
California Considering a Ban on Realtime Police Body Camera Facial Recognition - pseudolus
https://reason.com/2019/06/07/california-considering-a-ban-on-realtime-police-body-camera-facial-recognition/
======
manfredo
I'm a bit confused as to why this is so controversial, and strikes me as a
simplistic "facial recognition bad" kind of argument. A police officer is
allowed to approach you and ask for ID if you have it. The Supreme Court has
held that although you don't have to answer almost all questions that the
police may ask you, you are required to identify yourself. While concerns over
misidentification are valid, I don't see the reasoning behind objecting to
technology that allows the government to identify people. Am I also supposed
to object to fingerprinting, license plates, and issuance of drivers'
licenses?

~~~
brenschluss
Imagine a police officer automatically IDing someone, automatically pulling up
their past criminal history, and actively changing their attitude towards how
they treat them.

This would make police treat people with prior records worse, and no records
better.

On a societal level, this would just entrench and amplify existing
inequalities of criminalization and inequitable treatment by the police.

~~~
manfredo
> Imagine a police officer automatically IDing someone, automatically pulling
> up their past criminal history, and actively changing their attitude towards
> how they treat them

I don't need to imagine. We already live in that world. In fact the police
officer doesn't even need to see your face. Your license plate, your credit
card, etc. can all already provide enough info to let the police find your
criminal history. When you get stopped by police and the cop goes back to his
car for a few minute that's what (s)he is doing: checking if you have any
outstanding warrants, etc. I don't see why you think this is objectionable.
The whole point of keeping a record of criminal activity is so that this
criminal activity can be retrieved.

> This would make police treat people with prior records worse, and no records
> better.

Depending what exactly you mean by "treat people with prior records worse",
then this is the law working as intended. If you're a criminal, then the
police are going to check if you're violating probation. If you are known to
have criminal connection, then police are going to likely monitor more
heavily.

> On a societal level, this would just entrench and amplify existing
> inequalities of criminalization and inequitable treatment by the police.

You say "inequalities" as though they are all inherently wrong. There are
explicit inequalities between sex offenders and those who aren't - the former
often can't live in many areas and appear on criminal databases. There are
inequalities between felons and those who aren't. That's part of the whole
purpose of punitive measures: to lower the social status and restrict
privileges of people to commit crimes as a means to disincentive criminal
behavior. At this point you're fundamentally arguing against the existence of
penal systems at all.

If this is referring to racial inequalities and discrimination, then automated
facial recognition represents a large ability reduce inequitable treatment.
Humans are notorious at recognizing faces, and there are extensive studies
that show that police are more likely to erroneously ID blacks as criminals
than other groups. Programs may have biases, but it is much easier to identify
and correct biases when they are numeric values in a program or coefficients
in a hyper-plane or what have you as compared to human biases.

~~~
skinnymuch
The person could easily believe our penal system is too strict. Vs the over
the top thought that they are against any and all penal systems.

I doubt the cops being racist against blacks would change all that much just
because they see their criminal history.

~~~
manfredo
> The person could easily believe our penal system is too strict. Vs the over
> the top thought that they are against any and all penal systems.

The point is, complaining about society's treatment towards criminals as being
a form of inequality is nonsensical. There's no such thing as a penal system
that doesn't create inequality between criminals and non-criminals. Even the
most basic form of punishment, imprisonment and fines, is a form of
inequality: criminals have to make payments or are subject to imprisonment
that non-criminals are not subjected to. So yes, to object to society treating
criminals different from non-criminals is objecting to any and all penal
systems. At least any that discriminates between criminals and non-criminals,
and I fail to see how such a system can exist.

> I doubt the cops being racist against blacks would change all that much just
> because they see their criminal history.

Or, they see how many blacks _don 't_ have criminal histories and leave them
be instead of just assuming they have criminal histories and stopping them. In
general the less information people have, the more they lean on stereotypes.

------
pmorici
There is something a bit perverse about taking something that was originally
meant to promote Police accountability and using it for this.

~~~
mullingitover
I mean, as someone who isn't wanted by the police, I don't really have problem
with the police catching people they're looking for. I thought the body
cameras were for everyone accountability, not just police.

Lots and lots of crime goes unpunished (and I'm not talking about victimless
crimes) because police don't identify the perpetrator or can't find them. I'd
be thrilled if everyone who'd committed a hit and run, or mugged someone, was
terrified knowing that they were definitely going to be caught with this
technology.

So many people are victimized because the perpetrators are fairly certain they
won't be caught. Society as a whole would be better off if people were
guaranteed to be caught and punished when they victimize someone.

~~~
TFortunato
Regardless of my personal feelings on the matter - you should know that the
facial recognition tech you are advocating for increases the chances that you
would become wanted by the police, even if you didn't do anything, because the
tech has been shown to be horribly inaccurate in actual, real-world policing
uses.

There is a huge difference between banning "finding the person they are
looking for", and banning the use of bad tech.

~~~
mullingitover
I take this to mean you will fully support it when the false positive rate is
close enough to zero, and you're not simply concern trolling.

~~~
TFortunato
?

~~~
mullingitover
Would you be satisfied if the technology was allowed on the condition it met a
minimum threshold for accuracy?

------
jjtheblunt
I thought the law stated that what was plainly visible (in plain sight) was
implicitly and universally considered evidence. If that is true (not sure that
it is) wouldn't that mean it's perfectly legal to do whatever you want with
pictures?

~~~
jmpman
Just because a policing technique is considered “legal”, doesn’t mean that a
community needs to allow their police to use that technique.

------
xiphias2
,,This technology also allows people to be tracked without consent.''

I apploud this law, but Facebook and Google already does this.

~~~
willj
Isn't this different because with fb and google you're signing a EULA?

~~~
_Understated_
I don't use social media but my understanding is that you can upload pictures
of me to FB etc. and I can't do anything about it (assuming I even knew you
did it, of course).

You may have signed the EULA, but I didn't.

Kind of sounds the same to me.

~~~
xiphias2
It's enough if you visit a website that has Facebook or Google integration,
you don't need an action from a friend

------
w_t_payne
Hasn't this ship sailed already?

