6 ms·

Don't Spy EU

aethelyon 3y ago
I used to be worried about face scanning. But sometimes I wonder if it's an inevitable evolution of technology. Which – to be clear – is not support for it, but a question about what is emergent from the new things we create.
- rmellow 3y ago
  1. Photographs/video might be inevitable: cellphone cameras are ubiquitous, people love to share media and memories; There are strong cases for CCTV for security. however ... 2. Analyzing images for biometric markers and linking it to a database of persons can absolutely be legislated against. 3. One step further, utilizing biometric information for decision making is also very easy to legislate against. Some companies might do these things secretly anyway, but then we have the need for audits and strong enforcement of the law, which is another matter. First step is to get this into legislation.
  - repelsteeltje 3y ago
    I agree. This is much like legislation around traditional weapons: Sure, you can't un-invent nuclear physics, gun powder, bows and arrows, knifes, sticks. They are to some level ubiquitous, available to anyone with enough resolve. But that doesn't mean any entrepreneur can decide to produce or hoard large amounts of weapons for personal or commercial gains. In most countries, there are legislative boundaries that make sure the state has monopoly of violence and (preferably democratic) government controls that force. That system of course is still dangerous and fragile, but far better than roving gangs or ultimate power at the hands of commercial organizations...
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      In a lot of countries you are not allowed to just record private conversations with listening devices (and it is not happening as a mass phenomenon), so clearly we can legislate successfully against use of technology.
      - madflame991 3y ago
        What would prevent me from walking around the street or in semi-public places recording non-stop on my phone? Heck, I could have a few phones in my pockets!
        HowTheStoryEnds 3y ago
        Legislation is not about prevention but about punishment.
        repelsteeltje 3y ago
        Along the same lines: what would prevent you from using a knife to kill someone and hoping/attempting to make sure that no one notices? Indeed, even though murder is illegal, it still happens. But the law is there to codify that murder is heavily frowned upon. Places where legislation were absent of the law isn't sufficiently effective enforced, tend to have more random violence.
    - riversflow 3y ago
      > This is much like legislation around traditional weapons. The problem with that comparison is that it would be very obvious and noteworthy if Nestle started to drop bombs or hired mercenaries to prey on villages who tried to fight their abusive water practices, or whatever analogous weapons fiction you can imagine to Big Tech abusing their data and resources for invasive spying. People would die and/or be injured, likely property would be destroyed--these are extremely tangible things. Big tech could be using facial recognition for years and fly under the radar. Privacy is essentially intangible.
      - repelsteeltje 3y ago
        That's a very good point. I guess that difference stems from the novelty of privacy invasion "weapons". A bit like attempting to threaten a Roman soldier by pointing a machine gun. It takes time, probably a couple of centuries to build up experience with surveillance to fully grasp the ramifications. But we're also no longer at the unknown-unknown point; we understand that there might be serious problems unless we dial down the pace at which we allow data hoarding. At least some privacy would be preserved if there was a law that said "if you have a legit reason to track people using facial recognition, you must throw away all inferred information after 1 hour". Or some other arbitrary limit. Or a law saying you're liable if your data were ever to leak. Or some other obstacle.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    2: governments can legislate against against anything, but this feels like the other side of the same coin as pro cryptographic freedom: you're trying to ban maths. We can, and IMO should, ban this type data use in commercial and party political contexts, but that isn't going to do anything to stop criminals and foreign governments doing these same things for their own commercial and political goals. We need a milieu where we can survive that.
    - rmellow 3y ago
      Agreed, I meant this in a commercial and political context. Banning research is entirely different.
- Geee 3y ago
  It should also be inevitable that people develop tech for defending themselves as a response. Face masks / face paints might become more popular.
  - jjgreen 3y ago
    The laws on that have been in place for 20 years: https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/explainer-palestine-protests/#page-section-20 https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/exp...
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Many (most?) places in the US have outright bans on wearing masks in city/county ordinances, sometimes with exceptions for children or Halloween, sometimes not. Those laws were basically ignored for covid though and I know several people who found masking extremely beneficial for cold weather or allergies and they'll keep masks on hand for those circumstances. No matter how popular that becomes I suspect it'll turn into something that police will enforce selectively whenever it suits them rather than those laws going away.
      - jjgreen 3y ago
        During Covid in many locations in France, it was both illegal and mandatory to wear a face-covering.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > I used to be worried about face scanning. But sometimes I wonder if it's an inevitable evolution of technology. Werent you worried about face scanning precisely because its a seemingly inevitable evolution of technology? The use of “but” is confusing to me. It seems like the reason for being concerned has assuaged your concerns.
- kosasbest 3y ago
  > I used to be worried about face scanning. But sometimes I wonder if it's an inevitable evolution of technology. The cat's out of the bag. But you can still exercise caution. I remember when that app FaceApp was trending, and everyone wanted to see what they looked like when older, oblivious to the ulterior motives behind the app. Essentially they were building a FR database from user generated content. So, don't feed the beast and don't upload your faceprint to apps every chance you get.
mrweasel 3y ago
The EU is weird. When companies spy on their customers/users it's a 4 million Euro fine, when member states want to track the phones of its citizens it's a human rights violation, but when the EU it self wants something similar or worse it's a question of safety.
- Lolaccount 3y ago
  2 out of 3 with room for improvement. I'll take it compared to some places I've been.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  EU is not something different than the member states, it's %100 made of (elected) or (appointed by the elected) from the member states. So the appointed by the elected will consult with the elected and come up(or already came up) with a proposal and the elected will vote on it. This website is made by some interest groups(both from Italy) that want to pressure the elected to reject a certain proposal. Nothing weird really, just politics of a democracy in action. If you agree with the position of these interest groups you can support them, if you don't care you can ignore them or if you disagree you can start a counter campaign.
  - wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
    I wish it was so simple, there are a bunch of different bodies; only the parlement is directly voted in. Especially the EU commmision the most powerful part are picked by the 27 leaders. Consequence is lot of deal making and influence by main countries France & Germany; and no direct responsiblity to citizens. It's not all bad, but also not all great.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      And those 27 leaders come into power how? Winning the lottery or finding a coucher in their breakfast cereals?
      - 3y ago
karmakaze 3y ago
Am I missing something? This sample page[0] doesn't look scary at all, and I can't see it swaying anyone's opinion: [0] https://dontspy.eu/country/#Germany https://dontspy.eu/country/#Germany
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- vecna 3y ago
  The aim of this project/campaign is not to be scary, but to raise awareness among policy makers and citizens. This is the background I want to highlight: 1. the first political fight is about the ban of real-time identification in public spaces. that's the dystopian scenario that nobody wants, and that's why we participated in the creation of https://reclaimyourface.eu https://reclaimyourface.eu in 2019. 2. the second (not because it's less important, but because it comes later chronologically) is not to let the monopolists get stronger roots. Both have their complexities, and the European Parliament made something OK for 1 and 2, now the Council of European Ministries is screwing up both. The ethical arguments: (i) massive biometric surveillance is bad in itself, (ii) the models are trained on biometric data collected without consent, (iii) and this is also fundamental to building the deepfakes (because the GNA discriminator uses a constant biometric comparison). Even if there are three reasons, the Council is saying "Dear Parliament, no, we want facial recognition and unregulated foundation model". So, DontSpyEU try to explain the related parts with a little prankish attitude, (and, btw, Microsoft lobbyists are just pushing their solutions, which are only meant to consolidate their monopoly)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nosajio 3y ago
It's already pretty easy to spin up a facial recognition model, and it's likely that facial recognition will be an emergent property of multi-modal modals like GPT4/Dall-E. How would the EU enforce a multinational ban on facial recognition or biometric pattern recognition?
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  Probably with an annoying popup banner on every page.
  - Propelloni 3y ago
    I appreciate the humor. But in case there is a misconception at the root of this quip, I still have to point out that the annoying popup banners on every page are on the page owners, not the EU or the GDPR. Nowhere does the GDPR mandate popup banners. Banners are just the lazy answer to a very people-friendly law by an economy addicted to surveillance.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      > I still have to point out that the annoying popup banners on every page are on the page owners, not the EU or the GDPR. Nowhere does the GDPR mandate popup banners.I still have to point out that the annoying popup banners on every page are on the page owners, not the EU or the GDPR. Nowhere does the GDPR mandate popup banners. The GDPR requires notification and consent if a website uses cookies or collects information, right? Seems like a banner is the best way to approach that, so it is kind of mandated indirectly.
      - Propelloni 3y ago
        No, "uses cookies or collects information" is too blanket a statement. The GDPR allows the collection and use of data on six lawful grounds. Five of those do not require consent or even notification. In fact, "consent" is the six justification. Contractual obligations, legal obligations, vital interests, public tasks, and legitimate interests do not require consent. You ask for consent if you collect data you have no legitimate reason to collect in the first place. This should already tell you a lot about those pesky banners. The GDPR "homepage" [1] has a ton of information with regards to this topic. Don't be fooled by those who blame your shitty web browsing experience on the GDPR. It's on them, not the GDPR. [1] https://gdpr.eu/ https://gdpr.eu/
showmypost 3y ago
I would like to quickly share this through my social media channels. A sub-page with pre-made material to spread the word would do it. For example 2-3 Instagram story templates, something for X/Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, …
- vecna 3y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion, yesterday I implemented a way to link directly to each politician's face, i.e.: https://dontspy.eu/x/164/ https://dontspy.eu/x/164/ so it can be easily embedded in social media. It's not "announced" yet and the links aren't embedded in the page yet, I'm testing if the sentence at the top ("The AI Act must protect human rights and work for civil society, not fall into easy concessions to the surveillance ecosystem!") works well or not. About Instagram stories (I'm building a GPT ), which would turn the most complex article into a series of stories. We don't have a graphic designer and we only do social media in a personal capacity, without a real strategy. I'll update here when I do, I guess if the day goes well it would be around midnight GMT. The Don't Spy EU is a very unfunded project with only a few people working on it, with other day jobs. (But I'm very happy about the outpouring of support we've gotten from HackerNews - lots of new politician names have been imported, and lots of pictures too!) For this reason I have really noticed a spike in views and input, it was very important to be seen now that time is running out. if any of you can also share it on reddit or other tech-politics related forums, it would be really helpful!

I used to be worried about face scanning. But sometimes I wonder if it's an inevitable evolution of technology. Which – to be clear – is not support for it, but a question about what is emergent from the new things we create.

rmellow 3y ago
1. Photographs/video might be inevitable: cellphone cameras are ubiquitous, people love to share media and memories; There are strong cases for CCTV for security. however ... 2. Analyzing images for biometric markers and linking it to a database of persons can absolutely be legislated against. 3. One step further, utilizing biometric information for decision making is also very easy to legislate against. Some companies might do these things secretly anyway, but then we have the need for audits and strong enforcement of the law, which is another matter. First step is to get this into legislation.
- repelsteeltje 3y ago
  I agree. This is much like legislation around traditional weapons: Sure, you can't un-invent nuclear physics, gun powder, bows and arrows, knifes, sticks. They are to some level ubiquitous, available to anyone with enough resolve. But that doesn't mean any entrepreneur can decide to produce or hoard large amounts of weapons for personal or commercial gains. In most countries, there are legislative boundaries that make sure the state has monopoly of violence and (preferably democratic) government controls that force. That system of course is still dangerous and fragile, but far better than roving gangs or ultimate power at the hands of commercial organizations...
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    In a lot of countries you are not allowed to just record private conversations with listening devices (and it is not happening as a mass phenomenon), so clearly we can legislate successfully against use of technology.
    - madflame991 3y ago
      What would prevent me from walking around the street or in semi-public places recording non-stop on my phone? Heck, I could have a few phones in my pockets!
      - HowTheStoryEnds 3y ago
        Legislation is not about prevention but about punishment.
      - repelsteeltje 3y ago
        Along the same lines: what would prevent you from using a knife to kill someone and hoping/attempting to make sure that no one notices? Indeed, even though murder is illegal, it still happens. But the law is there to codify that murder is heavily frowned upon. Places where legislation were absent of the law isn't sufficiently effective enforced, tend to have more random violence.
  - riversflow 3y ago
    > This is much like legislation around traditional weapons. The problem with that comparison is that it would be very obvious and noteworthy if Nestle started to drop bombs or hired mercenaries to prey on villages who tried to fight their abusive water practices, or whatever analogous weapons fiction you can imagine to Big Tech abusing their data and resources for invasive spying. People would die and/or be injured, likely property would be destroyed--these are extremely tangible things. Big tech could be using facial recognition for years and fly under the radar. Privacy is essentially intangible.
    - repelsteeltje 3y ago
      That's a very good point. I guess that difference stems from the novelty of privacy invasion "weapons". A bit like attempting to threaten a Roman soldier by pointing a machine gun. It takes time, probably a couple of centuries to build up experience with surveillance to fully grasp the ramifications. But we're also no longer at the unknown-unknown point; we understand that there might be serious problems unless we dial down the pace at which we allow data hoarding. At least some privacy would be preserved if there was a law that said "if you have a legit reason to track people using facial recognition, you must throw away all inferred information after 1 hour". Or some other arbitrary limit. Or a law saying you're liable if your data were ever to leak. Or some other obstacle.
- ben_w 3y ago
  2: governments can legislate against against anything, but this feels like the other side of the same coin as pro cryptographic freedom: you're trying to ban maths. We can, and IMO should, ban this type data use in commercial and party political contexts, but that isn't going to do anything to stop criminals and foreign governments doing these same things for their own commercial and political goals. We need a milieu where we can survive that.
  - rmellow 3y ago
    Agreed, I meant this in a commercial and political context. Banning research is entirely different.
Geee 3y ago
It should also be inevitable that people develop tech for defending themselves as a response. Face masks / face paints might become more popular.
- jjgreen 3y ago
  The laws on that have been in place for 20 years: https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/explainer-palestine-protests/#page-section-20 https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/exp...
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Many (most?) places in the US have outright bans on wearing masks in city/county ordinances, sometimes with exceptions for children or Halloween, sometimes not. Those laws were basically ignored for covid though and I know several people who found masking extremely beneficial for cold weather or allergies and they'll keep masks on hand for those circumstances. No matter how popular that becomes I suspect it'll turn into something that police will enforce selectively whenever it suits them rather than those laws going away.
    - jjgreen 3y ago
      During Covid in many locations in France, it was both illegal and mandatory to wear a face-covering.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> I used to be worried about face scanning. But sometimes I wonder if it's an inevitable evolution of technology. Werent you worried about face scanning precisely because its a seemingly inevitable evolution of technology? The use of “but” is confusing to me. It seems like the reason for being concerned has assuaged your concerns.
kosasbest 3y ago
> I used to be worried about face scanning. But sometimes I wonder if it's an inevitable evolution of technology. The cat's out of the bag. But you can still exercise caution. I remember when that app FaceApp was trending, and everyone wanted to see what they looked like when older, oblivious to the ulterior motives behind the app. Essentially they were building a FR database from user generated content. So, don't feed the beast and don't upload your faceprint to apps every chance you get.

mrweasel 3y ago

The EU is weird. When companies spy on their customers/users it's a 4 million Euro fine, when member states want to track the phones of its citizens it's a human rights violation, but when the EU it self wants something similar or worse it's a question of safety.

Lolaccount 3y ago
2 out of 3 with room for improvement. I'll take it compared to some places I've been.
mrtksn 3y ago
EU is not something different than the member states, it's %100 made of (elected) or (appointed by the elected) from the member states. So the appointed by the elected will consult with the elected and come up(or already came up) with a proposal and the elected will vote on it. This website is made by some interest groups(both from Italy) that want to pressure the elected to reject a certain proposal. Nothing weird really, just politics of a democracy in action. If you agree with the position of these interest groups you can support them, if you don't care you can ignore them or if you disagree you can start a counter campaign.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
  I wish it was so simple, there are a bunch of different bodies; only the parlement is directly voted in. Especially the EU commmision the most powerful part are picked by the 27 leaders. Consequence is lot of deal making and influence by main countries France & Germany; and no direct responsiblity to citizens. It's not all bad, but also not all great.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    And those 27 leaders come into power how? Winning the lottery or finding a coucher in their breakfast cereals?
    - 3y ago

karmakaze 3y ago

Am I missing something? This sample page[0] doesn't look scary at all, and I can't see it swaying anyone's opinion: [0] https://dontspy.eu/country/#Germany https://dontspy.eu/country/#Germany

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
vecna 3y ago
The aim of this project/campaign is not to be scary, but to raise awareness among policy makers and citizens. This is the background I want to highlight: 1. the first political fight is about the ban of real-time identification in public spaces. that's the dystopian scenario that nobody wants, and that's why we participated in the creation of https://reclaimyourface.eu https://reclaimyourface.eu in 2019. 2. the second (not because it's less important, but because it comes later chronologically) is not to let the monopolists get stronger roots. Both have their complexities, and the European Parliament made something OK for 1 and 2, now the Council of European Ministries is screwing up both. The ethical arguments: (i) massive biometric surveillance is bad in itself, (ii) the models are trained on biometric data collected without consent, (iii) and this is also fundamental to building the deepfakes (because the GNA discriminator uses a constant biometric comparison). Even if there are three reasons, the Council is saying "Dear Parliament, no, we want facial recognition and unregulated foundation model". So, DontSpyEU try to explain the related parts with a little prankish attitude, (and, btw, Microsoft lobbyists are just pushing their solutions, which are only meant to consolidate their monopoly)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

nosajio 3y ago

It's already pretty easy to spin up a facial recognition model, and it's likely that facial recognition will be an emergent property of multi-modal modals like GPT4/Dall-E. How would the EU enforce a multinational ban on facial recognition or biometric pattern recognition?

PrimeMcFly 3y ago
Probably with an annoying popup banner on every page.
- Propelloni 3y ago
  I appreciate the humor. But in case there is a misconception at the root of this quip, I still have to point out that the annoying popup banners on every page are on the page owners, not the EU or the GDPR. Nowhere does the GDPR mandate popup banners. Banners are just the lazy answer to a very people-friendly law by an economy addicted to surveillance.
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    > I still have to point out that the annoying popup banners on every page are on the page owners, not the EU or the GDPR. Nowhere does the GDPR mandate popup banners.I still have to point out that the annoying popup banners on every page are on the page owners, not the EU or the GDPR. Nowhere does the GDPR mandate popup banners. The GDPR requires notification and consent if a website uses cookies or collects information, right? Seems like a banner is the best way to approach that, so it is kind of mandated indirectly.
    - Propelloni 3y ago
      No, "uses cookies or collects information" is too blanket a statement. The GDPR allows the collection and use of data on six lawful grounds. Five of those do not require consent or even notification. In fact, "consent" is the six justification. Contractual obligations, legal obligations, vital interests, public tasks, and legitimate interests do not require consent. You ask for consent if you collect data you have no legitimate reason to collect in the first place. This should already tell you a lot about those pesky banners. The GDPR "homepage" [1] has a ton of information with regards to this topic. Don't be fooled by those who blame your shitty web browsing experience on the GDPR. It's on them, not the GDPR. [1] https://gdpr.eu/ https://gdpr.eu/

showmypost 3y ago

I would like to quickly share this through my social media channels. A sub-page with pre-made material to spread the word would do it. For example 2-3 Instagram story templates, something for X/Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, …

vecna 3y ago
Thanks for the suggestion, yesterday I implemented a way to link directly to each politician's face, i.e.: https://dontspy.eu/x/164/ https://dontspy.eu/x/164/ so it can be easily embedded in social media. It's not "announced" yet and the links aren't embedded in the page yet, I'm testing if the sentence at the top ("The AI Act must protect human rights and work for civil society, not fall into easy concessions to the surveillance ecosystem!") works well or not. About Instagram stories (I'm building a GPT ), which would turn the most complex article into a series of stories. We don't have a graphic designer and we only do social media in a personal capacity, without a real strategy. I'll update here when I do, I guess if the day goes well it would be around midnight GMT. The Don't Spy EU is a very unfunded project with only a few people working on it, with other day jobs. (But I'm very happy about the outpouring of support we've gotten from HackerNews - lots of new politician names have been imported, and lots of pictures too!) For this reason I have really noticed a spike in views and input, it was very important to be seen now that time is running out. if any of you can also share it on reddit or other tech-politics related forums, it would be really helpful!