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      Rights afforded by Illinois law, I suppose.
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      If mass surveillance is limited by the ability for humans to look at camera feeds, that provides a check on it.
    - mistrial9 3y ago
activiation 3y ago
[flagged]
mulmen 3y ago
Drone means flying drones here. What about land based robots? Can they still put a shotgun on one of those to blow away a suspicious package? Can they still use a robot to breach a door? Can they use facial recognition software on footage recovered from a land based drone?
- RajT88 3y ago
  It's a good point. I would hope there's an exemption for bomb disposal robots, because functionally there's not that much difference between these and (basically) Killbotz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSkYxW5Ii28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSkYxW5Ii28
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Bomb robots seem fine to me in an appropriate context. An alternative is a high power rifle at range, although that does seem a lot more dangerous. I’m more concerned about militarized pizza delivery robots. If they can’t have flying drones will they have rolling ones instead? Seems odd to carve this out for only flying drones.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    There shouldn't be an exemption on the equipment, but prohibition of using anything as a killbot. Dallas police used a bomb-disposal robot to remotely deliver a bomb to kill a suspect some years back. https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/08/use-robot-kill-dallas-suspect-first-experts-say/ https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/08/use-robot-kill-dalla...
    - mulmen 3y ago
      It seems pretty easy to have an exception that allows bomb disposal without allowing bomb delivery.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      "Hourslong negotiations with the man broke down into an exchange of gunfire, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference Friday morning. At that point, the officers deployed a robot armed with an explosive." That's hardly the stuff of Robocop dystopia. That seems a reasonable and proportionate response to a long siege and multiple instances of gunfire exchange in which 5 policemen had lost their lives engaging the suspect.
PedroBatista 3y ago
[flagged]
- mulmen 3y ago
  Weird take. Policing is hard, sure. I don’t think flying guns with facial recognition are the solution we need. If this is what “defund the police” means then sign me up. Defund all their armed face scanning drones.
  - PedroBatista 3y ago
    I'm not a fan either, but we demand more and more from the police, yet there is a powerful force ( mostly political ) to curb the resources the police can use. I get both sides, but this road will have bad results. ( making Illinois into a police state is not a solution either )
    - mulmen 3y ago
      Defund the police is about demanding less from the police. Policing is hard and necessary but armed drones aren’t a solution.
- starlevel003 3y ago
  > This "defund de police" bs has been one of the most damaging rhetoric's in American cities. People are being victimized left and right, robberies, rapes, gang violence, etc because some people know there are little to no consequences. Police budgets haven't actually been defunded, and yet this still happens.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Yeah, the people saying “defund the police” have generally had near-zero success in affecting policy, with policy makers at all levels rejecting their advocacy and increasing police budgets, often at the expense of other local services and functions. If bad things are happening in crime, and it is an indictment of current policy, it is more defensibly an indictment of the reaction against “defund the police” than of “defund the police”.
midnitewarrior 3y ago
This is terrifying that we need this kind of regulation.
- kylevedder 3y ago
  Using the existence of regulation as proof that the regulation is needed is circular reasoning.
  - midnitewarrior 3y ago
    It's terrifying that we live in a world where a legislator saw the need to regulate this while I am not disagreeing with the need for this once brought to my attention.
abeppu 3y ago
Can we get a federal bill with the same prohibitions? It would be absurd if the right to be free from fear of automated death from the skies is left to a patchwork of state and local restrictions. Irresponsible arguments that I would totally not be surprised to hear to push in the opposite direction: - If law enforcement doesn't have armed drones, we live in a world where only the criminals have armed drones. - Sometimes law enforcement must be able to use deadly force. Isn't it better if in those situations, officers aren't also putting their lives at risk? - Currently, when law enforcement uses deadly force, one of the strongest defenses is that in the moment, an officer felt that their own life was at risk. A drone operator has no such fear and therefore no bias towards using weapons prematurely.
- mulmen 3y ago
  I get the argument for federal laws but honestly I think it is misguided to want state laws promoted to a national level immediately. This is how law in the US evolves. The patchwork is a feature. A federal government with the agility to implement this law at a national level would have far too much power. The system is working.
  - craigmcnamara 3y ago
    We should promote this patch to production ASAP
    - mulmen 3y ago
      Works on my machine. Or is that in my neighborhood?
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    I agree. It's helpful to remember: for every law you like and want promoted to the federal level, there's another law you probably don't like that someone else thinks would be great to promote to the federal level. Although moving states to flee terrible laws is a burden, it's not as much of a burden as fleeing your entire country. Laws should be as local as practically possible.
RobotToaster 3y ago
The fact they need a law to stop the police using UCAVs against civilians is terrifying.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  You have to think about the incentives at play. Imagine you're a police chief or some kind of similar decision maker in a government organization. You have certain metrics you need to hit as dictated by elected politicians and non-elected supervisors, etc. You have a "job to do" and you're being measured by the outcomes you produce. Your career and wellbeing depends on this. So what do you expect them to do? They absolutely need a law that says they can't use a certain technique/technology/etc because they'd be deemed incompetent for not using them if they were missing their metrics. So you use them unless you have a law that says you can't. Then you have an out. It's not like these are evil people. They want the same things you do in the end. But they have a specific job to do with goals to pursue and what do you expect them to do? Incentives drive behavior.
testplzignore 3y ago
> This Act does not prohibit the use of a drone by a law enforcement agency [...] to forestall [...] the destruction of evidence So, essentially nothing is prohibited. "Destruction of evidence" can be flushing drugs down the toilet or throwing them out a car window. The war on drugs greatly increases how many "crimes" are being committed at any given time and what is considered evidence of those crimes.
- jimt1234 3y ago
  Is anything ever really prohibited (for US law enforcement)? Better yet, what are the real consequences for violation? All I ever hear is, "Okay, fine. We won't do this illegal thing anymore - you know, the thing we've been doing for years, knowing it's totally illegal. Sorry, not sorry." Without consequences for violation, there is no prohibition.
  - jimt1234 3y ago
    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4053686-minneapolis-police-routinely-used-excessive-force-and-discriminated-against-black-native-american-people-doj/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4053686-minneapo... Expect heads to roll at the Minneapolis PD. Just kidding. Nothing will happen. Not even a slap on the wrist.
paws 3y ago
Slightly OT: I noticed Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, and New York City either ended or limited qualified immunity in recent years. (In other states similar efforts faltered, apparently thanks to police unions and politicians in their pocket [0]) Via the article: > Fifteen months after the Colorado bill was signed into law, there is so far little evidence to support any widespread negative effects on police retention or recruitment. Now that it's been more time I've been curious to measure how curtailing QI has affected 1) police misconduct 2) police hiring and 3) insurance rates (e.g. indemnity) municipalities/townships/states pay. If anyone has insight on ways to measure, places to find data, etc would be appreciated. Meanwhile for those curious about Chicago police misconduct, TIL about [1] [0] https://archive.ph/evcEG https://archive.ph/evcEG [1] https://cpdp.co https://cpdp.co
- hinkley 3y ago
  I’m not at “defund police” levels of dissatisfaction but I do believe they have fundamentally lost the moral authority to self govern. I think internal affairs should be disbanded and we go straight to the FBI without passing IA.
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    "and we go straight to the FBI" Because they are so much better, right?
    - z3c0 3y ago
      It's a matter of incentive. Sure, the Alphabet Agencies aren't intrinsically good, but they have little motive to protect the misconduct within local police precincts.
      - JimtheCoder 3y ago
        "but they have little motive to protect the misconduct within local police precincts" Maybe. The way I see it, all of law enforcement has an "US vs Them (criminals, etc)" attitude, and are very hesitant to throw each other under the bus, or even openly criticize eachother unless it is 100% necessary...
hinkley 3y ago
Second City has been busy this month. What’s goin on there?
cma 3y ago
If there is a bomb that can be dismantled by a remote operated drone with a "weapon" on it, or an armed perpetrator situation, it is kind of sadistic to make an officer go in in person instead. I can see limiting autonomous ones though.
- mulmen 3y ago
  This law only applies to flying drones. The law doesn’t require an officer to do anything in person. It’s not sadistic. Let’s tone down the rhetoric. Bomb disposal is fine by me, there’s plenty of time to get that right. Armed perpetrators should be dealt with by actual human officers, hopefully specialty trained SWAT. I don’t trust a webcam to differentiate between a hostage and a bad guy.
deleted 3y ago
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km3r 3y ago
Am I the only one that is OK with CCTV + facial recognition? Seems like a great way to tackle crime without having to involve potentially deadly encounters with police. Ya there are ways it could be abused, but I assume I have no privacy (as does the law) when I am in a public space. A lot cheaper than cops too. Put laws and systems in place to keep the data secure and require warrants to access the data. (No lethal weapons on drones please though, although I could see a case for riot control drones, not sure where you would draw the line on what is a weapon.)
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  It's not something you get instead of cops, when technology is developed for policing it's always always in addition. So it's not cops vs facial rec it's cops with facial rec. American police have never been given a power that they have not chosen to abuse for personal or political reasons, and used against dissidents and the dispossessed. The abuses aren't theoretical they are inevitable and at huge scale. > Put laws and systems in place to keep the data secure and require warrants to access the data. When? Who writes warrants? Who enforces these rules and punishes transgressions of them? None of these would be actual practical restrictions, and they don't exist anyway. If you give them access to it they have access to it your only chance to influence that was before you gave it to them.
  - Zetice 3y ago
    I agree with the idea that American police abuse their resources, and would abuse this resource if given the chance, and I think you mentioning it here is a great lesson for me and everyone else to remind us of the current situation for police. Where I fall short however is the resignation that this is how things must be, or that we'll forever be unable to change these things. If we can get this police abuse under control, then the idea of using technology to help discover bad actors seems like a sound one to me.
    - nathan_compton 3y ago
      The punishments we dole out for committing crimes are disproportionately large at least in part to improve their deterrent effect given that many people who commit crimes may get away with them. If we can suddenly catch every single person who commits a crime, then the punishments should become less severe.
TheCaptain4815 3y ago
[flagged]
tinyhouse 3y ago
Instead of fixing issues like bias with facial recognition, they prefer to ban it instead. And Illinois of all places, where the crime is out of control. Who will suffer the most? you guess it right, those who they are trying to protect... Go figure.
- xp84 3y ago
  I don't think bias is the main problem with FR. I think the problem is more of the police performing mass FR. Although perfect FR by a (fictional) benevolent police force could allow much easier capture of all criminals, I think most Americans are more afraid of an all-powerful police force made possible by FR than they are of the status quo that many criminals go uncaught for a long time (and possibly forever). And I think that the militaristic behavior of cops and police departments have earned that. The (hopefully) hyperbolic version of this fear is: Say you were wanted for a crime, and nobody believed you (or perhaps you're guilty but it's a BS law). If it's perfectly legal for them to do so, maybe the cops will just fly a killdrone over places you're known to frequent and shoot you on sight, and say 'Gee, sorry if you were offended, but (Name) was a dangerous criminal, wanted for terrorism and refused to turn himself in, we had no choice.'
- dogsgobork 3y ago
  >Illinois of all places, where the crime is out of control Is it? From what I've found Illinois is fairly middle of the pack vs other states.
  - 1123581321 3y ago
    Much of the state is peaceful, balanced out by high crime rates in parts of Chicago and in mid-sized cities (Rockford, Aurora, Peoria, Springfield.)
screye 3y ago
It's sad that the advent of new technology is never viewed as an opportunity to reduce violence. If the police can put themselves out of harms way using a drone, doesn't that help with peaceful de-escalation? A drone opens up options like tasers and pepper spray, that would have otherwise been impossible for police to deploy at a distance. If facial recognition can be done with near 100% accuracy, then what's wrong with it being used to identify the location of someone who has committed a life sentence worthy crime ? I agree that drones and facial recognition should never be fully automated as a robotic civilian disposal system. But when used responsibly, the tools are much better options than what we have today : Guns. a GTA car chase can be swiftly stopped using drones. Don't need an expensive helicopter and a rampaging maniac to kill someone at 150 mph. We are teaching kids what to do in the case of a school shooter, and arming school guards to the teeth. Schools have the hardware for facial recognition cameras. A manual "choose target -> hone in -> shoot pepper spray" mechanism is less dangerous and immediately neutralizes a threat. Yes, the rest of the kids are likely to get very painful chillies in their eyes, but you saved their lives. (I'll admit this one is stretch) Yes, it seems dystopian because movies portray it as dystopian. But in the modern world, the state has total monopoly over violence. We already live in a surveillance state, and the worst case outcome is already as bad as it can get (death). Using tech to sustain the same state with less resources and better outcome (physical pain) is not as bad as it sounds.
- kristianp 3y ago
  > the state has total monopoly over violence. Gun death stats disagree with you on that one.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    The monopoly is on the legitimate claim to force, and is based on Max Weber. David Runciman has an excellent explanation of this in the "Talking Politics" podcast which I recommend unreservedly: <https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership> (Specific segment occurs ~15 minutes in.)
- akomtu 3y ago
etothepii 3y ago
Is this an audio transcription? What does: This Act may be referred to as the Drones as First Responders Act. mean? This level of non-English doesn't strike me as a great idea in an actual law.
- michaelmior 3y ago
  Instead of referring to the bill as House Bill 3902, the common name that can be used is the "Drones as First Responders Act." This is fairly standard boilerplate.
  - etothepii 3y ago
    Ah! The carriage returns broke my internal parser.
lettergram 3y ago
First, I hate Illinois. That said, Illinois is one of the few states that have solid protections against 3rd party recordings (both parties have to consent) and tries to provide some protections around biometrics. Though... part of me thinks it's about corrupt politicians not wanting to be caught themselves haha. I frankly left the state because it's so corrupt. The pension fund is missing so much money (combined with state debt) that each family would have to pay >$100k to offset the current deficit. PLUS the population is dropping. That doesn't include other corruption, like the co-sponsor of the marijuana legalization bill selling licenses to grow. She was caught and all they did was remove her as a sponsor, that's it. Nothing else. The one time I saw a glimmer of hope was when everyone voted down an amendment to change the income tax. Left & right politically all agree it's so corrupt and want none of it haha. It's what unifies in the population of the state.
michaelmior 3y ago
Sounded great until I got to this exception. It seems like there's a lot that could easily fall under this especially when the default is often to side with law enforcement. > the law enforcement agency possesses reasonable suspicion that, under particular circumstances, swift action is needed to prevent imminent harm to life or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect or the destruction of evidence.
iamthirsty 3y ago
Good.
activiation 3y ago
It should not be limited to police... All government agencies should be subject to the same restrictions... Sheriff, FBI, USPS, IRS, etc...
hospitalJail 3y ago
What a world we live in. Major companies are doing facial recognition to improve security and likely lower insurance costs, but the police can't. The cat is out of the bag on this stuff. If teenagers can use this technology on Facebook, do we really need to add additional hoops to pretend we have privacy? I'd much rather not put on the show and be aware we are being watched.
wkdneidbwf 3y ago
great! now let’s see this same thing at the federal level!
Sparkyte 3y ago
Weapons yeah, facial recognition is okay in my books. But hear me out, that facial recognition would be publicly available data and be opensource. I believe facial recognition on drones or weapons by any person not law enforcement should be illegal. Just like CCTV footage and stuff it needs to be public or private data for 30 days and then publicly available. CCTVs deter crime it is a proven fact.
interestica 3y ago
Police: "It's not a drone."
deleted 3y ago
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Pxtl 3y ago
My only concern here is that police in North America already have a mobile units that can pursue and attack people on command with ostensibly less-than-lethal power which have occasionally killed people by accident. They're called dogs. I'm having trouble seeing a drone with a taser as worse.
- musicale 3y ago
  Dogs aren't as good at controlled high-speed flight. They also can't easily determine the names of everyone in a stadium, or match those names against a database of thousands of suspects.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
So? When they killed the guy on Dallas, they just jury-rigged up some C4 onto a bomb-defusing robot (haha!) and rolled it into the parking garage. I'm sure Illinois cops will be able to improvise when they want to pull these stunts.
AHOHA 3y ago
They technically can record the video by the drone and then later do the face recognition offline just like any recorded video by personal cams. Also, face recognition on drones isn’t the worse, what’s the flight time, max 40min? Yeah that’s barely a threat, are they also banning the same recognition on other cameras like the ones installed on the roads, urban areas, traffic lights that are working 247? Guess not, it’s just a theater to create the illusion “we care about your privacy and security” or whatever. Ban police dogs, ban the concept of “shooting then asking”, ban hiring the scum of the town and make them go through a very thorough and proper education, not a useless 2 years academy, among other things. But none of that will happen because it’s deeply corrupt.
AngryData 3y ago
Armed police drones have a deadly downstream problems too, how will people and/or criminals oppose them, which they certainly will. Some of the most common or best counter options have really bad side effects, the first being people shooting rounds into the air at them which will come down who knows where, and if it becomes a real big problem I foresee small EMP bomb/mortar/grenade devices or powerful jammers being used. A small bit of explosive on the side of a magnet with some loops of copper coil it gets blasted through can deliver a fairly significant EMP blast over a small area which can damage all sorts of devices, especially anything with an antennae, IE every single wireless capable device. And jammers have obvious problems and can be made crazy powerful without much difficulty. Armed police drones becoming anything near common or expected will kick off a bit of an arms race with criminals. If criminals don't just start copying the exact same thing. Ive seen DIY demonstrations of small drones firing pistols accuratly years ago now, thankfully they haven't taken off, but that might change if the police themselves start using them.
- 13of40 3y ago
  Considering people make a hobby of shooting tiny clay disks out of the air with shotguns, and anyone can buy a pump action 12-gauge for less than $500, I don't see how a DJI style drone can be a threat to someone who's prepared themself. (Unless it's already photographed you.)
aauchter 3y ago
Well this isnt going to help Chicago gun deaths.
- SouthOfHeaven 3y ago
  Nope. And the loudest anti-cop people don’t care, either.
PM_me_your_math 3y ago
Weapons on drones is a big no-no for me, however, I'm not sold on a total ban of facial recognition on drones. Such technology can be used to catch some really bad actors, especially among the gangs in Chicago.
musicale 3y ago
Why limit the facial recognition ban to drones?
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
What does it mean to not have facial recognition on a drone? Does it mean no apply facial recognition (anywhere, definitely not on the drone) on video feeds obtained from a drone? How does one separate those videos out so they can be processed using ML at all? A lot of crime can be tracked more easily if we know who is doing it, like shoplifting. It might not be practical to arrest every shoplifter, but facial recognition lets us keep track of how often someone is shoplifting, and maybe it makes sense to arrest someone who has stolen more than N dollars of stuff. Likewise for petty crime on the streets.
robbywashere_ 3y ago
Utopia is upon us

447 points by Kon-Peki 3y ago

Is this a new restriction on existing practices, or legislation that enables more functionality with police drones as long as it doesn't include weapons or facial recognition? I get an entirely different vibe from every other discussion on this legislation than from the headline of this post.

Kon-Peki 3y ago
As you can see from the text (signed by the governor today; effective immediately), this is a new restriction. All underlined text is newly added to the law. Text with a strikethrough is removed from the law. The law also adds many new data reporting obligations, and empowers the Attorney General to investigate (with teeth) violations.
starttoaster 3y ago
Police departments in the US basically don’t require legislation to add new functionality to their policing mechanisms, they require laws to tell them what they cannot do. So more the former than the latter. But it doesn’t really matter with this for the average citizen, most likely. They’ll only ever use the drones for big busts. Most cops just sit in traffic until they get bored and chase down random beater cars that were going 5 over the speed limit, or pulled slightly too far forward at a stop sign that had shrubs blocking the left and right view.
- RajT88 3y ago
  > Most cops just sit in traffic until they get bored and chase down random beater cars that were going 5 over the speed limit, or pulled slightly too far forward at a stop sign that had shrubs blocking the left and right view. That's also problematic!
  - chasd00 3y ago
    not really, break the law get a ticket, that's how things are suppose to work. The problematic thing is the laws are rarely enforced.
    - RajT88 3y ago
      > The problematic thing is the laws are rarely enforced. You're almost right. In the post I was replying to is a description on who typically gets those laws enforced against them.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ERUIONKP 3y ago

[flagged]

samwillis 3y ago

As a Brit, watching the militarisation of the US police force is kinda scary. Hearing about successful push back and positive legislation is good. A quick bit of Googling, I can't find any evidence of weapons a being placed on police drones in Illinois, so this seems preemptive, which is good to see! (Our own police force has many of its own problems)

smoldesu 3y ago
Wait until you see how we've militarized the domestically-incorporated information systems that we export.
femiagbabiaka 3y ago
I knew it was an issue when a rural town of at best 2000 people adjacent to where my wife grew up successfully purchased multiple Humvees for "riot control" through 1033 (a program instituted by a president from the equivalent of a blairite-ish labour party in our country, no less). More about that here: https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-1033-military-equipment-weapons/ https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-10...
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  Nitpick about purchased “It’s a transfer, so that means that the agencies don’t have to pay for this equipment. So because the government has already possessed it, paid for it, it’s the Department of Defense’s property.” It seems technically it is still DoD property? But alltogether it is indeed worrysome. Here in germany we have the same trend, even though quite light in comparison. It is rare nowdays, that I see police without bulletproof wests and machine pistols are more and more common. It creates a very different impression ... Speaking of it: my car broke down once and I parked it on the side of a rural road (not in the way). It was weekend and I put a big note in it, saying it will be towed away very soon. Monday morning my wife with the baby were suprised by police on the door. And the first thing they see is the machine pistol and fighting gear. Surely totally necessary to get the same information, they could have gotten from the note in the car (that this very day it will be moved away). I seriously don't know what they were thinking. Probably nothing at all and war gear becomes just standard for engaging with potentially dangerous civilians, who park their car next to the road.

jollyllama 3y ago

The facial recognition isn't on the drone, the cop just uploads the footage to a tagging service *trollface*

bs7280 3y ago
Illinois has very strong anti facial recognition / biometric law. Theres been a lot of class action lawsuits recently. I got like $300 from the facebook settlement alone. So this loophole wouldn't work either fortunately
- stonedge 3y ago
  This is true, but that law (BIPA) applies to private entities. i.e., government orgs and contractors are exempt. Regardless, this new legislation is good. I would like to see the complete inclusion of government organizations into needing to acquire consent. https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004&ChapterID=57 https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004&C...
Kon-Peki 3y ago
The law covers both scenarios, as shown in the linked text: > A law enforcement agency operating a drone under this Act is prohibited from using, during a flight, onboard facial recognition software that works in conjunction with the drone. A law enforcement agency operating a drone under this Act is prohibited from using any information gathered by a drone with any facial recognition software
- sokoloff 3y ago
  That depends on the grouping of clauses. Grouped as (prohibited from using any information gathered by a drone) (with any facial recognition software), you might be right. Grouped as (prohibited from using any information gathered by a (drone with any facial recognition software)), I don't think you're right. Personally, I would naturally group the clauses in this way and conclude that off-drone facial recognition was not effectively barred by this statute but onboard facial recognition was.

HumblyTossed 3y ago

What? You mean we don't need a bunch of people dying because cops misinterpreted what they saw on crappy, jittery 1080p night time footage? Instant downvote. I guess someone wants to see that on YouTube.

shipscode 3y ago

The title confused me a bit, Illinois isn't prohibiting weapon recognition on drones, it's prohibiting putting weapons on drones. Also, the act doesn't appear to have any legal consequences, so I wonder if it actually holds any teeth.

DonaldPShimoda 3y ago
> The title confused me a bit, Illinois isn't prohibiting weapon recognition on drones, it's prohibiting putting weapons on drones. This is normal title style for a news headline and has been for a very long time; the comma here is short for "and".
- piperswe 3y ago
  "weapons" should be missing the "s" to reduce ambiguity in that case. Right now it reads like (weapons) and (facial recognition). "weapons recognition" doesn't quite sound right to me.
  - DonaldPShimoda 3y ago
    > Right now it reads like (weapons) and (facial recognition). That's because that is what it says. The parent comment's confusion was due to both parsing the comma as a list separator instead of a conjunction as well as not recognizing the implication of the "s" at the end of "weapons".
    - piperswe 3y ago
      Oh. Ignore me then, I'm just misinterpreting everything.
LadyCailin 3y ago
If they did, then you could successfully sue them for an injunction. Further use would then be contempt of court, a separate crime. Further, any evidence derived from that would be inadmissible in any proceedings.

remyp 3y ago

As an Illinois resident, voter, and taxpayer, I'm pleased by this. I don't think I've never been _happy_ with Illinois politicians, but this current set is meaningfully productive enough for me to consider plausible the idea of being happy with my government.

hisnameishank 3y ago
Illinois also just banned the practice of banning books :)
- eksx 3y ago
  I have to say that definitely makes me happy!
- hinkley 3y ago
  The Illinois education board always had a soft spot for banned books. I was legally required to read two of them for my schools to retain accreditation. But we actually read 3 1/2.
RajT88 3y ago
>I don't think I've never been _happy_ with Illinois politicians Occasionally, I'm happy with the amount of jail time they get.
- faitswulff 3y ago
  It's a treasured Illinois tradition
- hinkley 3y ago
  A particular treat for residents of Illinois and New York.
monksy 3y ago
The state reps seem to be better. But our federal senators are pretty awful tankies. (Durban and Duckworth.. they'll full on send you a tone death letter about why encryption is awful after you send them your concerns)

djha-skin 3y ago

[flagged]

collegeburner 3y ago
i am anti the current chicago status quo and agree the policies are dumb. but all this does is prohibit surveillance and weapons via drone. which i both support. the answer is some amount of improved traditional policing (necessary evil) and arming all the non-gang people to the teeth bc the gang ones are already armed
mb7733 3y ago
The police can still carry guns. Their drones cannot.
jonathankoren 3y ago
Literally, none of this is true.
mcbutterbunz 3y ago
> Now they can't carry weapons. Is this accurate? I haven’t read the full text of the law but I thought it meant no weaponized drones.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > I thought it meant no weaponized drones. That is correct. It says this: " Sec. 18. Use of weapons. A law enforcement agency operating a drone under this Act is prohibited from equipping or using on a drone any firearm, weaponized laser, kinetic impact projectile, chemical agent or irritant, or any other lethal or non-lethal weapon."
  - chasd00 3y ago
    someone was probably floating the idea of dropping tear gas down a chimney using a drone and they wanted to nip it in the bud.
- 3y ago

oh_sigh 3y ago

I don't understand the issue with facial recognition if it is only used as a lead, and isn't considered evidence in and of itself, and a person's rights are respected even if they are flagged by the facial recognition software. If the issue is disparate success rates between races or other demographics, then let's just fuzz the incoming data until it's all equal. Facial recognition still sounds like an incredibly useful tool. Banning facial recognition sounds to me like the legislature knows that the police force abuses people and will abuse people even more with facial recognition. Instead of banning tools that can increase the scope for abuse, why not try rooting out the people and culture perpetrating abuse in the first place?

mulmen 3y ago
If I am flagged by facial recognition software my rights have already been violated. This is a bad idea even before we consider that LEO is composed of fallible human beings with an established history of abusing the information systems they already possess.
- oh_sigh 3y ago
  What right of yours was violated if you were flagged by facial recognition?
  - mulmen 3y ago
    The 4th amendment.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Rights afforded by Illinois law, I suppose.
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    If mass surveillance is limited by the ability for humans to look at camera feeds, that provides a check on it.
  - mistrial9 3y ago

activiation 3y ago

[flagged]

mulmen 3y ago

Drone means flying drones here. What about land based robots? Can they still put a shotgun on one of those to blow away a suspicious package? Can they still use a robot to breach a door? Can they use facial recognition software on footage recovered from a land based drone?

RajT88 3y ago
It's a good point. I would hope there's an exemption for bomb disposal robots, because functionally there's not that much difference between these and (basically) Killbotz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSkYxW5Ii28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSkYxW5Ii28
- mulmen 3y ago
  Bomb robots seem fine to me in an appropriate context. An alternative is a high power rifle at range, although that does seem a lot more dangerous. I’m more concerned about militarized pizza delivery robots. If they can’t have flying drones will they have rolling ones instead? Seems odd to carve this out for only flying drones.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  There shouldn't be an exemption on the equipment, but prohibition of using anything as a killbot. Dallas police used a bomb-disposal robot to remotely deliver a bomb to kill a suspect some years back. https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/08/use-robot-kill-dallas-suspect-first-experts-say/ https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/08/use-robot-kill-dalla...
  - mulmen 3y ago
    It seems pretty easy to have an exception that allows bomb disposal without allowing bomb delivery.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    "Hourslong negotiations with the man broke down into an exchange of gunfire, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference Friday morning. At that point, the officers deployed a robot armed with an explosive." That's hardly the stuff of Robocop dystopia. That seems a reasonable and proportionate response to a long siege and multiple instances of gunfire exchange in which 5 policemen had lost their lives engaging the suspect.

PedroBatista 3y ago

[flagged]

mulmen 3y ago
Weird take. Policing is hard, sure. I don’t think flying guns with facial recognition are the solution we need. If this is what “defund the police” means then sign me up. Defund all their armed face scanning drones.
- PedroBatista 3y ago
  I'm not a fan either, but we demand more and more from the police, yet there is a powerful force ( mostly political ) to curb the resources the police can use. I get both sides, but this road will have bad results. ( making Illinois into a police state is not a solution either )
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Defund the police is about demanding less from the police. Policing is hard and necessary but armed drones aren’t a solution.
starlevel003 3y ago
> This "defund de police" bs has been one of the most damaging rhetoric's in American cities. People are being victimized left and right, robberies, rapes, gang violence, etc because some people know there are little to no consequences. Police budgets haven't actually been defunded, and yet this still happens.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Yeah, the people saying “defund the police” have generally had near-zero success in affecting policy, with policy makers at all levels rejecting their advocacy and increasing police budgets, often at the expense of other local services and functions. If bad things are happening in crime, and it is an indictment of current policy, it is more defensibly an indictment of the reaction against “defund the police” than of “defund the police”.

midnitewarrior 3y ago

This is terrifying that we need this kind of regulation.

kylevedder 3y ago
Using the existence of regulation as proof that the regulation is needed is circular reasoning.
- midnitewarrior 3y ago
  It's terrifying that we live in a world where a legislator saw the need to regulate this while I am not disagreeing with the need for this once brought to my attention.

abeppu 3y ago

Can we get a federal bill with the same prohibitions? It would be absurd if the right to be free from fear of automated death from the skies is left to a patchwork of state and local restrictions. Irresponsible arguments that I would totally not be surprised to hear to push in the opposite direction: - If law enforcement doesn't have armed drones, we live in a world where only the criminals have armed drones. - Sometimes law enforcement must be able to use deadly force. Isn't it better if in those situations, officers aren't also putting their lives at risk? - Currently, when law enforcement uses deadly force, one of the strongest defenses is that in the moment, an officer felt that their own life was at risk. A drone operator has no such fear and therefore no bias towards using weapons prematurely.

mulmen 3y ago
I get the argument for federal laws but honestly I think it is misguided to want state laws promoted to a national level immediately. This is how law in the US evolves. The patchwork is a feature. A federal government with the agility to implement this law at a national level would have far too much power. The system is working.
- craigmcnamara 3y ago
  We should promote this patch to production ASAP
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Works on my machine. Or is that in my neighborhood?
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I agree. It's helpful to remember: for every law you like and want promoted to the federal level, there's another law you probably don't like that someone else thinks would be great to promote to the federal level. Although moving states to flee terrible laws is a burden, it's not as much of a burden as fleeing your entire country. Laws should be as local as practically possible.

RobotToaster 3y ago

The fact they need a law to stop the police using UCAVs against civilians is terrifying.

nemo44x 3y ago
You have to think about the incentives at play. Imagine you're a police chief or some kind of similar decision maker in a government organization. You have certain metrics you need to hit as dictated by elected politicians and non-elected supervisors, etc. You have a "job to do" and you're being measured by the outcomes you produce. Your career and wellbeing depends on this. So what do you expect them to do? They absolutely need a law that says they can't use a certain technique/technology/etc because they'd be deemed incompetent for not using them if they were missing their metrics. So you use them unless you have a law that says you can't. Then you have an out. It's not like these are evil people. They want the same things you do in the end. But they have a specific job to do with goals to pursue and what do you expect them to do? Incentives drive behavior.

testplzignore 3y ago

> This Act does not prohibit the use of a drone by a law enforcement agency [...] to forestall [...] the destruction of evidence So, essentially nothing is prohibited. "Destruction of evidence" can be flushing drugs down the toilet or throwing them out a car window. The war on drugs greatly increases how many "crimes" are being committed at any given time and what is considered evidence of those crimes.

jimt1234 3y ago
Is anything ever really prohibited (for US law enforcement)? Better yet, what are the real consequences for violation? All I ever hear is, "Okay, fine. We won't do this illegal thing anymore - you know, the thing we've been doing for years, knowing it's totally illegal. Sorry, not sorry." Without consequences for violation, there is no prohibition.
- jimt1234 3y ago
  https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4053686-minneapolis-police-routinely-used-excessive-force-and-discriminated-against-black-native-american-people-doj/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4053686-minneapo... Expect heads to roll at the Minneapolis PD. Just kidding. Nothing will happen. Not even a slap on the wrist.

paws 3y ago

Slightly OT: I noticed Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, and New York City either ended or limited qualified immunity in recent years. (In other states similar efforts faltered, apparently thanks to police unions and politicians in their pocket [0]) Via the article: > Fifteen months after the Colorado bill was signed into law, there is so far little evidence to support any widespread negative effects on police retention or recruitment. Now that it's been more time I've been curious to measure how curtailing QI has affected 1) police misconduct 2) police hiring and 3) insurance rates (e.g. indemnity) municipalities/townships/states pay. If anyone has insight on ways to measure, places to find data, etc would be appreciated. Meanwhile for those curious about Chicago police misconduct, TIL about [1] [0] https://archive.ph/evcEG https://archive.ph/evcEG [1] https://cpdp.co https://cpdp.co

hinkley 3y ago
I’m not at “defund police” levels of dissatisfaction but I do believe they have fundamentally lost the moral authority to self govern. I think internal affairs should be disbanded and we go straight to the FBI without passing IA.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "and we go straight to the FBI" Because they are so much better, right?
  - z3c0 3y ago
    It's a matter of incentive. Sure, the Alphabet Agencies aren't intrinsically good, but they have little motive to protect the misconduct within local police precincts.
    - JimtheCoder 3y ago
      "but they have little motive to protect the misconduct within local police precincts" Maybe. The way I see it, all of law enforcement has an "US vs Them (criminals, etc)" attitude, and are very hesitant to throw each other under the bus, or even openly criticize eachother unless it is 100% necessary...

hinkley 3y ago

Second City has been busy this month. What’s goin on there?

cma 3y ago

If there is a bomb that can be dismantled by a remote operated drone with a "weapon" on it, or an armed perpetrator situation, it is kind of sadistic to make an officer go in in person instead. I can see limiting autonomous ones though.

mulmen 3y ago
This law only applies to flying drones. The law doesn’t require an officer to do anything in person. It’s not sadistic. Let’s tone down the rhetoric. Bomb disposal is fine by me, there’s plenty of time to get that right. Armed perpetrators should be dealt with by actual human officers, hopefully specialty trained SWAT. I don’t trust a webcam to differentiate between a hostage and a bad guy.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

km3r 3y ago

Am I the only one that is OK with CCTV + facial recognition? Seems like a great way to tackle crime without having to involve potentially deadly encounters with police. Ya there are ways it could be abused, but I assume I have no privacy (as does the law) when I am in a public space. A lot cheaper than cops too. Put laws and systems in place to keep the data secure and require warrants to access the data. (No lethal weapons on drones please though, although I could see a case for riot control drones, not sure where you would draw the line on what is a weapon.)

giraffe_lady 3y ago
It's not something you get instead of cops, when technology is developed for policing it's always always in addition. So it's not cops vs facial rec it's cops with facial rec. American police have never been given a power that they have not chosen to abuse for personal or political reasons, and used against dissidents and the dispossessed. The abuses aren't theoretical they are inevitable and at huge scale. > Put laws and systems in place to keep the data secure and require warrants to access the data. When? Who writes warrants? Who enforces these rules and punishes transgressions of them? None of these would be actual practical restrictions, and they don't exist anyway. If you give them access to it they have access to it your only chance to influence that was before you gave it to them.
- Zetice 3y ago
  I agree with the idea that American police abuse their resources, and would abuse this resource if given the chance, and I think you mentioning it here is a great lesson for me and everyone else to remind us of the current situation for police. Where I fall short however is the resignation that this is how things must be, or that we'll forever be unable to change these things. If we can get this police abuse under control, then the idea of using technology to help discover bad actors seems like a sound one to me.
  - nathan_compton 3y ago
    The punishments we dole out for committing crimes are disproportionately large at least in part to improve their deterrent effect given that many people who commit crimes may get away with them. If we can suddenly catch every single person who commits a crime, then the punishments should become less severe.

TheCaptain4815 3y ago

[flagged]

tinyhouse 3y ago

Instead of fixing issues like bias with facial recognition, they prefer to ban it instead. And Illinois of all places, where the crime is out of control. Who will suffer the most? you guess it right, those who they are trying to protect... Go figure.

xp84 3y ago
I don't think bias is the main problem with FR. I think the problem is more of the police performing mass FR. Although perfect FR by a (fictional) benevolent police force could allow much easier capture of all criminals, I think most Americans are more afraid of an all-powerful police force made possible by FR than they are of the status quo that many criminals go uncaught for a long time (and possibly forever). And I think that the militaristic behavior of cops and police departments have earned that. The (hopefully) hyperbolic version of this fear is: Say you were wanted for a crime, and nobody believed you (or perhaps you're guilty but it's a BS law). If it's perfectly legal for them to do so, maybe the cops will just fly a killdrone over places you're known to frequent and shoot you on sight, and say 'Gee, sorry if you were offended, but (Name) was a dangerous criminal, wanted for terrorism and refused to turn himself in, we had no choice.'
dogsgobork 3y ago
>Illinois of all places, where the crime is out of control Is it? From what I've found Illinois is fairly middle of the pack vs other states.
- 1123581321 3y ago
  Much of the state is peaceful, balanced out by high crime rates in parts of Chicago and in mid-sized cities (Rockford, Aurora, Peoria, Springfield.)

screye 3y ago

It's sad that the advent of new technology is never viewed as an opportunity to reduce violence. If the police can put themselves out of harms way using a drone, doesn't that help with peaceful de-escalation? A drone opens up options like tasers and pepper spray, that would have otherwise been impossible for police to deploy at a distance. If facial recognition can be done with near 100% accuracy, then what's wrong with it being used to identify the location of someone who has committed a life sentence worthy crime ? I agree that drones and facial recognition should never be fully automated as a robotic civilian disposal system. But when used responsibly, the tools are much better options than what we have today : Guns. a GTA car chase can be swiftly stopped using drones. Don't need an expensive helicopter and a rampaging maniac to kill someone at 150 mph. We are teaching kids what to do in the case of a school shooter, and arming school guards to the teeth. Schools have the hardware for facial recognition cameras. A manual "choose target -> hone in -> shoot pepper spray" mechanism is less dangerous and immediately neutralizes a threat. Yes, the rest of the kids are likely to get very painful chillies in their eyes, but you saved their lives. (I'll admit this one is stretch) Yes, it seems dystopian because movies portray it as dystopian. But in the modern world, the state has total monopoly over violence. We already live in a surveillance state, and the worst case outcome is already as bad as it can get (death). Using tech to sustain the same state with less resources and better outcome (physical pain) is not as bad as it sounds.

kristianp 3y ago
> the state has total monopoly over violence. Gun death stats disagree with you on that one.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  The monopoly is on the legitimate claim to force, and is based on Max Weber. David Runciman has an excellent explanation of this in the "Talking Politics" podcast which I recommend unreservedly: <https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership> (Specific segment occurs ~15 minutes in.)
akomtu 3y ago

etothepii 3y ago

Is this an audio transcription? What does: This Act may be referred to as the Drones as First Responders Act. mean? This level of non-English doesn't strike me as a great idea in an actual law.

michaelmior 3y ago
Instead of referring to the bill as House Bill 3902, the common name that can be used is the "Drones as First Responders Act." This is fairly standard boilerplate.
- etothepii 3y ago
  Ah! The carriage returns broke my internal parser.

lettergram 3y ago

First, I hate Illinois. That said, Illinois is one of the few states that have solid protections against 3rd party recordings (both parties have to consent) and tries to provide some protections around biometrics. Though... part of me thinks it's about corrupt politicians not wanting to be caught themselves haha. I frankly left the state because it's so corrupt. The pension fund is missing so much money (combined with state debt) that each family would have to pay >$100k to offset the current deficit. PLUS the population is dropping. That doesn't include other corruption, like the co-sponsor of the marijuana legalization bill selling licenses to grow. She was caught and all they did was remove her as a sponsor, that's it. Nothing else. The one time I saw a glimmer of hope was when everyone voted down an amendment to change the income tax. Left & right politically all agree it's so corrupt and want none of it haha. It's what unifies in the population of the state.

michaelmior 3y ago

Sounded great until I got to this exception. It seems like there's a lot that could easily fall under this especially when the default is often to side with law enforcement. > the law enforcement agency possesses reasonable suspicion that, under particular circumstances, swift action is needed to prevent imminent harm to life or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect or the destruction of evidence.

iamthirsty 3y ago

Good.

activiation 3y ago

It should not be limited to police... All government agencies should be subject to the same restrictions... Sheriff, FBI, USPS, IRS, etc...

hospitalJail 3y ago

What a world we live in. Major companies are doing facial recognition to improve security and likely lower insurance costs, but the police can't. The cat is out of the bag on this stuff. If teenagers can use this technology on Facebook, do we really need to add additional hoops to pretend we have privacy? I'd much rather not put on the show and be aware we are being watched.

wkdneidbwf 3y ago

great! now let’s see this same thing at the federal level!

Sparkyte 3y ago

Weapons yeah, facial recognition is okay in my books. But hear me out, that facial recognition would be publicly available data and be opensource. I believe facial recognition on drones or weapons by any person not law enforcement should be illegal. Just like CCTV footage and stuff it needs to be public or private data for 30 days and then publicly available. CCTVs deter crime it is a proven fact.

interestica 3y ago

Police: "It's not a drone."

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Pxtl 3y ago

My only concern here is that police in North America already have a mobile units that can pursue and attack people on command with ostensibly less-than-lethal power which have occasionally killed people by accident. They're called dogs. I'm having trouble seeing a drone with a taser as worse.

musicale 3y ago
Dogs aren't as good at controlled high-speed flight. They also can't easily determine the names of everyone in a stadium, or match those names against a database of thousands of suspects.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

So? When they killed the guy on Dallas, they just jury-rigged up some C4 onto a bomb-defusing robot (haha!) and rolled it into the parking garage. I'm sure Illinois cops will be able to improvise when they want to pull these stunts.

AHOHA 3y ago

They technically can record the video by the drone and then later do the face recognition offline just like any recorded video by personal cams. Also, face recognition on drones isn’t the worse, what’s the flight time, max 40min? Yeah that’s barely a threat, are they also banning the same recognition on other cameras like the ones installed on the roads, urban areas, traffic lights that are working 247? Guess not, it’s just a theater to create the illusion “we care about your privacy and security” or whatever. Ban police dogs, ban the concept of “shooting then asking”, ban hiring the scum of the town and make them go through a very thorough and proper education, not a useless 2 years academy, among other things. But none of that will happen because it’s deeply corrupt.

AngryData 3y ago

Armed police drones have a deadly downstream problems too, how will people and/or criminals oppose them, which they certainly will. Some of the most common or best counter options have really bad side effects, the first being people shooting rounds into the air at them which will come down who knows where, and if it becomes a real big problem I foresee small EMP bomb/mortar/grenade devices or powerful jammers being used. A small bit of explosive on the side of a magnet with some loops of copper coil it gets blasted through can deliver a fairly significant EMP blast over a small area which can damage all sorts of devices, especially anything with an antennae, IE every single wireless capable device. And jammers have obvious problems and can be made crazy powerful without much difficulty. Armed police drones becoming anything near common or expected will kick off a bit of an arms race with criminals. If criminals don't just start copying the exact same thing. Ive seen DIY demonstrations of small drones firing pistols accuratly years ago now, thankfully they haven't taken off, but that might change if the police themselves start using them.

13of40 3y ago
Considering people make a hobby of shooting tiny clay disks out of the air with shotguns, and anyone can buy a pump action 12-gauge for less than $500, I don't see how a DJI style drone can be a threat to someone who's prepared themself. (Unless it's already photographed you.)

aauchter 3y ago

Well this isnt going to help Chicago gun deaths.

SouthOfHeaven 3y ago
Nope. And the loudest anti-cop people don’t care, either.

PM_me_your_math 3y ago

Weapons on drones is a big no-no for me, however, I'm not sold on a total ban of facial recognition on drones. Such technology can be used to catch some really bad actors, especially among the gangs in Chicago.

musicale 3y ago

Why limit the facial recognition ban to drones?

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

What does it mean to not have facial recognition on a drone? Does it mean no apply facial recognition (anywhere, definitely not on the drone) on video feeds obtained from a drone? How does one separate those videos out so they can be processed using ML at all? A lot of crime can be tracked more easily if we know who is doing it, like shoplifting. It might not be practical to arrest every shoplifter, but facial recognition lets us keep track of how often someone is shoplifting, and maybe it makes sense to arrest someone who has stolen more than N dollars of stuff. Likewise for petty crime on the streets.

robbywashere_ 3y ago

Utopia is upon us