
Facial recognition system risks 'chilling effect' on freedoms, rights groups say - ricardoreis
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/07/facial-image-matching-system-risks-chilling-effect-on-freedoms-rights-groups-say
======
marchenko
Imagine this capability existed in the US before miscegenation, or same-sex
intercourse, or cannabis use, or concealed carry, were legal/broadly accepted.
It could be used to harass non-criminal supporters of these measures(caught a
SSM proponent jaywalking!) and prosecute those engaged in the target
criminalized activity, preventing movements to legalize these activities from
ever gaining momentum. Social mores would become ossified. Perfect prosecution
is not desirable in an imperfect world.

~~~
mschuster91
> It could be used to harass non-criminal supporters of these measures(caught
> a SSM proponent jaywalking!) and prosecute those engaged in the target
> criminalized activity, preventing movements to legalize these activities
> from ever gaining momentum

That's why cannabis was criminalized in the first place: target hippies and
PoC, get their leaders silenced.

~~~
TheAnig
It was actually pushed by big-pharma to keep the more lucrative opioid based
patented medicines going versus the CBT, THC based equivalents. Look at the
new products introduced by Canadian pharma for more details.

------
module0000
Sounds great! And us, the public, will have access to this as well.....right?
Can we watch a live-map of police and other state-employed persons with a
positive facial match as they move about? No? Why not? Well that's how we feel
too.

~~~
malux85
especially politicians.

------
netcan
This stuff is a ratchet. You can win a battle here and there, maybe slowing
the progress, but the long term trend is one directional.

The way privacy norms and abstract rules about limiting power come about is
*not" through gradualism. It's through hurdled events. The american
revolution. The 1989 revolutions. Particular points in time where you can say
"Stazi bad. Never again."

The reality is that these chouces involve compromising security. Slightly
freer, and slightly less safe is not a winning political argument.

Imagine a system where detectives can plug it back a name or a face and
retrieve location information from that person's phone, city-wide CCTV video,
etc.

Creeoy, but more crimes will be solved.

Gradualism favours security over freedom in the long term. There are 19
rapists walking free in our city today, because limits on police power....
There's only one way this argument goes.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
> Slightly freer, and slightly less safe is not a winning political argument.

It should be when the reality, despite the publicity of occasional terrorist
incidents (9/11 included), is "slightly freer and slightly less safe against
an event so vanishingly unlikely you should simply forget about it. You're
hundreds of times more likely to die in a car accident or falling off a
ladder. We should not let the terrorists win by ruining our way of life and
associated freedoms".

Surely that's not _that_ hard a message to sell when it has been a winning
message for many years in the past?

No, it's the current _fashion._ I expect more of politicians. Of course in
today's world I am regularly disappointed.

~~~
Ntrails
You can argue _it 's not worth paying the price_ to catch more murderers, to
protect more children from pedophiles, to stop more rapes. But that's a
subjective value judgement and society doesn't have to agree with you.

Be disappointed all you want, but try actually taking their position seriously
first.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
> but try actually taking their position seriously first.

That's a mighty big presumption. Upon what grounds do you say I am not?

------
JoeAltmaier
In the medieval days of villages, everybody knew everyone's face. There was
little in the way of privacy.

Today we expect a certain level of anonymity, but mostly just because we've
grown up with it. It's not been normal through history. It may not even be
healthy (to live in a society alone and unknown).

I don't think its the end of the world. It won't even be the end of privacy.
Social privacy is mostly pretending in public not to know what you shouldn't
know. Nobody 'hears' what goes on behind the bathroom door in their home,
because its the height of rudeness to mention it.

We'll have to come up with social norms to not know what everybody is doing
every place in public. Not knowing who went to what private clubs, or who
visited whom's house after dark when their spouse wasn't home and so on.
Unless we saw it in person of course!

~~~
motohagiography
Those villages were within each persons Dunbar number and had a unified notion
of shared interest and tribal identity. I think the argument that we never had
privacy or that it is unnatural needs to be put to rest.

Automated facial recognition is explicitly for one interest group to monitor
an "other." In most cases, it is a state and its party interests monitoring
subjects, or one class monitoring another. It's a weapon and there is nothing
benevolent or benign about it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Confused; that argument seems to be endorsing the idea that there was little
privacy, then denying it?

And agreed no doubt misused facial recognition will be an issue. Just not a
personal-relationship one; it'll be a government one.

~~~
esotericn
In case A, a village member knows a private fact about you.

In case B, an arbitrary person or collection of people across the globe know
private facts about you.

The hypothetical individual in case A has _drastically_ different incentives
regarding disclosure or use of that information. I wouldn't even call it
superficially similar.

The modern example would be that your roommate knows fact X, vs. some larger
group, or the entire world, knows fact X.

The former can, but not necessarily will, lead to the latter.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hm, disagree. Socially, its only important if someone you have to deal with,
knows something about you that they shouldn't. That the set 'people you have
to deal with' is larger now is true, but maybe not critical.

~~~
esotericn
Larger groups don't act the same way as smaller ones.

If your sister dies tomorrow, you'd probably be quite upset.

If I die tomorrow, you wouldn't care even if you found out.

Consider that your roommate, parent, village member, whatever, finds out that
you're gay. It's a small group. They have the information to know whether that
getting out would be good or bad for you, whether you'd like that information
to be disclosed.

On a global scale that discretion just doesn't exist at all. Facebook doesn't
_care_. A random worker who sees that information doesn't _care_. The
information can make its way to someone who _does_ matter to you (or at any
later point suddenly you may matter to them).

~~~
Godel_unicode
You seem to be arguing from the position that people in these villages were
good to each other, and that bullying wasn't a thing. You clearly never lived
in a small town.

~~~
esotericn
Not at all.

> They have the information to know whether that getting out would be good or
> bad for you, whether you'd like that information to be disclosed.

Nowhere did I state that they will necessarily act benevolently. The fact is
that they have a choice.

At a large scale that decision making process doesn't exist. Your actions
become 'data'.

You can move away from bad roommates or out of your village. You can't move
out of the world.

------
newscracker
> _There are also fears about the level of access given to private
> corporations and the legislation’s loose wording, which could allow it to be
> used for purposes other than related to terrorism or serious crime._

Truth is, it _will be_ used for purposes other than related to terrorism or
serious crime. It’s alarming how democratic countries are invading the privacy
of their own citizens, creating mass surveillance machinery that could become
uncontrollably detrimental to the very institutions and structures that they
claim to value and protect. Among the FIVE EYES countries, Australia seems to
be doing a lot more (comparatively) on mass surveillance and having the
legislative backing for it.

> _The database will be accessible to federal, state and territory governments
> through a central hub connecting the various photographic identity
> databases._

This is how it starts, with vague claims of safeguards that belie the actual
access and how they can (and will be) misused.

It seems like future generations will have to give up freedom to get some
sense of safety (as painted by those in power).

~~~
module0000
>>Truth is, it will be used for purposes other than related to terrorism or
serious crime. It’s alarming how democratic countries are invading the privacy
of their own citizens, creating mass surveillance machinery that could become
uncontrollably detrimental to the very institutions and structures that they
claim to value and protect. Among the FIVE EYES countries, Australia seems to
be doing a lot more (comparatively) on mass surveillance and having the
legislative backing for it.

It's easy to show an example scenario that _almost always_ causes a system to
like this to abuse privacy. Take the system, FR in this case, and insert the
use case "Politician XYZ's 3-year old daughter has been abducted, and the FR
system we promised not to use for this purpose could identify their captor!".
Works every time. Once you do it that first time, the seal is broken for
future abuse.

~~~
newscracker
That's true. It doesn't even have to be a politician's child. "What about the
children?" [1] works quite well to rile people up to surrender their own
freedoms and of the future generations.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children)

------
Theodores
If you want to experience the 'chilling effect' of facial recognition first
hand, go to a meaningful political protest in the UK. These are different to
the circus-and-bread protests, e.g. complaining about Trump in some collective
Pinch and Judy show.

With the more useful protest events numbers are smaller and those that attend
aren't there just to post selfies of themselves looking good protesting at the
bogeyman-du-jour on Instagram. Protesting against the arms trade or fracking
will be getting yourself proper attention from the authorities. The police
have the one tactic called 'the kettle' where they form a police line around
all the protesters, then letting them out, one by one, getting everyone's
photo. From then on you know that you will be in some special rogue's gallery,
to be denied being able to work for the three letter agencies and other places
in the civil service due to being a known troublemaker. They don't need to
take your postcode or DNA, just that waltz past the camera will do. As you can
imagine this has a 'chilling effect' and curbs one' enthusiasm for wanting to
participate in the direct democracy that is so encouraged by our governments
just so long as it is part of the 'Arab Spring' or other such nonsense.

Facial recognition for cows on the farm, that is a thing and also has
applications for other areas, e.g. nature conservation, so there is nothing
wrong with it for other species, putting them under mass surveillance and not
needing the physical tags.

~~~
codedokode
> The police have the one tactic called 'the kettle' where they form a police
> line around all the protesters, then letting them out, one by one, getting
> everyone's photo

Why don't they just ask for an ID? At least that's what police does in Russia.
If you don't have an ID - they can detain you for several hours, if you have
an ID - they can detain you for something else ("we need to check your
documents, please go with us").

~~~
thinkingemote
carrying ID is not required in the UK. The police can ask for proof for
identity and address under some circumstances (e.g. they need a reason more
than just "you were protesting" and I think generally this would take time and
paperwork, including the police giving a receipt to the person. Much easier
and cleaner to take a photo.

------
amelius
A face is like a cookie, so if there are laws against cookies, there should be
laws against facial recognition.

~~~
dredds
Instead they will make laws against facial obfuscation.

~~~
scaryclam
In case anyone wonders how likely that sort of law is, France actually have a
law against covering your face in public areas:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering)

~~~
NLips
While I dislike the ban on e.g. religious garments, it can still be coherent
to ban face covering and ban face recording.

------
captainbland
I think this is probably only the tip of the iceberg as well - facial
recognition is one thing, although it can be difficult if your face is
obscured somehow. The real fun will begin when they can start doing things
like gait recognition + other features for person re-id in real-time across
CCTV networks. Fortunately I think we're some way off doing that reliably and
with a reasonable cost.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Or tracing dna evidence instantly (those skin tags we leave on every surface
or wafting in the air as we pass).

------
xfitm3
Further evidence which suggests privacy will soon be a luxury reserved only
for distinguished individuals.

