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Google and Facebook both have facial recognition technology and the infrastructure to handle this amount of data easily, one of them should step up. It would pr

Google and Facebook both have facial recognition technology and the infrastructure to handle this amount of data easily, one of them should step up. It would probably be good PR.

tseabrooks 14y ago
I find the idea that the Federal authorities don't already have the technology and infrastructure necessary themselves somewhat laughable / unbelievable. Am I way off base here?
- wavesounds 14y ago
  They probably have the facial recognition tech, but they probably dont have the Web stuff setup so people can just drag and drop their pics to a service that automatically sorts through them and stores them intelligently. Heck, Google/FB probably wouldn't even have to ask people to upload photos they could just ask them if they can use the photos they've already uploaded. Heck, they probably wouldn't even need to ask. Heck, they are probably doing this for the FBI already and not telling anyone :-/ EDIT: Apparently you can email your photos to the FBI if anyone reading this has anything they think is useful: Boston@ic.fbi.gov
- danso 14y ago
  Yes you are. Have you been to a police station lately, like as a witness or a victim, and have had your information processed? Here's a very telling example that happened a few weeks ago in NYC, with arguably the most advanced police force in the nation (NYPD). A woman was violently beaten and robbed in a subway station. The mugger was wearing a fraternity jacket with his nickname that, if you entered it into Facebook, you would've found his public facebook page full of photos of him wearing that jacket. The police took a month to release this brutal video. It took commenters on Gawker, of all places, to doxx this guy on Facebook, who ended up getting charged with the crime. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=9053236 http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators... Do not assume anything about the technological capability of law enforcement.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    You are conflating level of interest with technological capabilities.
    - danso 14y ago
      No, I'm not. Violent muggings are not a backlog type of crime for the NYPD because they do not want a serial robber running around. You're right that high-profile crimes will bring in new technology and capabilities, but if the infrastructure isn't there (i.e. the tech skills of the officers in the field and in the office), then it's not a given that the processing of mass digital information is going to be smooth.
danso 14y ago
Actually, the PR can be quite bad because the immediate goodwill that comes from whatever help they can provide to the cops will eventually, over time, be superseded by the growing suspicion that these data giants are in league with police authorities, which is generally an impression that data companies do not want to embrace. News organizations have dealt with this conflict for a long time. In any given reportage of a crime scene, news orgs have hours of footage and rolls of film...however, news orgs will, in my experience, almost never just hand police this information, even under threat of subpoena. Why? Because the news orgs are meant to be completely independent of the state. It's not just an ideological stance, but has practical implications: at my college newspaper, the police demanded to see the photos we took of a riot that we didn't publish, and we declined. The photos we took were possible because people don't see us as collaborators with police. However, if the press is suspected as an arm of the police, then a press photographer is going to get punched in the face at the next riot.

Google and Facebook both have facial recognition technology and the infrastructure to handle this amount of data easily, one of them should step up. It would probably be good PR.

tseabrooks 14y ago

I find the idea that the Federal authorities don't already have the technology and infrastructure necessary themselves somewhat laughable / unbelievable. Am I way off base here?

wavesounds 14y ago
They probably have the facial recognition tech, but they probably dont have the Web stuff setup so people can just drag and drop their pics to a service that automatically sorts through them and stores them intelligently. Heck, Google/FB probably wouldn't even have to ask people to upload photos they could just ask them if they can use the photos they've already uploaded. Heck, they probably wouldn't even need to ask. Heck, they are probably doing this for the FBI already and not telling anyone :-/ EDIT: Apparently you can email your photos to the FBI if anyone reading this has anything they think is useful: Boston@ic.fbi.gov
danso 14y ago
Yes you are. Have you been to a police station lately, like as a witness or a victim, and have had your information processed? Here's a very telling example that happened a few weeks ago in NYC, with arguably the most advanced police force in the nation (NYPD). A woman was violently beaten and robbed in a subway station. The mugger was wearing a fraternity jacket with his nickname that, if you entered it into Facebook, you would've found his public facebook page full of photos of him wearing that jacket. The police took a month to release this brutal video. It took commenters on Gawker, of all places, to doxx this guy on Facebook, who ended up getting charged with the crime. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=9053236 http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators... Do not assume anything about the technological capability of law enforcement.
- Evbn 14y ago
  You are conflating level of interest with technological capabilities.
  - danso 14y ago
    No, I'm not. Violent muggings are not a backlog type of crime for the NYPD because they do not want a serial robber running around. You're right that high-profile crimes will bring in new technology and capabilities, but if the infrastructure isn't there (i.e. the tech skills of the officers in the field and in the office), then it's not a given that the processing of mass digital information is going to be smooth.

danso 14y ago

Actually, the PR can be quite bad because the immediate goodwill that comes from whatever help they can provide to the cops will eventually, over time, be superseded by the growing suspicion that these data giants are in league with police authorities, which is generally an impression that data companies do not want to embrace. News organizations have dealt with this conflict for a long time. In any given reportage of a crime scene, news orgs have hours of footage and rolls of film...however, news orgs will, in my experience, almost never just hand police this information, even under threat of subpoena. Why? Because the news orgs are meant to be completely independent of the state. It's not just an ideological stance, but has practical implications: at my college newspaper, the police demanded to see the photos we took of a riot that we didn't publish, and we declined. The photos we took were possible because people don't see us as collaborators with police. However, if the press is suspected as an arm of the police, then a press photographer is going to get punched in the face at the next riot.