We didn’t wait for gun confiscation to secure airports.
We didn’t wait for gun confiscation to secure federal and state buildings.
Or MLB baseball games.
So why are we waiting and delaying the proper security of schools - thinking that can wait until all guns are confiscated (never going to happen)?
Along with trained security personnel with weapons, facial recognition can be one piece of that school security.
5
Well technical there is nothing with facial recognition. The technology has been around for some time. Facial recognition is a form of biometric software that scan a person individual facial features mathematically and then stores that data as a faceprint which the cameras can compare it. Airport Security Passport systems are really beneficial and they save you time. The technology is well developed and it can have a lot of benefits. Here in the UK, its reported that we have more cameras per person than any other country in the world. But there are concerns with this technology. Who controls the data, where is the data being stored. In the EU, we have the GDPR (https://eugdpr.org/) which is basically an advanced data protection system designed around privacy. Facial Recognitions is also being linked with Artificial Intelligence. (https://zlios.com/technology/artificial-intelligence). Technology can have a lot of benefits, but if it falls into the wrong hands, it can also cause a lot of problems for individual and companies
9
The day is coming when your face can be photo shopped onto a security camera's video footage.
10
I found the idea of Google, Microsoft and Facebook taking their facial recognition databases down from where they had been on the internet absurdly amusing, not unlike when the George W. Bush administration tried to reclassify documents that had been declassified for a number of years. This is the technological equivalent of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. Once something has made its way onto the internet, it’s there forever. It’s just a matter of how deep one’s willing to dig for it.
4
The technology of facial recognition, like surveillance video, is not itself a threat. As a society, we need to manage who is able to use it and for what purposes. The authors of our nation's founding documents provided the roadmap, once we update that roadmap to reflect current (and future) technology.
1. All data that originates in a person, including DNA, images, speech, motion, behavior, biological activity, electrical and magnetic activity, and so on is personal property that belongs to that person. Ownership of this personal property shall not be bought, sold, or otherwise transferred.
2. Any party that desires to make use of personal data shall rent or purchase access to that data from the owner or those authorized by the owner to make such arrangements. No party, including the government, shall make use of any personal data without the express written consent of the owner.
3. The right of the people to have full and unfettered access to any personal data collected by government, including without limitation any repository of personal data, shall not be infringed.
The same surveillance technology that allows government agents to identify a protester or thief must also be available to the people in order to identify and expose a secret government informer or cop who routinely blocks a fire hydrant while buying her daily morning donut.
We are learning what to do with this technology, just as earlier generations learned what to do with the printing press and musket.
10
I cringe when I see China mentioned in the article as a recipient of "their image troves with researchers" shared.
4
Reading & Re-reading of this article kindles me to workout a
table like 'Periodic Table" of elements based on the elements provided by 'Facial Recognition Tech".
If you don't want to be tracked, leave your phone at home. Why are you so important that you have to be constantly available to everyone? Don't click on ads when you're online. Don't offer your face to Facebook. Give them a photo of your dog. Wear hats and sunglasses. And assume you are on a database somewhere. Now that we are all aware of the Orwellian implications, be more cautious about sharing personal information.
8
@Daphne how about all the patrons who visited the Brainwash cafe in San Francisco? Even if their phones were turned off their pictures were still taken. And I doubt permission was asked of them.
"Over three days, the camera took more than 10,000 images, which went into the database, the researchers wrote in a 2015 paper. The paper did not address whether cafe patrons knew their images were being taken and used for research. (The cafe has closed.)"
Also how about the photos on driver licenses? Or passports? The FBI and ICE are both using those. Should we all stop driving and stop traveling abroad with passports?
10
@Daphne I don't even own a smartphone, but that doesn't stop my image from being gathered and disseminated from a public space. I think that's more the point of the article. What are your suggestions for how private citizens can prevent their images from being scooped up and subsequently shared with foreign governments and military (as mentioned in the article)? Or is it a case of "I'm not doing anything wrong, so I should not object to surveillance and it doesn't matter who is profiting from it"?
3
@DeeDee Kay
No, that was not my intention. It isn't a case of "I'm not doing anything wrong". It's a case of the genie being out of the bottle, and it's too late to do anything about it. Even if you change the laws in this country, you can do nothing about foreign surveillance and use of your facial image. The safest behavior is to fly under the radar in the future and try to prevent more photos. Don't give your privacy away.
6
Wow it's so very SyFy. That book, "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism", sounds timely right now. Would like to read it.
I remember being photographed at a hospital and asking a friend, "Does this look like me?" and they said yes. I thought it looked fat, but really did not like them having me in their photo database but why worry as it's already probably global by now.
And it is terrible unless it is used for real criminal behavior. The line for criminal behavior in society though is not objective. It can discriminate racially, ethnically, on religion, gender, age, et. al.
1
The screen we are staring into may be sending our image to a facial recognition depository. It is certain the Iphone10 and others have stored enough images to determine your identity. The question is, who owns them.
5
Whoever has them. It is the Wild West out there as far as privacy is concerned. With the continually increasing availability of data to train these neural networks and computing power privacy will only become worse.
6
Charlotte called it, "Surveillance Capitalism", great term. Can your "selfie" camera take your image wighout notice in your own home. A person must be in public or on your property t is condone "taking" your image, period.
1
@Mike Page...Privacy is the do-do bird of the digital age.
1
What I find striking about these stories is the apparent lack of regulatory oversight (usually, nothing happens if you get caught) and lack of awareness by individuals involved in such data collection efforts that what they're doing requires a higher sense of responsibility.
This is summed up nicely in the statement "It could have been bicycles or elephants" - yeah, but it wasn't! How can anyone feign surprise that their data collections - amassed without consent - could easily be misused by the right parties with the wrong interests? Has nobody read 1984 or Kafka'sTrial in school?
9
In this age of innovation, I’m sure someone will come up with a device designed to thwart FR technology. People will grab them habitually before heading out, like an umbrella on a rainy day.
Fashion opportunities abound using a clear, stylish welder’s mask or medical shield that can be easily flipped down when stepping outdoors? One could buy them on Amazon, or the Michael Kors version at triple the price. An edgy “fight the power” statement guaranteed to pop up on Shark Tank any day now.
I’ve probably torpedoed my patent opportunities, but, oh well...
8
@Lumpy
Stock purchase tip: Companies that make Halloween masks. Perhaps people of color could wear white makeup, and vice-versa. I like the idea of a welder's mask because it would also offer protection when picketing for your favorite cause.
2
I wonder how many of the Stanford researchers chose to frequent the Brainwash cafe and have their own faces shared?
Wait till face data are coupled with genome data ...
Facial recognition, fingerprints, and voice recognition are now pushed as more convenient and secure means of ID on devices, with banks, and elsewhere. I will stick with pesky passwords as long as they are still an option.
Gratitude to the whistleblowers!
4
I'm glad I'm not a millennial or gen Z'er or whatever generation after them. Like being a semi-hermit boomer. Don't think they'll get my facial recognition as easy. Maybe????
3
Meh, by the time facial recognition software has advanced to a level where it’s dangerously useful, so will have cosmetic surgery. The Colombian cartels have been using advanced plastic surgery to dodge authorities for decades. Remember that movie Face Off where they replace Nicholas Cage’s face with John Travolta's? Face replacement is a thing now and will likely be perfected by 2030. You will be able to hack your DNA soon enough. Look into DNA reprogramming. Coding lifeforms to scale like a dinosaur in your basement is only a 5 to 10 years away. Bionic limbs and body upgrades are not that far off either. Surrogate bodies, digital imprints of human consciousness, immortality, body transfers not that far away either. The bottom line is that the hackers and criminals will always be one step ahead of the authorities. The authorities will try to control us but smart people will just turn the tech against them and use it to their advantage.
1
@Betsy...What if my face replacement matches the digital profile of some person targeted for termination by the mob which has also acquired its own face recognition technology by hacking into the MS-Google-NSA system?
3
@Betsy
All sounds great, except that where I live we don't even have many real MD's, let alone cosmetic surgeons.
May I suggest a rubber Richard Nixon mask for anyone who doesn't wan't their "Face... (wait for it)...Off.
Helps you evade facial recognition and It's funny on a number of levels.
2
Even senior officers in the US Navy say stealth is overrated.
If someone wants your picture, they can get it. If you want to stand out like a sore thumb to law enforcement and anyone else who regularly sees you, constantly make efforts to avoid cameras or hide your face.
Take it from a former card counter - a tiny bit of deception can go a long way, but no amount of deception can work indefinitely.
1
@Alan...Cameras are everywhere. Besides, They are also working on gait recognition, body type recognition and so on. More besides, They don't really care if they recognize the wrong person. Everybody is guilty of something.
1
Big Brother is watching.
We were warned about this but our propensity for wanting things for ‘free’ got the better of us.
Time to ‘demand’, I mean, request Big Brother to please stop watching.
9
And to think, the majority of the commenters who are “so scared” of this future, are the same ones who don’t think We, the people should be able to own “military-grade” weapons.
2
A lot of faces are already in the system(s), but it's still a jungle out there, and a lot of scanning has to go on to find you, identify you etc... and a lot of faces aren't in the system.
But once "they" have your face they have it forever. While the world's population at 7.5 bil people seems like a huge number mushrooming out of control, in terms of a math problem, 7.5 bil is not a big number. Heck, you might even be able to buy the data base in a convenience store on a USB stick though it'll probably be some sort of streaming service by then.
Before you know it every single face on the planet will be in the system... They'll know who you are and where you are at all times.
And that's just the start of it, they'll know your profile, ethnic and racial profile, finances, job, academic record, health status, DNA, biology, disease profile, preferences, political and social leanings, and of course your legal record and status.
If you walk towards a store that's deemed too expensive for you, you'll be block from entering. If you stray into a neighborhood out of your socio-economic level, you'll be blocked. If you try to study a field or get a job in an area deemed out of your depth, you'll be blocked and rejected.
Once they have your face, they'll have it forever, and they probably already have most of the faces, it's just a matter of digitizing them on putting them into an AI black box.
9
@Timbuk...The good news in all of this is that the AI black box is all on the Cloud. Of course, the Cloud is not a cloud at all. It's a whole bunch of really big buildings with a voracious appetite for electricity - among other essential inputs. Big buildings with voracious appetites are vulnerable to disruptions of their food chains as well as being vulnerable to such natural calamities as earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. They are also vulnerable to artificial calamities. Wouldn't be ironic if artificial intelligence got its comeuppance from artificial calamity? Get my drift, Timbuk?
No one who is seventy or older can believe what technology has wrought. We read the fiction of the 1930’s in our youth. We saw television come into living rooms, and were mesmerized by The Twilight Zone. We saw cell phones evolve. Computers are still mysterious to many of a certain age, even as we use them. Facial recognition is the precursor in many of our minds to totalitarianism. And, my goodness, if our politics don’t point us there. 2020 will be very interesting.
13
@Wanda...Or, put another way, many of us cannot believe what rot technocrats have wrought.
3
Sadly, the genie has been out of the bottle for many years. Remember Facebook would innocently ask you to tag your friends' pictures with their names etc?
11
Just happened to watch “The Circle” movie last night. And that scenario did not seem so far fetched. Scary in my opinion.
1
I once discovered through a friend that my picture was used in a dating site to attract members. I had never had a account with the site. When I contacted them I was told my picture was from a conference I had attended hence was "public". The whole issue of privacy and the use of face recognition need serious attention.
16
@CollegeMom
They were blowing smoke. ANY photo of you, used for commercial purposes, you have a right to the proceeds. I've been down that road before. You say the right things with the right lawyer to them and they will do what you ask.
5
@CollegeMom Yes, that's correct. They can use it for "news" but they cannot use if for commercial purposes. I had a company use my image in an ad without my permission. I contacted them and they said it was legal for them to use it so wouldn't stop. I contacted the publication the ad was appearing in, told them the ad was using my image for commercial purposes without my permission and said the'd be included in the lawsuit. That put an end to it. But it was quite brazen.
6
this madness will stop
once we run out of energy.
or until the whole system implodes.
sooner. rather than later.
2
Well, this is terrifying.
I suppose it is inevitable that this has happened, given the proliferation of social media, sites such as LinkedIn, and online dating sites (I’m sure OkCupid is not alone in this, but I am creeped out just the same), but the whole thing is weird and massively unsettling. I envision that things may get to a point in the future where people are accused of and arrested for crimes they may not have even committed, all because this technology can and will be manipulated - sort of like a “Minority Report” situation, but without the precogs.
It’s weird that we live in a time where so much of our social and professional interactions are done online and involve so much of ourselves. I try to limit what I put out there, but it’s tough. (Even my online dating profile has only one photo and I’ve gotten flack for that from loser guys. I refused to upload anything else, and one guy got pissy about it and basically told me I was rude.) Even the medical profession is doing this now - I went to a new podiatrist only this week, and the staff took a photo of me for their files so that the doctor, who has a busy practice, can match the names to the faces when he reviews records and such. Granted, I don’t think anyone is going to hack my podiatrist’s computer system anytime soon and steal patient photos, but we all know that systems can and are hacked constantly. Between that fact and this new brand of crazy, we’re living in “1984”. George Orwell tried to warn us.
16
I truly believe that computers will enable and/or cause (in the case of artificial intelligence) the end of individual liberty. During the interim between now and then, we will enjoy many benefits from computers. But in the end they will either be the tools which tyrants will use to destroy human freedom or they (artificial intelligence) will directly destroy our freedom. It is only a question of time until tyrants employ them to subjugate us. And we will voluntarily welcome the tyrants and artificial intelligence because we are foolish and will believe that we should/must sacrifice our liberty in order to obtain the wonderful benefits or valuable protections they offer.
13
I know George Orwell has already spun in his grave so many times already, he should be in a washing machine. I really hate this, and I don't like to use that word (hate). I believe it was inevitable (as many others do, I'm sure), along with much worse. Simply think of the shameful world of the American prison system, for a start. The Chinese have been using this tech for years, and their (supposed) goal is everyone in their country, and I don't think they are far from that. I foresee a day where everyone on the planet will be on a facial database, and not very long from now. It will occur, whether you like it or not.
12
What was the good reason Apple needed face recognition to unlock the iPhone? What was the good reason we needed Alexa and Siri listening to our conversations 24/7? Why on Earth do we need 5G networks? How come we should all embrace being chipped and tagged?
The number one rule when it comes to all data collection technologies is for companies to play dumb!...because they sure do know that you and I are as dumb as it gets!
If you’re a human being, why should you pay money to a DNA testing company to have them tell you with exhilarating glee that you are a human being?
Because you’re a lab rat and you’ve always been one!
16
Ah, the rewards and status of owning smartphones, Alexa, having social media accounts, etc.
"Oh brave new world that has such people in it!"
8
Facial recognition could be piece of an overall improved security environment for our schools. But first schools must have adequate security systems, procedures and qualified personnel in place commiserate with the population and physical footprint of each school.
You know - much like that in federal buildings and MLB baseball stadiums.
2
@Dr. John
An important piece of an overall improved security environment is to get guns out of the hands of everybody.
John Doe doesn't need a gun and neither do the police.
The value citizens of the United States place on human life is so inhumanely low and full of twisted hypocrisy.
It is okay to prosecute a woman from the accidental death of a child in her womb but mention the tens of thousands of deaths from the proliferation of guns and you get nonsense like "guns don't kill, people do"
7
@Jack
Good luck with that Jack.
Are you going to confiscate legal weapons?
Or maybe you’ll start with confiscating the illegal ones.
Never ever going to happen.
@Dr. J You mean qualified like those I.C.E. agents at the boarder separating children from their parents? Qualified like some police officers shooting first and asking quest later? (especially if you’re black). Qualified like the TSA agents who have you take off your belt and shoes when it’s completely unnecessary? That’s the qualification we should strive for at a schools?!
It’s paranoia that’s what it is! The slow but sure removal of freedom to move in any way, shape or form as a free person.
2
Along with that sofa you looked at last month online, there will be a pop-up of your face asking if you're still interested. Or the junk mail with your name plastered on every corner of the insert;will include a *prominently displayed" photo:
Opting out will be about as useful as registering one's number on the Do Not Call Registry since telemarketers can purchase lists of registrants.
In a world were we like to know who everyone is and plaster every aspect of our own lives online; we are naive to think someone won't breech our public/privacy and make money.
8
Want to see where this all leads? Watch the tv series "Continuum", currently on Netflix.
3
Or just read Orwell’s ‘1984’.
3
The greatest trick big data ever pulled was to convince the Americans that their data is not personally identifiable.
Until citizens own their right to their data, their DNA regardless what is “public” ... until the legislatures and courts or an amendment define what data defines a person, people lose their liberty.
Inalienable means incapable of being alienated or surrendered. It is natural rights theory - the foundation of our Constitution and government. We own what we create. We own our likeness. We own our ability to speak publicly, to worship, to gather. We have privilege of privacy to protect communications with lawyers and doctors and not to incriminate ourselves. The theoretical soul of our modern liberty is at stake.
If our founding fathers were alive today, I imagine their first words be something like this:
“Wait. We fought a revolution, wrote and approved a government constitution, saw it wasn’t going to work, scrapped it, and came up with better one all in twenty years. The second gave you a constitutional foundation, provided with 10 natural rights amendments initially and added 2 operational ones more shortly after. It took you 200 years to ratify one we proposed 1789 and, in 250 years, you’ve only been able to handle 13 of your own? Has the world not changed or are you all just lazy and have no will power? Ah ha, yes. The latter we see.”
11
Even if the cafe Brainwash was closed, did Stanford ever have legal permission to tap into the video feed and record the images?
For Duke, similar question. Some students may be under 18, hence technically minors. So was it legal?
In general, there is a problem with the "opt-out" concept because people rarely take the effort to opt-out or notice that they can opt-out. The laws should be changed to "opt-in".
7
A lot of home security cameras nowadays have facial recognition, which lets you create a database of friends and family members who regularly visit your house. Then, when the camera sees a face, it determines whether or not it's someone in your database of known faces.
5
Gosh, one can’t be too vigilant I guess.
‘“Our data was recorded to develop and test computer algorithms that analyze complex motion in video,” [Dr. Tomasi] said. “It happened to be people, but it could have been bicycles, cars, ants, fish, amoebas or elephants.”’
If that’s the case, why didn’t Dr. Tomasi use bicycles, cars, ants, fish, amoebas or elephants for his tests, and not people, who have a God-given right to be left alone?
Such unabashed hubris!
8
"Hey Miss Belfor, did you come back for another pair of those chammy lace-ups?", automated voice responding to facial recognition as a women enters a Gap in Minority Report.
5
Why do people have to opt out? The default on everything should be opt in. The onus should not be on us but those providing all services, etc.
9
@lynne matusow
The U SA is a corporate profit free-fire zone. Nothing else matters here.
12
Facial recognition and proper security measures could stop many school shootings. Those entering schools not registered to be there could be stopped. Those who failed background checks, those on FBI or local police watch lists, those with recent drug or mental issues, and those with recent run-ins with school administrators or police would be stopped.
Of course none of this, including “proper security” for schools fits the narrative of the Left so they will condemn these suggestions.
1
I don't believe that facial recognition will prevent school shootings any more than what social media surveillance (which is founded upon a principle of far less privacy) has shown it is incapable of safeguarding for us. As a software architect, I can say that to put belief in large scale facial recognition is not only naïve, but (as we may well find out quite soon) even more dangerous for the running of society than we think.
8
@Dr. John Banning guns would stop school shootings far quicker, and simpler
I choose to invest my time in this article simply because of the headline. Immediately I was drawn to this editorial because I am interested in the advancement of technology and its effect on society. Facial recognition is a fairly new piece of technology, and with major companies including Apple it is used daily by people to do various things like unlocking an iPhone. However, it is important that we use improvements in technology like this to our benefit, rather than creating an invasion of privacy. As society progresses it is becoming increasingly more difficult to stay off the grid and being monitored by cameras placed in stores, restaurants, and streets has become normalized. Furthermore, in the article it was discussed that researchers hacked into systems to gain access to databases with thousands of peoples faces. There is a strong possibility that these people had no idea that there face is contributing to major companies like Microsoft and Google for research. Not only is photos of people's faces being taken for research, but it is being distributed all around the world to countries like Singapore, which may potentially be used for nefarious purposes. With the possibility of turning an important advancement into an issue around the world, there should be regulations made to protect our privacy and to require consent for sharing any information.
5
The issue, I think turns on consent.
People have no idea most of the time to what they have consented to. (The courts have determined that when you are working you have no reasonable expectation of privacy; be guided accordingly.)
You want to use your phone, an app, and you have used your face, fingerprint, etc., in conjunction with geolocation, there is no privacy.
Even in your own home with that app.
What about your DNA?
”The government has yet to establish laws that set clear precedent with regards to ownership of biological property. The existence of this legal “grey area” however does not mean that courts have not heard cases involving DNA/tissue ownership. In fact, of those cases presented in court, most rulings have been against the patient. The interpretation of the courts is that once the DNA/tissue leaves the body, it is no longer the property of the individual. The courts seem to be relying on the informed consent contracts that patients sign prior to any procedure, which establishes clear guidelines for the future ownership of said materials.”
Source: http://knowgenetics.org/ownership-of-genetic-information/
Years ago when testing HIV patients, the ones who didn’t get as sick, or who were positive, but not ill, had their DNA patented by drug company’s so they can make drugs (& LOTS of profits). The person whose DNA it is gets nothing.
Source: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/testing/genepatents
3
Do not resist. You are slipping into a perpetual community of minds and order where you belong.
We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
8
Some of the comments here are as disturbing as this article. Read the part about facial recognition being used in China to identify Muslims, who are being sent to “re-education” camps. Do you not realize that may happen in other places around the world including here, in the future, to any group identified as being unwelcome/different/“dangerous”?
14
Face is public, anyone can see our faces. Whoever takes the pictures has ownership over its copyright.
1
@l Just because someone takes your picture does not give them the license to do whatever they want to with it.
It's more complex then that.
The photographer may be the copyright holder, but the person being photographed has what is known as "right of publicity" protection. A photographer cannot use an image of you for their own benefit without your explicit permission.
The only exception to this is editorial usage of your image, e.g. you were photographed in public as part of a newsworthy event, published in a newspaper.
Unfortunately what makes this murky as all get out are the various privacy agreements we all blindly click through on social media sites which often grant vague carte blanch permission for the site owners to do whatever they please with whatever content you post.
6
Hats.
Hats can block the full facial view.
Ball caps, fedoras, plantation straw, bucket hats...all could be useful in helping to preserve a shred of one's privacy.
Hats.
Wear them cheerfully, inside and out. Make an outmoded fashion statement, into a privacy statement.
6
Intelligence is an evolutionary dead end.
2
The narcissistic habits of our "selfie society" feeds the belly of this beast. Guess we couldn't see this coming, not!
3
“You are part of what made the system what it is,” she said. But we're not culpable. Ms. O'Sullivan is. Nice that she's now making money trying to get Pandora back in that box.
1
Privacy Is Dead.
Twice recently my friends and I were discussing some relatively obscure topic. When one of them looked at their phone, their was a reference to that same topic in their browser. "Are you interested in purchasing some Oolong tea?"
Tech companies aren't going to change this. And the US government certainly isn't going to change this, because both of these entities have a lot to gain by not changing it. For one, it's money. For the other, it's control.
The only question that remains is where this end of privacy is going to take us?
Unfortunately, about 99% of the possible outcomes are not good, because 99% of the time, when unaccountable people are given immense power over other people, it doesn't end well. So, I wouldn't bet on any kind of altruistic impulses guiding those who control this technology.
Instead of insulting twitter storms, those in power could simply destroy you with the click of a button. No internet access. No phone access. No utilities. No bank accounts. No credit cards. No smart-appliances. No car. No job. No nothing. If and when they choose. And the fact is, this age is already upon us. Watch Citizenfour about Edward Snowden if you have any doubt.
The most likely use of this technology, and Artificial Intelligence in particular, will be to instill fear of reprisal. Fear of speaking out. And eventually fear of your own thoughts.
1984 wasn't like 1984. But 2024 very likely will be. And there is nothing anyone can do to prevent it.
7
"Big Brother is watching you." -1984
Just took 25 years more.
4
Re: "...The Brainwash database, created by Stanford University researchers, contained more than 10,000 images and nearly 82,000 annotated heads..."
So...
1.) I'd appreciate it if the NYT's would do a followup and tell people how to find, out if their head / other visual profile was used, w/o written authorization...
2.) What are the legal ramification? Can OR should a person demand a 'no use' documentation / civilly, sue if one's image is used, anyway?
4
“It happened to be people, but it could have been bicycles, cars, ants, fish, amoebas or elephants.”
Then why wasn’t it cars, ants, or amoebas? What an aloof and absurd remark. The same task could be accomplished using anything, but it just happened to be humans? They must think people are truly gullible and stupid.
2
Way more images than unique persons, more laborious that tapping into people’s profile photos in the social media outlets.
A click and bait article that’s mostly air and no substance that doesn’t deserve to be published by the NYT.
Do the commentors or the researchers for this article, which is fantastic, as a note, have been harassed by the government using geo-coded telecommunication devices?
I am waiting for 2020 and the activation of a law in California which should allow any California resident, rez - not citizen, to obtain all of the written documents or "files, which I hope will include photographs, on the requesting resident from any and all data harvestors.
"California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, has been compared to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and goes into effect in 2020."
The main thing is that this ACT will permit a California resident to demand the destruction of the records maintained, that they discover.
San Francisco has outlawed the use and sale of facial recognition technology. I hope that the rest of the California and then the rest of the country will follow.
Why are the tech companies allowed to give China or India our personal data?
I work in data. Constantly, I object to the abuse of personal data as "IDs" in databases, literally to connect to other parts of a database and ultimately to allow the migration or merging of old data records (on people) with the use of the IDs. (In Database techology, essentially, there is one field which acts as a conduit, by having absolutely unique alpha and numeric type data. Unfortuneately, the individual's social security number is used and abused by database designers).
3
I grew up carrying a book(let) in which every detail of my life --- personal data, education, employment, residence et al --- was entered. No one bristled. To this day, I can't understand why so many US citizens reject the notion of having a national ID card.
Much of the media and many elected pols are promoting the creation of a Federal agency that would collect the most intimate health details of every citizen. ("single payer")
In view of the above, please, anyone, give me one believable reason why I should fear facial recognition technology?
3
The dystopian America brought to you by trump and his henchmen
@Fred--please stop. This has been in the works long before trump
4
Smile, You're on Candid Camera. And Big Brother is indeed watching you.
3
Just wait till autonomous vehicles get started!
2
Years ago, because I like to protect my privacy, I used a baby picture of myself as my profile image on OKCupid. Somebody reported me for child porn (no kidding). This is the world we live in now.
4
@Round the Bend
Just to be clear, it was a picture of happy, bald, little me, 6 months old, wearing a diaper, sitting in my highchair with a bowl in front of me and a spoon in my hand.
2
We are all Bozo's on this bus.
1
If you believe Mark Zuckerberg won't sell you down the river some day, you are horribly naive.
5
And here we have the glaring contradiction of the digital age: people who fret endlessly about their privacy when they are not diligently uploading information, sometimes intimate, about themselves onto the big, global graffiti wall. The toothpaste never goes back into the tube, though classical physics does not forbid it. No one has ever been granted an un-patent to disinvent something. Facial recognition will be used for good and ill by all and sundry. The courts and the people have an unjustified confidence in eyewitness testimony, though it has been repeatedly shown to be highly unreliable. Yet they fret about facial recognition tech.
1
News Flash - when you put information on the Internet, it is public. It always has been. Just like the White Pages in 1965 listed your name, address, phone number. The hysteria around this is ridiculous. Stop putting info online if you don’t want it used for research and marketing purposes.
2
One small consolation we have is to extend a middle finger over our faces wheneve we KNOW there is a photo being taken, as an over-shoulder selfie in which we inadvertantly appear. This of course ruins the offending selfie as well, a bonus! That's a First Amendment Right, baby. Free speech!
If you are use social media, phone apps, credit cards, tv apps, Netflix etc you are being monitored 24/7. This goes for your car as well. Everyone should know this by now. 2019 is 1984 realized.
Some people think it's cool turn turn on a light or change a song by using products like Alexa. Yes the tv remote was a welcome invention in 1950 but thats not what is happening today.
You are giving your entire life over to billionaires to take even more out of your wallet and being watched.
9
Not that I think much can be done to stop a train without brakes, and being on video is just going to be a part of life, certainly nothing can be done when you have a Congress that is technically IGNORANT. Most of these reps, especially the older generations, don't know the basic concepts of tech: databases, security, hacking, phishing, viruses, DOS attacks, etc etc. Many of them don't/can't read their own emails! They have their own aides doing it, and printing it. Yes, it's THAT bad. So, if you expect them to regulate some of these very complex issues, just keep in mind that they don't even grasp the basic principles or scope.
14
@Character Counts
Ignorance has very little to do with it. Bribery and graft does. Congress is for sale.
2
It may be 2019, but Big Brother and 1984 are finally and firmly in place. With DNA tracking (just through relatives!) facial recognition technology, CCTV everywhere, government agencies sharing agency information ('til SCOTUS says, "Can't do: no!") in a world of 7,714,576,923 people, how long do you think it will take to tract and capture anyone perceived as an 'enemy of the state'?
When microchip implantation is required for every human birth, we're history no one will likely ever read.
4
If you are using social media, phone apps, credit cards, tv apps, Netflix etc you are being monitored 24/7. This goes for your car as well. Everyone should know this by now. 2019 is 1984 realized.
Some people think it's cool turn turn on a light or change a song by using products like Alexa. Yes the tv remote was a welcome invention in 1950 but thats not what is happening today.
You are just giving your entire life over to billionaires to take even more out of your wallet.
4
“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.”
11
As a result of this story, I've deleted my okcupid account. If more people did so, techies who seem to care nothing about privacy may get the message.
4
@Herbert A. Sample
Herbert, get ready to send letters to any number of data harvesters who have stolen your data and sold it to any number of other data harvesters via the California Privacy ACT. read above, January 1, 2020 is the date.
1
We're nearing a time when the only possible escape from having one's movements tracked lies beyond the veil, or the niqab.
3
"This technology learns how to identify people by analyzing as many digital pictures as possible using “neural networks,” which are complex mathematical systems that require vast amounts of data to build pattern recognition."
The above sentence in your article is striking for what it implies that it is probably not intended to imply. It references another article on Google's deep learning people, in which it calls them, "complex computer algorithms." Quite a different statement.
Vocabulary matters, NYTimes. A complex mathematical system, is a dynamical system which has sufficient dimension and exhibits chaos to a degree that there is macroscopic transfer of information between regions in phase space. A complex computer algorithm is just a computer algorithm that's very complicated.
Media and the legal establishment have worked hard to convert face recognition to facial recognition, and now, with this article among the contributors, facial recognition into the Great Evil.
But you've never succeeded in showing that face recognition is evil at all. What you've shown repeatedly is that people who violate the privacy of others, and people who use software or anything else to commit rights violations are doing evil.
This isn't like people kill people that the gun nuts say. It's simply understanding that you can't blame a low level part of the tech world for the ills of humanity, when you can't see the big picture. "Viral" is more often evil than pattern recognition.
2
Seems George Orwell was just off by several decades...
6
He was just optimistic
2
It’s hilariously ironic that everyone who works in Silicon Valley fancies themselves as a woke progressive while they are all working to turn our societies into dystopian nightmares.
24
@Richard M.
No irony here. Actually, being a "woke progressive" fits seamlessly with working to turn our societies into dystopian nightmares.
1
They don't really need your face. As long as your phone is on and you're carrying it. "They" know where you likely are.
6
No mention of a database of faces from Apple? They are in the perfect place to have a giant one. Every time I go to use my phone it has an image of me available......
7
But is this potentially dangerous? I've been reading about the NSA spyware EternalBlue that was stolen and is now, well, nobody seems to know. eBay, perhaps. So I'm not worried that a person's photo coud be used for nefarious purposes. Plenty of safeguards in place. Don't worry, be happy!
1
I assume that foreign governments will be using this technology to look for irregularities in American passports that might identify spies. A large criminal enterprise could use the technology to identify undercover police officers, or those in the witness protection program.
And yet, we remain oblivious to privacy issues. People happily pay our local paper to print celebratory messages such as "Happy 18th birthday, John Doe. Jan 1, 2001. Love, Grandma and Grandpa" with a nice photo included. So even if you haven't already plastered your image and personal data all over the internet, someone else might.
2
OK Cupid wants us to know they "did not enter into any commercial agreement then and have no relationship with them now", but did anyone ever ask OK Cupid's members about sharing images with Clarifai? Users consent to things like normal data maintenance involved in hosting, possible sharing with the dating sites OK Cupid is connected to and a risk that other users might share images, but nothing really speaks of "hey, we might share all the images we host with a company developing facial recognition".
It's time, past time, that companies are required to protect our privacy and to require actively opting in to data sharing. Specific consent should be required for things like sharing your pictures from a dating site to a facial recognition software company. Who outside the boardrooms of companies like OKCupid and Clarifai would even think this sort of use was something members would see as part of normal business practices and not a privacy concern?
9
Copyright law should be changed. Everyone should have the right to own and control the identification of their person, including faces and fingerprints. There can be exceptions for law enforcement. One day, companies who use your face without permission will be no better than spammers or telemarketer robocalls.
10
Being monitored daily has been normalized for the masses. You can stay off the grid but it is becoming increasingly more difficult.
4
I can tell you that as an occasional patron of Brainwash (I lived nearby for 20 years) I had NO idea that my image was being captured and used in a Stanford facial recognition project. I am incensed. This is a terrifying technology and the techies seem only to be able to see the "neat" of their actions and none of the consequences. It is time for community oversight of this technology, past time.
18
Don't you think this issue is not explored completely? There are many people who are bothered by this privacy issue and these articles stoke their fears (and make them want to come back to the NYT to read more about it - the NYT is searching for clicks).
First, exactly what benefits may derive (or have already been derived) from facial identity systems? Isn't that important to understand?
Second, exactly what harm comes from these systems? The article is replete with vague assertions that governments will do things with them. But what things precisely?
Sorry to say this, but just as some people seek to scare folks with tales of 'the immigrants are coming', there are other folks who seek to scare folks with tales of the 'the AI is coming'.
Isn't understanding more important than simple fear?
5
@Greg smith
How bout understanding and simply not wanting to participate? How bout taking my information without my consent is theft? You speak of advances that should benifit more society , but have you asked yourself what society you are preparing? I do no want an all automated society, where big brother follows you everywhere. I was already forced to accept that my right to privacy has been greatly diminished without even the courtesy of asking my permission. What you might perceive as advances, some of us see it as a major step back on rights that were hard to obtain. So for now you bulldoze your way, disregarding any concerns with an argument that the benefits will outweigh the inconveniences and you attempt to discredit any who criticise or confront you. But the backlash is on its way, it started in Europe and will hopefully spread. The techie generation needs to understand that the right ro privacy needs to prevail and this is not incompatible with allowing them to continue their work, they just need to ask for permission in a clear way not in a sneaky way like burying it in general consent agreement.
4
The constant invoking of "foreign" threats is a red herring. The threat to people in the United States is the growing police state/militarization use of these weapons by the US government against us. Police already video most public protests. What of anti-war protests in the event of a US war against Iran? Abortion rights protests? Anti-police brutality. Just the idea of being identified by police 'red squads' is fearsome enough to disuade many people from even attending lawful peaceful public protests. Perhaps they will allow debt collectors to make use of this? The idea that 'good law-abiding citizens' have nothing to fear is absurd. Enough laws already exist to make it nearly impossible to go from home to work within the law. Enforcement is always selective usually based on the prejudice of the cops. Patrol cars already prowl the cities with license plate readers always on churning through our data. Add facial recognition? God help us.
10
As if this isn't troubling enough, Walmart stores are now phasing out manned checkout registers in favor of self-scanning machines. These have cameras recording the shopper's every move and are prominently focused on the customer's face. Walmart doesn't hide that you are being observed/recorded; you can watch yourself in a window on the register monitor as you go about helping Walmart reduce costs by having one, maybe two, employees nearby to help if there is a problem or to confirm that you are old enough to purchase that bottle of wine. But when you think about what is happening, it gets even spookier. Besides your facial portrait, Walmart also has, if you use a credit or debit card, your card number, now be matched to your face. As you leave the store, the parking lot is blanketed with cameras that --have you any doubt?-- can follow you to your car. Now Walmart has your picture; your credit card #; the make, model and year of your car, as well as your license plate number. Over time, as you continue to patronize Walmart, it is certainly feasible for the company to ascertain if you have a significant other(s), children (and how many and their approximate ages), where you work (if, as many do, you shop after or during work wearing your uniform and/or name tag, the latter possibly even providing your profession and position at your place of work.
If someone were to stop you in the aisle and ask you cold the information your are providing, wouldn't it bother you?
11
@Glen
Virtually every retail store has surveillance cameras. They cover every inch -- particularly checkout stations, where the nefarious might try to scam the system.
If an offense -- or an attempt at one -- is committed: That's it.
You can be sure that such an event will be shared with other vendors, directly or through the entry that such activity made into a database intended to foil lawbreakers.
But even if not: If you used a credit/debit card, or displayed some form of ID, you are now in that company's database.
The store is, so far as its clients are concerned, a public place, they or any other clients can observe and photograph you there.
There is no way out of the system, except by pulling a Ted Kaczynski.
Do we need regulations for how this data can be used once it's collected? Absolutely. As the article demonstrates, this information can be used to assist authoritarian regimes in repressing marginalized populations, and there is no accountability for how this information is used and disseminated once it's disclosed to third parties. However, we should not be shocked that this information would be shared in the first place. Ever since the internet as we know it today was first created, we expected it would be free. At first, we were happy to see our news and music for free, in exchange to being crammed into a virtual feeding pen of advertisements. However, as the internet evolved, we demanded more sophisticated services from it: social media, cloud storage, and mobile applications, all the while expecting that these services would be free as well. Therefore, in order to fund these more sophisticated services, the corporations we entrusted with creating this new world had to find more sophisticated ways to monetize what we provided them, and they were happy to do this since they knew they could make billions of dollars. We were willing to commodify everything we are and everything we do, and now we're seemingly incensed at these corporations for allowing us to do so.
1
Welcome to 1984. You wanted it. More internet, more AI, computerization, everything at the touch of a keystroke. Now you've got it. Congratulations.
29
Re: '...You wanted it..." {@bored critic}
I DIDN'T / DON'T 'want it'! I turned off the 'Alex-like' function in my P/c so, fast, (post purchase / initial shakedown cruise), that (I assume), 'Alexa' began to weep electronic tears over my rejection...
Nothing, personal, Alexa, but I'm very concerned about any s/w that has an ability to learn / do things...'unbidden'!
2
Does anyone think that this relentless invasion of privacy will end or even be curtailed by these articles?
With the enormous financial power that the tech companies have accumulated they can and do influence our political system to such a degree that change is very unlikely. Witness the 5 billion fine Facebook just got, which is a drop in the bucket for them.
We have known our current internet was a devil's bargain for a long time. There is no Teddy Roosevelt on the horizon. Unless there is a plan to action from the ground up, there will be no change. Please write more about the people out there that are risking their financial future in order to really organize and fight for this issue? Who are they, what are they doing, and can others help? Otherwise, it's just complaints leading nowhere.
18
@Michael
I feel your frustration. There are companies that are tackling this issue. Privacy is just one part of the problem. For most of my life, I've been trying to figure out how to drive peace forward. I asked a simple question, why don't we have peace on this planet? Once you know the problem then you can more easily find the solution. It's deception and the various forms it takes on. If you look back in time before humans, deception had a legitimate purpose. It was a survival mechanism - a simple example, the camouflage used by animals to avoid being eaten.
This survival mechanism has turned on us and no longer serves us. It's turned into a misplaced evolutionary survival skill. Interesting, the acronym spells MESS.
I was part of the original UUNET Technologies team. We were the first commercial internet company in the world. We made companies like AOL and CompuServe possible. I'm now the CEO of a new company called Peace Logic. We are developing the next social platform called megloo (pronounced me-glue). We are not live yet. We're in the research phase and fixing all the problems you mentioned.
You nailed it when you said, "a plan to action from the ground up". I can suggest three books for you to read. 1. The End of Advertising by Andrew Essex. 2. Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier. 3. The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang (now running for president)
Keep the faith, Michael. These problems are all fixable!
2
I put very few photos on Facebook, don't use Instagram and seldom use Twitter. I am particularly carefully about posting photos of my grandchildren, even though my settings are set to friends only. If I do so, I don't include full names. This won't be enough to protect us, especially as their parents now post family photos. I just do what I can to maintain some privacy.
8
This, by the way, is why Real Name harassment by the marketing-NOT-"social media" sites is so invariably dangerous. It NEVER stops the trolls—but it does help the creeps and advertisers (but I repeat myself).
Far too many people don't know (or care) of that consequence, and just say "scared to put your name behind that?" No, not "scared". Wise.
3
Facial recognition could have prevented 9-11, saving thousands of American lives.
Facial recognition and proper security could prevent many school shootings.
5
@Dr. John
Facial recognition could not help prevent school shootings: just ask the Sandy Hook parents. The perpetrator of that tragedy had no official police record for violence.
As to the 911 perpetrators, they were all radical members of a wealthy Saudi family. Their privilege precluded any inquiries as to their actions. Doubt that? Two words as to arrogant privilege: Jamal Khasoggi.
1
Really? So the cops already knew who the school shooters were and had their photos but just needed facial recognition to prevent student shooters from entering the school? People spout off the most inane things with absolutely no foundation in reality.
5
@Dr. John
Wrong. The FBI had very strong intelligence on Zacarias Moussaoui. Many agents wanted to arrest him and at least get a warrant for his laptop computer. Face recognition, facial recognition, would never have assisted the US in apprehending the future terrorists.
China is using facial recognition to track the movements of citizens and flag any associations they may have that runs counter to their party line. That includes writers and artists. Facial recognition, like internet tracking, are potential tools for countries to censor and arrest dissidents.
I have taken down over one hundred fake Facebook accounts using my name. AT&T has warned me of identity theft as there are hundreds of people listed with my name, most of them fake. There is someone impersonating me in Rhode Island. I have never been there.
We used to cherish privacy as it was the equivalent to free speech. Most of us who immigrated to this country were fleeing repressive regimes.
How our government continues to allow these companies to go unregulated should outrage all of us.
37
@Anonymous - Just wait until all the Equifax data that was compromised is sold and used. Many will be in a world of hurt, and won't even know how or where their info was compromised. Of course, Congress has completely forgotten about that disaster.
25
It’s important for the layperson to understand how the images are being used. It’s either to create machine learning models (“training”) or to actually identify people (“production” or inference). The former doesn’t have as many big brother connotations, as the later, if done properly. Most of this “harvesting” of data is innocuous and meant to improve the facial recognition systems of the future rather than to track your movements (although that will be a real threat in the future, and a real threat in China today).
To understand training vs production (serving) an analogy would be how a guide dog is trained, it takes several years to train a puppy before it is relied on fully. During that time the puppy is put in many different situations and shown what to do and how to behave. In a similar way, facial recognition must be trained, typically with millions of images - and for each image told what are image shows I.e. the model must be shown a picture and told what the picture means so it can make the proper association. Once, trained the model (like the guide dog) is put into “production” (serving). When the guide dog is put into an unfamiliar situation it guesses what it should do and sometimes makes a mistake, and needs further training. Similarly, facial recognition models work well most of the time but struggle when faced with unfamiliar situations and need retraining. Most of the image “harvesting” today is to improve models not to spy on anyone.
3
@Joe Sabelja This may be the current situation, but the long range prospects are daunting. I worry especially about people of color, who are identified properly less often than whites.
6
@Joe Sabelja
What application are you training for?
Guide dogs help blind people cross the street. Machines "looking" at people are trained to make what kind of action? I'm confused.
2
@Joe Sabelja
This is the same specious reasoning that brought privacy to the point it is at today.
2
If you willingly upload your photos to social media, dating sites, etc, you are willingly compromising your privacy - don't even think of complaining. It's not just the site owners, but other users and viewers that can mine the photos and info. If you are out in public, just expect you are on camera. No, I don't particularly like when people are taking personal videos in my general direction, but it's the world we live in. As far as private companies selling or giving security or similar footage to other entities, from when you are in their establishment or on their property, that is a gray area. They shouldn't be doing it without your consent, in a decent respectful society, but I'm not sure what you can do to stop them. The Duke example is a little outrageous. "We are performing a study and you are automatically opted in", and required to manually opt out. Sounds like Duke mentality. At least they put up a sign, I guess. All you can do is not voluntarily give up information, especially sensitive info. But, cameras and this type of privacy invasion, both by industry and governments, is here to stay. Sorry folks.
12
I was traveling in a communist country. A couple came up to me to take my photo. Because I was not on social media, I was considered a spy and interrogated.
There is no good use for facial recognition. The New York police can body scan for bombs and guns. The others are to track you like an animal. Get woke people!
3
For weeks and weeks I have been receiving a notification from Dell on my Dell laptop to download a facial recognition app. And every day I delete the notification. I wonder if anyone else out there receives this notification. One person commenting here said I should ignore the notification. That person said he has a Dell laptop and does not receive it.
4
From Google: Dell Customer Service @ (800) 624-9897
This country already has epically failed at regulating the internet, as demonstrated by Facebook's ability to turn many American minds into intellectual mush.
Obviously, serious privacy and data regulation would have been preferable compared to giving away the mental farm to Google, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, etc.
It will get exponentially worse with unregulated facial recognition technologies and the vulture capitalists who lead America and the world over the cliff with it.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an EU law implemented in 2018 on data protection and privacy for all individual citizens of the European Union and the European Economic Area that also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU.
The GDPR aims primarily to give control to individuals over their personal data, as opposed to corporations and vulture capitalists.
Europeans still respect human privacy.
The American government, fully bribed by campaign cash, does not respect human privacy.
Revolt at the ballot box in 2020, America !
Elizabeth Warren has a plan to regulate Silicon Valley from organ-harvesting your personal privacy.
141
@Socrates--was all good until you threw your political hate into the comment. Do you really think dems are not equally as guilty of this? Where were the privacy concerns and regulations during Obama's 8 years? Or did all if this only come into play when trump was elected?
5
"The GDPR aims primarily to give control to individuals over their personal data, as opposed to corporations and vulture capitalists.
Europeans still respect human privacy."
And that's why Russians are so eager to attack them, via Brexit and similar anti-EU fearmongery. "Let's fund our NHS instead" is funding the loser's fellow hair-creature-wearer Boris Johnson's UK prime-ministry instead. Let's not even mention the depths of crazy that Italy has rocket-dove headlong toward, just to scratch their nationalist itch against Africans.
And it's no accident putin uses the ever-complicit marketing-NOT-"social media" sites to do it, so our job is to avoid and BLOCK them entirely from our browsers and our culture. Call friends, don't twit them; organize protests in person with people you can trust, not in open Facebook groups where the cops can easily see and COINTELPRO them before they even start—and never, EVER give either one a picture of your face, let alone your friends'!
Just as there is no far left, there is no good Twitter. Any use of them helps them harm us.
2
This is not about politics. It is about our government selling all of us down the river, but the Republicans - so they call themselves - are particularly horrible. They are in power and lying to every American for money and under the names of Republican patriots. People have to wake up to the fact that this party in power sold us down the river.
3
Privacy is an illusion. Facial recognition technology is already ubiquitous and inexpensive. Companies and governments will know where we are and who we associate with and what things (or products) we thinking about.
The corporations, billionaires and autocrats can buy your information for not very much money. Do the rights of the individual trump the rights of corporations (also seen as an individual via the supreme court.) The rights we have are related to the size of our bank account. The supreme court has repeatedly chosen the right of money over the rights of an individual.
23
I've been watching a futuristic TV show from a few years ago Netflix, Person of Interest, with exactly this scenario ... the future is here! It's a great show and pretty scary when you stop and think about our world as it is ...
8
@Barbara--also watch "Continuum" on Netflix. Facial recognition issues are a current theme.
1
I wonder, really: What's the concern?
If you are law abiding, the fact that a photo of you taken in public, going about your daily, legal, business, or voluntarily relinquished to an Internet site in return for some service with no assurance that it won't be shared, is not a threat -- and is perfectly legal.
Nothing in the Constitution prohibits such activities. "Privacy" is not mentioned and, allowing that an interpretation of the various prohibitions could well be taken to entitle one to "privacy" -- a vague and ill-defined concept in that context -- one cannot expect privacy in a public place.
And the internet is, per se, a public place. If you post your visage there voluntarily for others to see, it's fair game, about as public as one can get.
Finally, what harm results from others using these public images? Unless, of course, you are subsequently photographed engaged in an illegal activity -- from running a red light to murder -- in which case the law-abiding public will be pleased that you can be located and apprehended with efficiency.
The whole topic is a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
5
@Austin Liberal
But wait, one might be involved in a legal activity, such as engaging a police officer's lover in an adventure. Through this technology the officer might obtain your identity and retaliate.
6
@Heckler
Thanks for the advice. I was about to engage in that activity.
2
One problem is that the people in charge, the man behind the curtain so to speak, at the controls, are human and therefore suspect, subject to all the frailties of that species; and as one knows justice is not dispensed fairly in this capitalist society: whereas caste determines ones fate in India, money here. We should capitulate. Biometrics, including blood samples, should be taken on all newborns.
I'm just glad these databases of millions of people are safely in the hands of completely unregulated social media companies whose sole interest is in making their owners richer, rather than in the hands of some shady government agency with congressional oversight.
34
@Randall
Hahahaha. Very good!
2
Privacy is destined to become extinct ever since the introduction of internet.
We all hate the type of extensive, everywhere electronic surveillance like China but that is the trend in technology and governing. The trend seems irresistible, unfortunately.
All the outcry or oversight are just cosmetic, like this article. We may just have to evolve along with it.
Oh human...
3
And in our technologically "advanced" world Big Brother just gets bigger and Bigger.
10
I was gambling in a casino in Vegas 2 weeks ago - I don't have any type of "Player's Card" and I did not make any reservations or anything else using my name. Yet, a management level employee addressed me as "Doug". Simple confirmation of what we already know has been going on for some time now. After all, Apple groups my photos by names of people I haven't tagged. I am very motivated to be on my best behavior 24/7/365. LOL.
13
Everyone using a computer with internet, searching for practically anything, will become subjects for ads aimed at their searches. I, too, dislike that. So, i try to guide my inevitable spam ads. I know searching (e.g., for a tool) i will get ads for same tool. So, i follow my real search with counterfeit searches, e.g., sexy bikinis, lingerie, or whatever ad distractions i can live with. This also makes me feel i'm in control of something. However, after a while, they become boring, requiring a search for fresh sexy bikini companies to seduce into my ad boxes.
6
When I last bought gas on the Merritt Parkway a few weeks ago, I noticed that the newly installed pump had a small camera embedded in it. The result, I realized, was that as I was dipping my credit card and entering in my zip code, the pump was taking my picture.
There was no disclosure language anywhere telling me that I had to surrender an image of my face (together with my name and zip code) in order to fill my tank. But there it was, nonetheless.
I fully understand that there are a great many people who are more than willing to give up their privacy in exchange for the "benefits" which are offered by the likes of Facebook or Google or Amazon (to say nothing of sites like OkCupid). But in what world is it ok to harvest people's facial profile, name and location at a filling station without even the barest hint at something resembling informed consent?
Seriously: Big data thinks we won't notice. But more and more people are starting to notice. Which means that Big Data is only going to push that much harder to take whatever privacy we still retain.
Our only response is to fight back tirelessly and to demand our right to privacy. Please, don't be silent: please speak up.
Nothing less than the freedom to be human hangs in the balance. Remember that when you choose your candidates in the upcoming 2020 election.
54
@Software Programmer
While using self-checkout at Walmart an error occurred. The sales assistant came over to help. She touched screened some instructions...and the next thing I saw was a video of me checking out. It startled me.
15
The more my emails feature pop-up ads for their products — say, an ad for outdoor gear after an email about a friend’s camping trip, the more repulsed I am by email.
The more tethered I feel to my smartphone, the more devious — not “smart” — it feels, the more I feel I’m living in the beginnings of a culture that will eventually be “1984.”
The more viciously partisan our news, the more literally ANYTHING is announced as BREAKING NEWS, the less I want to watch the pundits who once might have been actual journalists.
The more we are directed, by Amazon, by Netflix, Apple, all companies, toward what the data they use collected tells them we want, the more we consume.
People apparently prefer to be entertained 24/7 by their phones than they do to talk to another person. And God forbid someone who disagrees.
The world’s resources are dwindling, and yet manufacturers purposefully insert built in obsolescence. The climate is changing, and the population is growing, and escapism is easier than reality. Come on now! What we need most at this point is a serious reality check.
74
I remember when photo radar was introduced in my city a few decades back; the law-and-order justification was “if you don’t exceed the speed limit, you have nothing to fear”. My thought was: you start giving up your rights, pretty soon you won’t *have* any rights. Facial-recognition software is merely the next step towards a surveillance state.
4
I’ve been on the internet, along with miscellaneous photos for about a decade now during which time I’ve put in about 40 pounds. Haven’t received any unwanted diet and exercise, “lifestyle” or “wellness” improvement program solicitations yet.
Perhaps I am naive, but if people make photos of themselves available to the public on social media, they should not be surprised or upset if those photos are use pd to identify them when the are in public
17
@BecauseTruth Even when you pay for a dating service where your information is not supposed to be open to public use?
3
Here is what I just don’t get. The “researchers” and companies or should I just say people that are creating and using these databases have somehow deluded themselves into believing that what they are doing is beneficial. This is underhanded, dishonest, self serving and perhaps even evil.
Forget the Law. Since when is it Ok to take people’s info and even faces without their knowledge or permission and use it to make money or create tech that is so obviously prone to misuse and abuse. I guess I’m just hopelessly outdated. These are people who are doing this. Individuals who obviously had poor upbringings. Alas!
49
@B.H.
They know their businesses are corrupt and mishandled. Welcome to the New World!
1
B.H. - you're not 'outdated'. It is easy not to question this and to become ever more cynical. But hold onto your belief. Your view of being 'outdated' may feel valid but: under the radar, you are in the majority with a whole lot more of us than you might imagine. It might just matter one day.
@B.H.
Read the 4,000+ word agreement you ok'd to get access to the sites you are complaining about.
You gave your permission before you ever got access.
I remember a Comix piece from the late '70's called "Dis Drivin Me Nudz" where a forlorn individual tried to escape constant detection by cameras by wandering into places where they couldn't see him. Every time he did, a loudspeaker said something like "You have entered an unmonitored area. Please return to the sidewalk."
Prescient?
52
The only good thing about the internet is how quickly and completely the machine will someday stop, leaving nothing but landfills of digital junk, and an entire era’s worth of human-sizes holes filled with the same.
3
Your internet search and shopping data is being collected...
Your DNA tests to search for family history is already being sold to assess your biological qualifications to be insured or qualify for a loan...
And your very image is being stolen and sold to any organization, private or public. The justification to pick your face out of a crowd and know where you are - and what you’re doing appears to be less important - than the money to be made from doing it
All of this is done - with most people not understanding the various means by which we grant permissions - for the destruction of our private rights.
That we have no idea we are granting these ‘permissions’ (or no choice not to) is not an accident. The unreadable legalese we checkmark on websites and apps - is purposely designed to make the act of granting permissions opaque and passive.
Further, the ubiquity among search and content providers of the bait and switch permission agreements - means that not complying excludes one from using the web and being locked out of the modern world: including the ability to pay bills, apply for colleges or jobs, read the news, and travel.
So this is where we are: lawmakers, lobbyists, and unlimited corporate money propel us further over the abyss. The twin pillars of Artificial Intelligence and DNA based Bio-Information stand ready to harvest our souls and bend us to the whims of their investors’ algorithms. Now what?
49
So, in the near future, a criminal robs a bank and uses a facial mask with the likeness of someone else, what happens? If someone wants a special deal at store, someone else can use a facial mask of someone else with special benefits at those establishments. On Facebook or dating sites, someone can use your photo and establish a new identity that becomes as valid as the real.
Make no mistake, no one spends this kind of time and money on a technology just so we can catch more criminals. The purpose will be commercial and it will fail miserably but not without first keeping a lot of lawyers very busy.
Once again, we are down the rabbit hole of thinking that we can digitally validate identity. Isn't anyone else really sick and tired of Silicon valley elites thinking it's ok to use our information and likeness to try and enrich themselves?
27
When do I get my royalties?! (kidding- this article is terrifying)
8
Strange, I barely recognize my own face in the mirror these days, but Big Brother does?
13
How about all the thumbprints used to unlock our phones? I'm sure they're also collecting data through this "fingerprint identity" technology, too ?
Yeah, that ship sailed a long time ago folks, sorry!
3
That is why more clever people still use numerated pw(s).
2
I wonder if any database can acquire the facial data that my I use to unlock my laptop and cell phone. Is that image restricted to the device it is on, or can (and will) either Windows or Android allow it to be sent somewhere to be added to one of these databases?
13
@mlbexloo
On the other side, can your facial data from a data base be used to unlock your laptop or phone without your knowledge?
14
@McGloin: It seems to me that if they can get far enough into my device to do that to the camera code, they've already unlocked it. But I'm no security expert.
1
Since there are no laws to prevent the capture of facial recognition data, there are also no laws to prevent the purposeful corruption of databases. Such a practice would be a form of non-violent non-cooperation in the digital era, in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi.
This idea is not new. In the defense industry, engineers who work overseas are sometimes trained to operate in the presence of a secret police (in a police state). One countermeasure, when they become aware they are under surveillance, is to destroy the information pool. For example, to start the buying and selling of bags of powdered sugar within eye-shot of a camera. The idea is to drive up the cost of law enforcement by tricking the police into squandering their resources.
In the context of this article, this might involve the dispersion of fake on-line data, which shows faces tagged with randomly selected names and biographical data.
9
"You are part of what made the system what it is," Ms. O'Sullivan said.
Wait! Technically that statement may be true, but it is missing a word.
You are INVOLUNTARILY part of what made the system what it is. Academics and private tech firms have shared some DNA, and the hybrid result is entrepreneurial pursuit of images and the information that can be derived from them. There is no regard for where the images came from, and no concern (other than possible revenue) for where the images will go.
Not good.
20
While technology is changing what we can do, human nature is stuck in the past. Like all progress this will get worse before it gets better.
4
After all the internet abuses of privacy that we have learned about over the past decade everyone should know by now that anything you post on-line, even with the promise of encryption, or any other false promise, is out there for all the world to see. You might as well rent a big billboard on the expressway and post a large picture of your face along with whatever private information you have revealed online to anyone anywhere, because that's what you are doing when you reveal anything to anyone on the internet.
7
How did Stanford and Duke get IRB approval for their projects?
94
Wondering the same...
1
@Lee not all research needs IRB approval. IF they are using data from public systems, they’re is no reasonable expectation of privacy. That’s a big IF though.
1
We live in a time when we now all are owned by something else. Is this freedom or slavery?
12
"War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength"
1
Everyone should just calm down. This is like finger prints, photographs, your address (remember phone books?). If you live in an open society people will see you, if you commit a crime people should find you, if you let your mind race in circles you will just waste all your time.
6
@David Wiswell
I think people consider their face to be able to expose them more than their fingerprints or address do. As far as fingerprints, if everywhere you touched was connected to an internet of sorts, then people's fingerprints would also expose them in a similar way to how this facial recognition technology is starting to.
16
This is very shortsighted. The technology will be available to more than just law enforcement. What about insurance companies making decisions on your premiums or denying you coverage base on assumed risky behaviors simply based on where you’ve been? There are many reasons to worry about this.
22
@David Wiswell
It it's not racing in circles to see that the Chinese are, right now, using facial recognition software to round up suspected political activists and jail them in "re-education camps" and that U.S. researchers are helping them.
Meanwhile the U.S. has a president who regularly violates the Constitution by calling for political violence against his critics without due process. Does anyone really believe that Trump (who literally told Xi that being "president for life," is just like being "king," and maybe we should try that in the U.S., and who is separating children from their parents without keeping track of who belongs with who), is above putting Americans in reeducation camps? "Good morning Camp Trump! How do we show our appreciation for Trump Making America Grovel Again?"
"Thank you, President for Life Trump!"
4
Citizens of China have held I.D. cards with digital facial images for over a decade. That's over a billion faces. When I enter China now, the camera at customs recognizes my wrinkled Caucasian visage. Tencent and Alibaba have a data set that dwarfs Google and Facebook in volume and compliance.
6
@john
Anyone that have a passport have their face shared all over the world already. Poor countries might still rely on the guy/gal in the booth to look at your face and the passport but plenty already moved to just pull your data and compare to the person in front of the camera. Much more reliable.
In the future you don’t even have to go though passport control/immigration. Your arrival is already communicated to the destination country and just base on your face and gaits walking from plane to gate they already know it is you.
3
@john
Are we back to demonising China and Chinese again? Isn’t this rich, considering FBI has been doing the very same thing the west were up in arms against, when it is China that was doing it?
1
@AmateurHistorian What a conveniently terrifying future we have to look forward to.
Maybe, it will become a social norm for people to wear masks as they go about their lives. We will only show our real faces to family, close friends and lovers.
Faces will be considered a "private part" like our sex organs.
169
Sounds like a great show for Netflix. You better write this one up before everyone try’s to steal it from you.
18
@Richard Fried
The technology has advanced to state that wearing mask is not enough because your body configuration and movement pattern are captured as well. There's no hiding possible.
11
@Richard Fried
The technology has advanced to a stage that wearing mask is not enough because your body configuration and movement pattern are captured as well. There's no hiding possible.
Our human technology is always running well ahead of our ability to ascertain the legal, personal and socioeconomic costs and benefits in order to protect individuals and our societal interests. norms and values.
And we cannot expect the new gilded age robber baron malefactors of great wealth to care or help.
48
Not to make anyone feel that we're better off than Chinese citizens. But they have 2 million cameras up and running across their country with full facial recognition capabilities. Their Communist government is conducting surveillance of it's people all the time. As long as technology continues to advance in ways that make our lives easier we will always be making tradeoffs with our privacy.
I'm doing my part for privacy. Every time I get a new laptop, I put a small bandaid over the webcam lens. ;-)
14
@JJS
First thing I do as well. Before I turn it on for the first time. I also disable the camera in settings (but don't trust that this will stop it from working).
8
@JJS
That’s ok, they already know it is you in the room based on the vibration you make when walking and the sound of you breathing. Even wonder how it knows when your phone asks if you were asleep at this time?
Your phone can even tell if you are menstruating just based on the minute change of your body.
2
@AmateurHistorian
You're so right! It even told me not to order that chili bowl last night when dining out! I've never menstruated, though. But I'll make sure to leave my phone at home when out with mixed company.
1
Although this facial recognition technology seems 'admirable', and likely usable for our protection, knowing there is a system that may control our every move is 'chilling'...and a two-edged sword, potentially open to abuse (especially when there is no public supervision nor regulations, and where ethics may fly out the window for the profit motive).
2
With all of this information available, it is surprising that I regularly see on local TV, “These photos were taken of the attackers, rapist, robbers” etc. “If you have information about who they are, contact police”. Great technology.
4
@Richard Winchester
They just want info, most of the time they already know who did it. Think of Jussie Smollett‘s case; everything is fake but they still got the guys.
2
A few problems exist.
1- Artificial intelligence will be able to shift a persons photo into a location that they were never at. The technology already exists.
2- Authoritarian governments are using this technology to exploit and control their own domestic population. Traveling within China is tied to photo I’d CIS of the eye so they can control their population .
3- if later voices are stored that match the photo. We are at the cusp of being controlled and copied without respect to our own liberty. Existence will not be our own if a more extreme version of Trump leadership arises.
4- Years ago Cisco leadership and many hi tech fringe groups wanted to insert a semiconductor chip into every individual for partial control to their so called Local area network. Russia and China are already involved in this process .
In short technology may us toward toward fascism. Years ago no one ever saw a leadership like a Trumps filled with lies to arrive but fascism is coming next with technological advances.
82
@Ralph Petrillo
Homicide rate in the US is 8.6 times that of China’s meaning more than twice as many murdered cases in the US than in China even though China have 4 times the population.
You may not like the idea of safe street, no traffic accidents, no rape, no drug but there are people that do
5
@AmateurHistorian just don’t upset the wrong politician or your face might show up at the wrong scene and help solve a crime.
5
You want to live in China? I don't.
5
I've worked in technology for years so I'm not afraid of technology, per se, but of the perversely complete absence of proper regulatory oversight of these products on our lives. Thinking citizens are overwhelmed and the shadow of a (soon to come) future society where we live as trapped victims of a techno-oligarchy.
It would be brilliant to be able to read about what we can DO to try to avoid it. Alas. The answer is probably nothing given how as a society we're instead more focused on legalizing "calm down" drugs such as marijuana.
87
@m. k. jaks
The only constant is change. The future is inevitable. There is no way you can say “the only period of privacy I can accept is 1950 to 2010”
3
Gathering all of this facial imagery is akin to the gathering the sounds of words, phrases, and sentences several years ago – on the way to trans-humanic speech recognition...
Genie is already out of the bottle...
It’d take less than a tenth – and probably less than a hundredth – of the facial images already out there for a deep learning machine (several come to mind) to take the next step, and extract a standard parameter set for any face...
This happened with fingerprinting, more than a century ago...
Without powerful image-processing computers, humans taxonomized prints by the style or whorl and – more usefully – where lines bifurcated or converged...
Outlines of the overall shape, ears, nose, eyes, and cheek/chin will each be described by 5-10 parameters (some more, some less) – and faces will be parameterized...
Which is tantamount to recognition, if only one or a few faces in the parameterized database are close matches to a face of interest...
The real fun begins, though, when trans-human faces are synthesized by machines - once they understand what constitutes prevailing criteria for ruggedness, handsomeness, beauty, or different sorts of personas...
Said more simply, could I copyright a deepfake face, the way companies copyright logos - or even simple colors...
PS
My AI bot says not to worry...
And since it’s learned to mimic human smiling, I find what it says these days much more reassuring...
16
@W in the Middle
Finally someone with more brain than outrage. What you have described could get us pass the uncanny valley and make humanoid AI much more acceptable to the general public.
Further, it would finally solve the “what is beauty” question if we can express it as a mathematical formula. Future companies will probably set price on companion bot based on attractiveness. Want SJP without the horse, that’s $2000 more.