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We may need laws that treat these cameras as something like a wiretap. They can be there streaming their data to data stores, but accessing that data would req
by beloch 1y ago
We may need laws that treat these cameras as something like a wiretap. They can be there streaming their data to data stores, but accessing that data would require warrants that are limited in scope. The data could be used for answering specific, legally justifiable questions, not for everyday surveillance and profiling.
e.g. It would be valid to use these cameras to answer who was at a crime scene, when, and where did they go that day. It would not be valid to reconstruct a web of everyday associations stretching back months for someone just because an officer didn't like the way they look.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoI think we need to understand and accept that this stuff is inevitable as the technology gets cheaper. If the cops don’t do it themselves, private industry will do it for them and sell it or hand the data over as a “public service.” The only way out of this is to make an affirmative series of laws that make the construction of anything resembling a tracking database illegal and heavily-fined, but we’re not there. Even privacy-friendly Europe isn’t close to putting those restrictions on its police.
- dylan604 1y agoNo private industry will do anything without it being profitable. Handing it over as a public service would mean they are making money with that data in other ways. What would be those other ways? I can't think of anything that's not dystopian hell, so maybe to make that not legal???
- matthewdgreen 1y agoThe answer is that these databases are hugely valuable for targeted advertising and marketing, and if they’re relatively cheap to build then that makes everything even easier. Law enforcement gets access because in most countries the law allows them to make data requests to existing companies, and “we aren’t going to help the cops solve a murder” is bad PR when you’ve already collected the relevant data.
- amy214 1y ago"let me put this vending machine in your store, you get a cut" "let me put this camera in your store, you get $XX/month and security" Just do that in stores in high traffic areas. Now you've got a big dataset. Overlap with location data to put a name to the face. Scifi has long seen this eg big brother eg minority reports
- BirAdam 1y agoSufficient tax breaks would likely do it.
- b112 1y agoThis has already happened, and the police and others pay for access.
- spwa4 1y agoThe police and government are also how they get permission, at least in London, so using law to prevent this ... doesn't seem like it'll be possible. Although it does seem relevant. Given that these models run easily on phones 2 generations old (that's what they use in pubs, and if they use it in pubs, they use it everywhere), how will you stop it, even if you do get a law against it?
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://www.flocksafety.com/devices/flock-nova https://www.flocksafety.com/devices/flock-nova https://www.flocksafety.com/articles/flock-safety-secures-major-funding https://www.flocksafety.com/articles/flock-safety-secures-ma...
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoMaybe the company contacts the people they've identified at a crime scene and offer them anonymity for a price. The police then only get details of the identified people who haven't paid.
- bradknowles 1y agoVCs and PE will fund anything, especially if someone like Peter Thiel tells them that Palantir will make trillions of dollars selling this information to their bestest buddies in all the governments that they own.
- mikrotikker 1y agoThe Inland Revenue Dept in NZ sold the data on its citizens to Facebook. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/532905/ird-to-stop-sharing-taxpayers-details-with-social-media-platforms-following-backlash https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/532905/ird-to-stop-shari...
- cluckindan 1y ago> private industry will do it for them and sell it This is already how it works in many cities.
- causality0 1y agoOne of the inevitable consequences of the legal conceit that images belong to the person who owns the camera, not the person who owns the face.
- ghaff 1y agoPeople do have publicity rights for their image being used in some contexts such as an advertisement. But not sure what rights to your image would even look like in the context of random public photographs or video in general.
- pilingual 1y agoFirst, in the US this type of thing violates the fourth amendment as the Institute for Justice will prove in court with ALPRs. It could be set up such that it does not, but for whatever reason these companies are greedy and make it broad rather than narrow in scope. Second, I just won't patronize your establishment, shopping center, or municipality if you do. I'd like to go to the UK, but because of this policy I will not. Menlo Park pushed back against ALPRs: I'll go there. I went to a different ski shop because the one closest to me has an ALPR. And so on.
- microsoftedging 1y agoGenuine question, what's wrong with ALPR? (Coming from someone in the UK)
- alasarmas 1y agoSo, this may be different in the UK, but in the US a large majority of travel occurs in private cars, so omnipresence of ALPRs is close to collecting data on everybody and knowing what everybody is doing at all times. One might assume from a game-theoretical perspective that this is no different from living in a village where essentially everyone knows everyone’s business, and the knowledge that that knowledge is mutual prevents people from acting badly with the information that they have. However, in the situation where a small minority of people have knowledge about everyone else, and not vice versa, this can give that minority unearned power over everyone else. In practice, it doesn’t feel great. I hope this answered your question.
- walterbell 1y agoReconstruction of social networks via physical movement metadata. At the fictional extreme, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43817664#43818003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43817664#43818003 No shortage of non-fictional steps along that path.
- pilingual 1y agoThere are two key concerns: 1. Data is retained by a handful of companies. If it is leaked, you'll have a lot of information on people that is suddenly fair game for anyone including insurance companies, PI, home invaders. 2. In the US, I'm not concerned about local government as much as federal when it comes to the fourth amendment. Suppose you have a rogue potus. He sends the national guard in to Atlanta, Chicago, and Downingtown to take over the systems of these companies. Now you say, "well I'll just remove my license plate!" But these companies are cataloguing make, model, color, bumper stickers, dents; so you can take off your plate in a situation like that but they are going to still be able to track you with a high degree of certainty. People were shocked by South Korea declaring martial law -- we've become so spoiled taking these essential laws for granted. (Sorry I don't know enough about British law.) If they don't send all license plate data to the internet there isn't an issue. But they do.
- BurningFrog 1y agoI think random hobbyists would get into this pretty soon, as the cost approaches zero. There is no (good) way to stop things that are that easy to do.
- dghlsakjg 1y agoYou can do this with a raspi and a cheap security camera using open source software. It is effectively already free. I’m sort of curious why people haven’t already done this, when user fed tracking networks for planes and boats exist. Presumably the much more clear invasion of privacy is a part of it.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoIt's really only interesting if you have access to camera footage from lots of places, as well as some means to tie faces back to their identities. Every social media company has this already, and probably loads of downstream parties are getting some version of it as well.
- EasyMark 1y agoYou make it punishable with heavy fines and long prison sentences as a deterant.
- BurningFrog 1y agoThe War On Drugs has done that for half a century.
- haswell 1y agoApples and oranges I think. Drugs are deeply rooted in culture and humans are drawn to altered states of consciousness. Modern surveillance tech isn’t rooted in the same biological or cultural factors, and enforcing laws about its use seems unlikely to suffer from the same issues brought on by the war on drugs.
- EasyMark 1y ago
- like_any_other 1y agoThat was the NSAs legal theory, wasn't it? That they can collect all the data they want, but it only counts as "wiretapping" when a human looks at it. It's a theory that turns my stomach, frankly.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- almosthere 1y agoTurns out judges are for sale too
- rangestransform 1y agoWe need laws that restrict the tech that police can use in public to the same tech that existed when Katz v. USA was decided (no expectation of privacy in public), only film cameras for public surveillance
- EasyMark 1y agowe shoudl have had them in place 20 years ago and an "anti Patriot act" meant to prevent police or government following us around with cameras; it only gets easier as tech gets faster and cameras more universal. This is the stasi's wet dream and that should tell one all they need to know about why public surveillance by the government is a truly awful terrible no-very-good idea.