
San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city - aaronbrethorst
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18202602/san-francisco-facial-recognition-ban-proposal
======
stickfigure
The third time my car was broken into (to steal - no joke - a crappy stock car
stereo from the 90s), I'd have voted for mandatory cameras and facial
recognition on every street corner. Maybe sentry guns too.

Instead I moved out of SF. Good luck, folks.

~~~
code_beers
Fast forward a few months, criminals are just wearing ski masks when they
steal cars, and you’ve given up a significant amount of your privacy for
absolutely zero benefit. Not a good plan, in my opinion.

~~~
baroffoos
Its a much better idea to fix the fact that so many people are in such a
shitty situation that they are willing to steal a worthless radio.

~~~
doctorpangloss
I really don’t think the people breaking into cars can ever be spun into
protagonists, of any story. Advocating for them harms the message of helping
the downtrodden and treating them humanely, because it seems totally out of
touch with the emotional impact of totally gratuitous property crime on its
victims.

~~~
djrobstep
Wrong, if you're struggling to survive, "stealing" from the comfortable is
absolutely morally right.

The fact that people are forced into such awful situations strengthens the
message of helping the downtrodden: Everybody is entitled to the necessities
of life, so as to never be placed in such a predicament.

~~~
throwawaysea
A lot of those folks who are committing petty crimes aren’t downtrodden
struggling to survive though. Many are junkies and a class of permanently
homeless that refuse help/services and refuse to rejoin society. Why should
law abiding citizens have to bear their costs?

~~~
renholder
>Why should law-abiding citizens have to bear their costs?

You seem to negate the fact that the costs are burdened by law-abiding
citizens to have them in jail/prison, anyway.

Certainly, the costs of social structures for those people are _far_ less than
a for-profit system of incarceration; which, as it is currently structured,
only benefits from a minimum volume of people being maintained in the
incarceration system, itself?

You admit that there's different classes of people who commit the petty
crimes, so that - in and of itself - demonstrates that each class would
require specific redress for their situation.

Finally, since they are petty crimes, in and of themselves, wouldn't facial
recognition be rough the equivalent of dropping a bomb on an ant hill? The
scope of the effect far-outweighs the supposed benefits.

~~~
throwawaysea
> You seem to negate the fact that the costs are burdened by law-abiding
> citizens to have them in jail/prison, anyway.

There is a cost yes, but the possibility of jail and all of its restrictions
is also a big disincentive for would-be criminals. Right now, the ability of
this subset of folks to live in SF on their own terms, appropriating public
property, committing crimes, and not facing consequences, is a big incentive
for them to become more brazen, and for others like them to come to SF to live
that lifestyle (since they would face no consequences).

My point is that it isn't necessarily true that the same number would be
jailed, and so the cost tradeoffs are unclear.

> Certainly, the costs of social structures for those people are far less than
> a for-profit system of incarceration

I'd need to see data on that. But I also think we could reduce the standards
at jails to reduce costs further, if needed. And the additional benefit of
containment has many benefits that confer utility on other citizens (not
having to constantly be alert or think about the heightened risk of crime).

> Finally, since they are petty crimes, in and of themselves, wouldn't facial
> recognition be rough the equivalent of dropping a bomb on an ant hill? The
> scope of the effect far-outweighs the supposed benefits.

I feel like this is implicitly adopting a fallacious slippery slope argument.
I'm talking about using facial recognition to more regularly
identify/track/detain criminals. This would be accomplished by utilizing feeds
from public spaces, where it is already legal to record, and simply being more
efficient in the processing and analysis of those feeds, which humans already
are able to access and view manually.

In the same way that our _existing_ police forces have not turned into some
dystopian social negative, the addition of facial recognition to their tools
is unlikely to turn into the same. I agree that there is a line that can be
crossed, and we should be cognizant of that, but am just saying that I don't
think we are there. In adopting facial recognition for local law enforcement,
we wouldn't be changing the laws or expanding the legal rights that govern how
police operate or removing the processes/avenues against police abuse. We're
simply using an existing technology to make them more effective.

------
mc32
But will it yet allow private facial recognition? If so that’s a loophole. Oh,
we don’t do FR ourselves, we contract that out!

FR isn’t bad in and of itself. What is needed is regulation governing that
data.

~~~
tehlike
If it is available, it will be used. Either within stretched legal frameworks,
or through illegal surveillance.

Not that we can do much about it. It is going to happen eventually .

~~~
philliphaydon
“Eye witness put a person in the area and we just looked at the footage for
that time frame”

------
run414
Some of comments here are suggesting that facial recognition wouldn't be
necessary if San Francisco would just fix the root cause of its crime problem.

There is a common pattern I've noticed in discussions about San Francisco.
Person A: San Francisco should implement <solution that provides relief in the
near-future>. Person B: That's just a bandaid over the problem. It's better to
just fix <problem that has plagued humanity for all of history>.

Usually, the solution to <problem that has always plagued humanity> requires
large changes to our economic system or society that would take decades, if
not lifetimes. I'm not opposed to such changes, but it seems naive to me to
not do quality-of-life improvements because they would be unnecessary if our
society was massively different.

If this is how the city is managed, it's no surprise that it's a mess.

~~~
spullara
SF is broken because they refuse to punish bad behavior. Pising and pooping on
streets and sidewalks. Breaking into cars. Using heroin and meth in public.
Disposing of needles wherever you feel like. Setting up a tent in the park.
Most other cities would stop this from happening but SF won't.

~~~
selestify
Why wouldn't they punish such behavior? That sounds ridiculous

~~~
michaelt
Some people believe mentally ill homeless drug addicts are the tragic,
powerless victims of a society which has made housing and medical care
unaffordable and deprived them of political representation; that putting a
homeless person in jail guaranteeing them food and a bed for a week is
unlikely to be much of a deterrent; and that the things that _would_ be an
effective deterrent are inhumane.

Personally I don't agree, but I can see why a person would think that way.

------
throwawaysea
This seems like a really bad time to propose something like this. Parts of SF
look like a mad max wasteland and they really have blown it when it comes to
crime, vagrancy, and blight. It really seems like facial recognition could
help catch criminals and put them away for once.

~~~
gammateam
The city knows who the criminals are. The district attorney drops the cases,
you can have your open air drug bazaar or stolen bike shanty town in broad
daylight.

~~~
newnewpdro
When I worked in the Mission we watched a small homeless encampment run a
bicycle chop shop wide open in broad daylight for over a month. Police
regularly came by, nothing more than an old tarp was used to try hide the
bicycle operation.

Increased surveillance would have made zero difference. For whatever reason
the activity was simply tolerated.

~~~
gammateam
Because it is a waste of time and money for the police to do anything, if the
DA is going to drop the case. It is a waste of time for the DA to do anything,
if the judge will drop the case. It is a waste of time for the judge to do
anything, if the prisons are full, expensive and downsizing such that these
kind of offenders are not exceptional enough and therefore right back on the
street.

------
bsenftner
So, private use and private security agencies are free and clear. Sounds like
a nice contract for a security firm to land with various loose neighborhood
associations, shopping district management and pretty much the exact private
hands you do not want developing large scale FR.

------
alottafunchata
I for one want criminals apprehended. This is more of the typical San
Francisco hoopla.

~~~
isostatic
I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear

~~~
imtringued
If the police had one's detailed driving history including speed limits and
how fast one was driving at any given moment then how many speeding tickets
would one get?

Even someone who obeys the speed limit would get dozens of tickets per year.

~~~
isostatic
How? Assuming the information is accurate, how would someone who didn't exceed
the speedlimit get dozens of tickets per year?

------
olliej
Given people seem super pro “catch the criminals” because facial recognition:

1\. It can only identify people it already has facial recognition for. So that
means people who are already in the system - who you already have fingerprints
as well.

2\. Can facial recognition provide cause for a warrant? If it can, what
happens if its accuracy is biased (see the numerous studies showing “accurate”
facial recognition systems are in the order of 15%-20% less accurate at
identifying women of color than white men). Seems like that would be reason to
get the warrant dismissed and subsequent evidence removed - based on my years
of legal experience watching tv ;)

3\. Can this be used to identify wanted people randomly on the street, or is
it just retroactive (eg there was a crime, identify the person in the
picture). The latter is significantly less of a problem (imo) than continuous
live identification.

4\. How long is this data archived? Who is responsible when it leaks?

------
jjcm
I'm against this, but not for the typical reason of privacy or worry of
government overuse. What I'm worried about more than either of those is the
growing prevalence of GAN created video. As the outputs of GAN become more
realistic and indistinguishable from the real thing, having a facial
recognition system to be able to prove that you were or were not in some place
at a certain time is going to be integral in fighting off the fake videos that
are going to swarm us all soon.

What I'd rather see is twofold:

1.) A right to wear a mask. Both legally and for it to become socially
acceptable. We should have a right to protect our privacy, when we want it.

2.) Open data when it comes to this. Otherwise I feel that power will
centralize with governments and larger private orgs. By opening the data set,
the system can be used for good. This would have to include some sort of
authentication system as well - possibly something like 2fa where an alert
comes to your phone that you have to authorize before an entity can query your
facial recognition stats.

------
PHGamer
and whats to stop the federal government from doing this. At this point people
need to accept everything is being recording in public.

~~~
gnicholas
My thoughts exactly. The proposed ordinance would only apply to "city
departments", so the feds could do whatever they want.

Given my vague recollections of the Supremacy Clause [1] of the Constitution,
I don't think a local ordinance like this could have legal effect on the feds,
even if it purported to.

1:
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause)

~~~
freedomben
It would be a legal battle for sure, but there's a chance that nullification
could win [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_(U.S._Constituti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_\(U.S._Constitution\))

------
kevcampb
City full of tech companies working on facial recognition, bans facial
recognition being used on it's residents

------
el_don_almighty
umm..so no more iPhones????

~~~
chrisseaton
Dose the iPhone count as government facial recognition?

~~~
sp332
It does if a department issues iPhones to employees. Or Windows laptops with
"Windows Hello" logins, or Samsung phones with facial unlock features, etc. It
doesn't specify if "face recognition" includes iris and retina scans.

~~~
chrisseaton
But that would only ban those iPhones not iPhones in general.

