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> They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos - to see if Lucy was in any o

> They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos - to see if Lucy was in any of them. But Facebook, despite having facial recognition technology, said it "did not have the tools" to help. Willing to bet my life savings that they are able to do exactly this when the goal is to create shadow profiles or maximize some metric.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
garbawarb 8mo ago
> From that list of 40 or 50 people, it was easy to find and trawl their social media. And that is when they found a photo of Lucy on Facebook with an adult who looked as though she was close to the girl - possibly a relative. It sounds like Facebook was a huge boost to the investigation despite that.
- defrost 8mo ago
  Facebook did nothing to assist in narrowing a search area. What Facebook actually did was host images .. so that after the team narrowed a list down to under 100 people they could look through profiles by hand. It may as well have been searching Flickr, Instagram, Etsy, etc. profiles by hand.
  - garbawarb 8mo ago
    Yes, and if Facebook didn't exist, presumably these images connecting the abuser to the victim wouldn't have been available anywhere for the investigators to find.
    - jmye 8mo ago
      If Facebook didn’t exist, they would’ve found the photos on MySpace. Come on. All Facebook likely did here that was any different than any other social media platform would have done, was gather Sandberg, Zuck and a cadre of snotty, sniveling engineers in a conference room and debate whether this was good engagement for the platform.
1024core 8mo ago
Facial recognition is very powerful these days. My friend took a photo of his kid at the top of Twin Peaks in SF, with the city in the background. Unfortunately, due to the angle, you could barely see the eyes and a portion of the nose of the kid. Android was still able to tag the kid. I feel like Facebook really dropped the ball here. It is obvious that Squire and colleagues are working for the Law Enforcement. If FB was concerned about privacy, they could have asked them to get a judicial warrant to perform a broad search. But they didn't. And Lucy continued to be abused for months after that. I hope when Zuck is lying on his death bed, he gets to think about these choices that he has made.
- Onavo 8mo ago
  When people on hacker News talk about requiring cops to do traditional police work instead of doing wide ranging trawls using technology, this is exactly what they meant. I hope you don't complain when the future you want becomes reality and the three letter agencies come knocking down your door just because you happened to be in the same building as a crime in progress and the machine learning algorithms determined your location via cellular logs and labelled you as a criminal.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 8mo ago
    There’s a pretty big difference between surveillance logging your every move your and scanning photos voluntarily uploaded to Facebook. No, I don’t like Facebook using facial recognition technology, and no I don’t like that someone else can upload photos of me without my consent (which ironically could leverage facial recognition technology to blanket prevent), but these are other technical and social issues that are unrelated to the root issue. I also wish there were clear political and legal boundaries around surveillance usage for truly abhorrent behaviour versus your non-Caucasian neighbour maybe j -walking triggering a visit from ICE. Yes, it’s an abuse of power for these organisations to collect data these ways, but I’m not against their use to prevent literal ongoing child abuse, it’s one of the least worst uses of it.
  - wat10000 8mo ago
    The grim meathook future of ubiquitous surveillance is coming regardless. At the very least we could get some proper crime solving out of it along the way.
Aurornis 8mo ago
Facebook shut down their facial recognition program in 2021 and deleted the data in response to public frustrations. It’s really sad now to see people getting angry at Facebook not having facial recognition technology.
- Beestie 8mo ago
  I can't help but notice the exact wording of FB's response - or rather what they didn't say. If someone asks me to do them a favor, I have basically three options for a reply: • I can and I will; • I can but I won't; or • I am not able to. FB's answer was not option 3. I think a more plausible explanation is that FB did not want to set a precedent of being the facial recog avenue of choice for the Fed.
  - fc417fc802 8mo ago
    There's another option "I will but only if ..." which is what Facebook rightfully went with. Come back with a warrant is _always_ the correct answer when dealing with LE.
  - mnw21cam 8mo ago
    A fourth option is "I can and I will, but only after certain prerequisites are met - go away and meet them first", which looks to me what they were saying.
- itishappy 8mo ago
  The two views aren't necessarily in conflict. I don't appreciate Facebook's use of facial recognition technology, but they built it. I'm extremely disappointed they proceeded to use this technology to influence elections while fighting against making the data available to law enforcement. I understand this may not have been intentional on their part, but the result is the same, and I was not at all surprised by it.
dotancohen 8mo ago
The fine article actually ends with this text: > The BBC asked Facebook why it couldn't use its facial recognition technology to assist the hunt for Lucy. It responded: "To protect user privacy, it's important that we follow the appropriate legal process, but we work to support law enforcement as much as we can."
- smotched 8mo ago
  just remember even the patriot act started with good intentions, to get justice.
  - joquarky 8mo ago
    At the time that act was passed, many people pointed out that it would be abused.
- Dylan16807 8mo ago
  You don't need to imply they didn't read that part, because it doesn't really affect the point of the comment, that Facebook doesn't actually care about privacy. Even if they're not sharing things willy-nilly, they're still aggressively tracking everyone they can.
DangitBobby 8mo ago
It seems to me that the BBC is including those passages at the beginning and end of their story as propaganda so the public begs (demands, even) for more surveillance, and the sale of private data to the government. I mean, think of the children, like Lucy! Seems to be having that effect in this thread, in any case.
- christoph 8mo ago
  It’s absolutely propaganda and a perfect example of how the public gets manipulated on a daily basis. Let’s break down the facts: - Pushes for facial recognition - Pushes for more state run surveillance - Pushes for AI based surveillance - Pushes for greater data collection, access & mining - Legitimises it all under the classic “save the kids” meme and pushes emotionally hard for more. The main issues i’ve seen discussed on HN the last couple of months have been critical of the never ending and increasing government surveillance. Both sides of the pond. This is their answer. Simultaneously we’re hearing about how almost anybody and everybody beyond a level of power was well aware of industial level sex trafficking and abuse, and either totally turned a blind eye or joined in. The article might carry some weight if it wasn’t from an authoritarian state backed organisation that’s very well known for covering up for, and protecting multiple famous high level sexual criminals within it’s own organisation, spanning multiple decades, that has never faced any real audit, investigation or justice for its own crimes.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

garbawarb 8mo ago

> From that list of 40 or 50 people, it was easy to find and trawl their social media. And that is when they found a photo of Lucy on Facebook with an adult who looked as though she was close to the girl - possibly a relative. It sounds like Facebook was a huge boost to the investigation despite that.

defrost 8mo ago
Facebook did nothing to assist in narrowing a search area. What Facebook actually did was host images .. so that after the team narrowed a list down to under 100 people they could look through profiles by hand. It may as well have been searching Flickr, Instagram, Etsy, etc. profiles by hand.
- garbawarb 8mo ago
  Yes, and if Facebook didn't exist, presumably these images connecting the abuser to the victim wouldn't have been available anywhere for the investigators to find.
  - jmye 8mo ago
    If Facebook didn’t exist, they would’ve found the photos on MySpace. Come on. All Facebook likely did here that was any different than any other social media platform would have done, was gather Sandberg, Zuck and a cadre of snotty, sniveling engineers in a conference room and debate whether this was good engagement for the platform.

1024core 8mo ago

Facial recognition is very powerful these days. My friend took a photo of his kid at the top of Twin Peaks in SF, with the city in the background. Unfortunately, due to the angle, you could barely see the eyes and a portion of the nose of the kid. Android was still able to tag the kid. I feel like Facebook really dropped the ball here. It is obvious that Squire and colleagues are working for the Law Enforcement. If FB was concerned about privacy, they could have asked them to get a judicial warrant to perform a broad search. But they didn't. And Lucy continued to be abused for months after that. I hope when Zuck is lying on his death bed, he gets to think about these choices that he has made.

Onavo 8mo ago
When people on hacker News talk about requiring cops to do traditional police work instead of doing wide ranging trawls using technology, this is exactly what they meant. I hope you don't complain when the future you want becomes reality and the three letter agencies come knocking down your door just because you happened to be in the same building as a crime in progress and the machine learning algorithms determined your location via cellular logs and labelled you as a criminal.
- hsbauauvhabzb 8mo ago
  There’s a pretty big difference between surveillance logging your every move your and scanning photos voluntarily uploaded to Facebook. No, I don’t like Facebook using facial recognition technology, and no I don’t like that someone else can upload photos of me without my consent (which ironically could leverage facial recognition technology to blanket prevent), but these are other technical and social issues that are unrelated to the root issue. I also wish there were clear political and legal boundaries around surveillance usage for truly abhorrent behaviour versus your non-Caucasian neighbour maybe j -walking triggering a visit from ICE. Yes, it’s an abuse of power for these organisations to collect data these ways, but I’m not against their use to prevent literal ongoing child abuse, it’s one of the least worst uses of it.
- wat10000 8mo ago
  The grim meathook future of ubiquitous surveillance is coming regardless. At the very least we could get some proper crime solving out of it along the way.

Aurornis 8mo ago

Facebook shut down their facial recognition program in 2021 and deleted the data in response to public frustrations. It’s really sad now to see people getting angry at Facebook not having facial recognition technology.

Beestie 8mo ago
I can't help but notice the exact wording of FB's response - or rather what they didn't say. If someone asks me to do them a favor, I have basically three options for a reply: • I can and I will; • I can but I won't; or • I am not able to. FB's answer was not option 3. I think a more plausible explanation is that FB did not want to set a precedent of being the facial recog avenue of choice for the Fed.
- fc417fc802 8mo ago
  There's another option "I will but only if ..." which is what Facebook rightfully went with. Come back with a warrant is _always_ the correct answer when dealing with LE.
- mnw21cam 8mo ago
  A fourth option is "I can and I will, but only after certain prerequisites are met - go away and meet them first", which looks to me what they were saying.
itishappy 8mo ago
The two views aren't necessarily in conflict. I don't appreciate Facebook's use of facial recognition technology, but they built it. I'm extremely disappointed they proceeded to use this technology to influence elections while fighting against making the data available to law enforcement. I understand this may not have been intentional on their part, but the result is the same, and I was not at all surprised by it.

dotancohen 8mo ago

The fine article actually ends with this text: > The BBC asked Facebook why it couldn't use its facial recognition technology to assist the hunt for Lucy. It responded: "To protect user privacy, it's important that we follow the appropriate legal process, but we work to support law enforcement as much as we can."

smotched 8mo ago
just remember even the patriot act started with good intentions, to get justice.
- joquarky 8mo ago
  At the time that act was passed, many people pointed out that it would be abused.
Dylan16807 8mo ago
You don't need to imply they didn't read that part, because it doesn't really affect the point of the comment, that Facebook doesn't actually care about privacy. Even if they're not sharing things willy-nilly, they're still aggressively tracking everyone they can.

DangitBobby 8mo ago

It seems to me that the BBC is including those passages at the beginning and end of their story as propaganda so the public begs (demands, even) for more surveillance, and the sale of private data to the government. I mean, think of the children, like Lucy! Seems to be having that effect in this thread, in any case.

christoph 8mo ago
It’s absolutely propaganda and a perfect example of how the public gets manipulated on a daily basis. Let’s break down the facts: - Pushes for facial recognition - Pushes for more state run surveillance - Pushes for AI based surveillance - Pushes for greater data collection, access & mining - Legitimises it all under the classic “save the kids” meme and pushes emotionally hard for more. The main issues i’ve seen discussed on HN the last couple of months have been critical of the never ending and increasing government surveillance. Both sides of the pond. This is their answer. Simultaneously we’re hearing about how almost anybody and everybody beyond a level of power was well aware of industial level sex trafficking and abuse, and either totally turned a blind eye or joined in. The article might carry some weight if it wasn’t from an authoritarian state backed organisation that’s very well known for covering up for, and protecting multiple famous high level sexual criminals within it’s own organisation, spanning multiple decades, that has never faced any real audit, investigation or justice for its own crimes.