5 ms·

Why shouldn't they? There is no issue of search or seizure here. Unless you never step outside your home, you should have no expectation that your face's featur

Why shouldn't they? There is no issue of search or seizure here. Unless you never step outside your home, you should have no expectation that your face's features are private.

mistercow 13y ago
There's no clear Constitutional objection here. But there is the prosecutor's fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy Basically, it's the same problem as with "cold hits" and DNA testing.
- mjn 13y ago
  There is also an issue of things that are individually expected turning into an unexpected, and possibly undesired, result through technologically enabled cross-referencing. For example, if you combine face-recognition, driver's license databases, and feeds from public security cameras, you can (albeit currently with quite a bit of error) track someone's movements around town. All of the individual components are reasonably expected. But people traditionally don't expect the result: the state having a map of everywhere they went today, without having to get a warrant to attach a tracking device or to subpoena mobile-phone records. Whether this should matter legally seems a bit up in the air. The position that it should is sometimes called the "mosaic theory" of the 4th amendment: http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    I do not like that theory of the fourth amendment. I am neither lawyer nor historian, but what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence. (Hence why seizure was highlighted.) Some of the other amendments, like the third, were also to remedy specific, recent abuses. Which is not to dispute the fourth's broader (and good) applicability, but I would wonder what the justification is for broadening it that much. The purpose of the amendment is not to give criminals a certain minimum chance of avoiding detection by making it hard to collect evidence. That is just an incidental result. So long as such monitoring is not used as a means to stifle legal dissent, I have no objection to it. My 2c. That said, I'm not a strict constitutionalist. The law should reflect the good of the people now, not just what guys thought a long time ago. If it does more harm than good, the mosaic theory maybe should prevail.
    - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
      >what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence. The problem in this case is that allowing this type of surveillance allows the state to use the prosecutor's office as a means of harassment. It allows the state to choose who to prosecute first and then go through the intended defendant's recorded life history in order to find the offense. And since no one is a saint (and no one knows all of the laws), the result is that whether anyone goes to prison or not becomes solely a matter of prosecutorial discretion, since everyone is guilty of something and now they can prove it.
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        There are plenty of things that the state could use to make a person's life miserable if it was malicious. To me, that some capability could be used that way is insufficient reason to restrict the state from the capability.
        AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        >To me, that some capability could be used that way is insufficient reason to restrict the state from the capability. Forgive me for thinking that sounds a little naive. That argument could be used to support the repeal of the entire bill of rights and the separation of powers. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The whole idea of a constitution is to place restrictions on government power in order to limit as much as possible the amount of damage that can occur when the government is corrupt or incompetent. There are comparatively huge advantages to a government run by a competent Benevolent Dictator. The problem is that in practice dictators tend to be not so benevolent.
        jamesaguilar 13y ago
        I think you have misread me. The protections in the bill of rights protect against actions which inherently overreach, because their violation had a people directly. Passive tracking of people only overreaches if it is used to harm.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    That is a very good point, and the result of that feeds back into the prosecutor's fallacy. If you have plotted the routes of a million people traveling through a city, and there is an incident (let's say a bombing at a stadium), then you could "cold hit" someone from that database of routes to find someone with a movement pattern that appears to suspiciously correlate with the bombing, but is in fact just one of a few hundred people with similar movement patterns (only one or two of whom were actually involved). Then you link that to the person having demonstrated at a couple of, say, animal rights protests, get a few neighbors who say that the guy was "weird" and "acted strangely", and bam - you have what looks like an open and shut case of a radical animal liberation terrorist, but is in fact just a vegan who happened to pick up some gardening supplies at a Home Depot and a Pike's Nursery two days before going to a baseball game.
cantrevealname 13y ago
> Why shouldn't they? Because the purpose of getting a driver's license is to prove ability to drive. We gave the DMV our photo and personal information for that purpose only.
- tghw 13y ago
  It is also a primary means of identification. What does your photo have to do with your driving ability?
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    Presumably the photo helps pin the ID card to the person it is intended for.
  - mc32 13y ago
    Some (most?) states require fingerprints. They have nothing to do with driving ability and all to do with providing a way for investigators to match prints from a crime/investigation scene with state/fed records. Another non-driving related item is motor-voter. They take your information and FWD it to the election officials to get more people involved in elections.
pasbesoin 13y ago
You go to a peaceful protest. An agent records you or pulls fixed camera surveillance. Now you are a "person of interest". We already know law enforcement is recording these events. But wait, you might not even have attended the event. You might have been walking to your job, your home, going shopping, meeting a friend. Tant pis pour toi... Perhaps my comment sounds over the top. But when the TSA (or, the real three letter acronyms behind it) can't even effectively maintain its no-fly list, particularly with respect to ruling out and removing false positives, or even having a policy and public interface for addressing this... Well, for one, my confidence is not particularly inspired.

Why shouldn't they? There is no issue of search or seizure here. Unless you never step outside your home, you should have no expectation that your face's features are private.

mistercow 13y ago

There's no clear Constitutional objection here. But there is the prosecutor's fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy Basically, it's the same problem as with "cold hits" and DNA testing.

mjn 13y ago
There is also an issue of things that are individually expected turning into an unexpected, and possibly undesired, result through technologically enabled cross-referencing. For example, if you combine face-recognition, driver's license databases, and feeds from public security cameras, you can (albeit currently with quite a bit of error) track someone's movements around town. All of the individual components are reasonably expected. But people traditionally don't expect the result: the state having a map of everywhere they went today, without having to get a warrant to attach a tracking device or to subpoena mobile-phone records. Whether this should matter legally seems a bit up in the air. The position that it should is sometimes called the "mosaic theory" of the 4th amendment: http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  I do not like that theory of the fourth amendment. I am neither lawyer nor historian, but what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence. (Hence why seizure was highlighted.) Some of the other amendments, like the third, were also to remedy specific, recent abuses. Which is not to dispute the fourth's broader (and good) applicability, but I would wonder what the justification is for broadening it that much. The purpose of the amendment is not to give criminals a certain minimum chance of avoiding detection by making it hard to collect evidence. That is just an incidental result. So long as such monitoring is not used as a means to stifle legal dissent, I have no objection to it. My 2c. That said, I'm not a strict constitutionalist. The law should reflect the good of the people now, not just what guys thought a long time ago. If it does more harm than good, the mosaic theory maybe should prevail.
  - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
    >what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence. The problem in this case is that allowing this type of surveillance allows the state to use the prosecutor's office as a means of harassment. It allows the state to choose who to prosecute first and then go through the intended defendant's recorded life history in order to find the offense. And since no one is a saint (and no one knows all of the laws), the result is that whether anyone goes to prison or not becomes solely a matter of prosecutorial discretion, since everyone is guilty of something and now they can prove it.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      There are plenty of things that the state could use to make a person's life miserable if it was malicious. To me, that some capability could be used that way is insufficient reason to restrict the state from the capability.
      - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        >To me, that some capability could be used that way is insufficient reason to restrict the state from the capability. Forgive me for thinking that sounds a little naive. That argument could be used to support the repeal of the entire bill of rights and the separation of powers. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The whole idea of a constitution is to place restrictions on government power in order to limit as much as possible the amount of damage that can occur when the government is corrupt or incompetent. There are comparatively huge advantages to a government run by a competent Benevolent Dictator. The problem is that in practice dictators tend to be not so benevolent.
        jamesaguilar 13y ago
        I think you have misread me. The protections in the bill of rights protect against actions which inherently overreach, because their violation had a people directly. Passive tracking of people only overreaches if it is used to harm.
- mistercow 13y ago
  That is a very good point, and the result of that feeds back into the prosecutor's fallacy. If you have plotted the routes of a million people traveling through a city, and there is an incident (let's say a bombing at a stadium), then you could "cold hit" someone from that database of routes to find someone with a movement pattern that appears to suspiciously correlate with the bombing, but is in fact just one of a few hundred people with similar movement patterns (only one or two of whom were actually involved). Then you link that to the person having demonstrated at a couple of, say, animal rights protests, get a few neighbors who say that the guy was "weird" and "acted strangely", and bam - you have what looks like an open and shut case of a radical animal liberation terrorist, but is in fact just a vegan who happened to pick up some gardening supplies at a Home Depot and a Pike's Nursery two days before going to a baseball game.

cantrevealname 13y ago

> Why shouldn't they? Because the purpose of getting a driver's license is to prove ability to drive. We gave the DMV our photo and personal information for that purpose only.

tghw 13y ago
It is also a primary means of identification. What does your photo have to do with your driving ability?
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Presumably the photo helps pin the ID card to the person it is intended for.
- mc32 13y ago
  Some (most?) states require fingerprints. They have nothing to do with driving ability and all to do with providing a way for investigators to match prints from a crime/investigation scene with state/fed records. Another non-driving related item is motor-voter. They take your information and FWD it to the election officials to get more people involved in elections.

pasbesoin 13y ago

You go to a peaceful protest. An agent records you or pulls fixed camera surveillance. Now you are a "person of interest". We already know law enforcement is recording these events. But wait, you might not even have attended the event. You might have been walking to your job, your home, going shopping, meeting a friend. Tant pis pour toi... Perhaps my comment sounds over the top. But when the TSA (or, the real three letter acronyms behind it) can't even effectively maintain its no-fly list, particularly with respect to ruling out and removing false positives, or even having a policy and public interface for addressing this... Well, for one, my confidence is not particularly inspired.