
Facial Recognition Software Moves from Overseas Wars to Local Police - aethertap
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/us/facial-recognition-software-moves-from-overseas-wars-to-local-police.html?_r=0
======
nerdcity
People asking for body cameras on all police, whether net benefit or not, need
to understand everything that is coming with it. That includes automatic
facial identification of everyone. Police will simply no longer have to ask
for ID. Obscuring your face is already being made illegal... (see: burqa bans)

~~~
therobot24
So i looked up burqa bans and found this: [http://qz.com/326086/the-places-in-
the-world-that-have-a-bur...](http://qz.com/326086/the-places-in-the-world-
that-have-a-burqa-ban/) which basically only has 2 European countries banning
it nationally, and just a few more who implement local bans or have attempted
to ban it. Provided the constitutional religious freedoms we have in the US,
it seems very unlikely that a similar ban would pass here. In terms of
obscuring your face, there are anti-mask laws, but they really pertain to
protests/riots.

I'm not suggesting that the ban is good, or other countries will not follow
suit, however it just seems like quite a jump to make - because 6 countries
have some form of a ban on a burqa we have to watch out for face recognition.
Should we not wear a cross if we're Christian because Syria persecutes
Jehovah’s Witnesses?

~~~
nerdcity
[http://qz.com/326086/the-places-in-the-world-that-have-a-
bur...](http://qz.com/326086/the-places-in-the-world-that-have-a-burqa-ban/)

 _In 2011, France went even further, forbidding concealment of people’s face
in public—through a burqa, niqab (a version of the veil that leaves a slot for
a woman’s eyes), but also masks or balaclavas_

[http://www.connexionfrance.com/cctv-video-surveillance-
prote...](http://www.connexionfrance.com/cctv-video-surveillance-protection-
paris-nice-france-privacy-11483-news-article.html)

 _President Sarkozy wants 2011 to be the year that "vidéoprotection" goes
mainstream, and has set a target of 60,000 cameras watching public spaces
around the country by the end of this year, up from the current 20,000._

~~~
therobot24
Did you read my reply? I'm aware that France and a few other countries are
placing a ban on burqas. I stated this very fact.

So i guess i'm confused what you're getting at here.

~~~
nerdcity
I'm just noting that the timing coincides with an upward usage of cctv and
public surveillance.

~~~
therobot24
Oh ok. Yea that's a good point. Though i stated in another reply that images
of unconstrained users from NIR sensors is still an active and less successful
form of face recognition. It's actually part of what i work on!

------
mangeletti
Minority Report, here we come.

Incrementalism is a powerful tool for exerting an unstoppable force onto
something which would otherwise notice that force and resist it.

~~~
therobot24
on another note, would you want police to not implement tools that improve the
success rate of finding those with outstanding warrants?

~~~
code_duck
It depends whether those warrants are for offenses like armed robbery and rape
or drug offenses and parking tickets.

~~~
logfromblammo
Or sedition and lese majesty. This technology can be used to enforce laws
hostile to the masses as well as it can help enforce laws friendly to us.
Since we do not control it, it will inevitably be used for both.

In areas where violent and property crimes are high, it will be a blessing. In
places where law enforcement is used mainly for supplementing municipal
revenue, it will be a curse. And where the government uses the law as a weapon
against dissent, it will be a nightmare.

~~~
therobot24
>> In areas where violent and property crimes are high, it will be a blessing.
In places where law enforcement is used mainly for supplementing municipal
revenue, it will be a curse. And where the government uses the law as a weapon
against dissent, it will be a nightmare.

This is true of almost any police tool. I mean you can apply to guns, pepper
spray, probable cause, etc. As a blanket statement reply: It really comes down
to implementation and training.

Really though, i'm not arguing for or against face recognition in local law
enforcement. As a biometrics researcher i love to see real applications that
actually work for the community, but as someone who disagrees with mass
collections, outside of the obvious, such as a license photo or voluntary
admittance to a NEXUS/TSA pre-check/Global Entry program, i worry.

------
pjc50
The Metropolitan Police have had "forward intelligence teams" (FIT) filming
demonstrations for some time in order to identify people.

Note that, as people are increasingly demanding that police wear body cameras
to record evidence of possible police abuse, these cameras can also be fed to
image recognition systems.

~~~
willyt
I heard from a colleague who went on a tour of a CCTV control centre in London
that it was being used on surveillance camera live streams at least 15 years
ago.

~~~
pjc50
I can believe it, although I can also believe it not working very well with
pre-HD cameras and 2000s machine vision. Presumably it's part of the ""ring of
steel""?

~~~
therobot24
Unconstrained face recognition from NIR sensors (often used in CCTVs) is
studied substantially less than on images acquired from visible light sensors
(for obvious reasons). There's a few face recognition datasets (e.g., SCFace,
MBGC Portal Challenge) that aimed to change this, but it still far from
meeting the same accuracies we see from Google/Facebook.

------
romaniv
_> Facial recognition software, which American military and intelligence
agencies used for years in Iraq and Afghanistan_

Mighty good it did them there...

It's disturbing that no matter how much technology police gets, they always
seem to want more. I mean, look at the encryption backdoor debate. We're being
monitored in all ways imaginable, and apparently it's still not enough.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_Mighty good it did them there..._

What is your measure of success? In fact, the field biometrics system worked
really well for human network mapping - which was it's intended purpose. We
defeated a lot of IED networks in part because of this tool.

~~~
cryoshon
Political success. Tactical and strategic success are usually a necessary but
not sufficient condition.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
That's my point though. You can't say that the overall effort failed,
therefore all of the pieces must be worthless. The success of GWOT was not
based on biometrics collection capabilities.

------
ck2
When I read that soldiers were forcing Iraqi civilians to do iris scans
several years ago, I knew that eventually we'd see police in the USA doing the
same thing here.

~~~
cryoshon
The concerning thing is that our police here seem to think that they are
soldiers who are in Iraq.

They also fail to recognize that scanning large swaths of civilians breeds
intense resentment from an already hostile population and ends up causing more
support for the insurgency. Knowing American cops, I can't envision an iris
scan being committed without some snarky negging from the officer.

------
PerilousD
The technology is agnostic and can be used in ways not originally envisioned.
What happens when every police appearance is captured and then run through say
social media scans for 'ID' purposes?

~~~
romaniv
So, let's say you do that. Then what?

------
whoopdedo
And the federal RealID program provides a nice comprehensive dataset to train
the computers with. This is the veiled motivation behind ID laws that are
being promoted as protecting the public from terrorists, sex offenders, or
voter fraud. But what the US government really wants is to introduce a
loophole in the 4th amendment by outsourcing policing. It's not an illegal
search if it's done by a private company. And they don't have to respond to
FOIA requests either.

~~~
therobot24
Based on what is in Wikipedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act)),
i don't see any provisions mandating everyone having a government ID from the
RealID program. Rather, "sets requirements for state driver's licenses and ID
cards to be accepted by the federal government for 'official purposes'". Also
the mandated IDs for 'voter fraud' were largely a political ploy to prevent
certain people from voting, not to collect information.

Maybe take off the tinfoil once in awhile.

------
ilurk
IRL privacy cat and mouse game.

There is already some work in the privacy clothing area. Almost makes it look
like items for a sci-fi RPG.

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2969732/privacy/how-japans-
pr...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2969732/privacy/how-japans-privacy-
visor-fools-facerecognition-cameras.html)

    
    
      If you’re worried about Big Brother monitoring you from security cameras, Japan has developed eyewear that can keep you anonymous.
    
      The Privacy Visor consists of a lightweight, wraparound, semitransparent plastic sheet fitted over eyewear frames. It’s bulky and not exactly stylish, but it could have customized designs.
    
      It’s meant to thwart face-recognition camera systems through a very simple trick. It reflects overhead light into the camera lens, causing the area around the eyes to appear much brighter than it normally does. 
    
    

[http://ahprojects.com/projects/stealth-
wear/](http://ahprojects.com/projects/stealth-wear/)

    
    
      Building off previous work with CV Dazzle, camouflage from face detection, Stealth Wear continues to explore the aesthetics of privacy and the potential for fashion to challenge authoritarian surveillance.
    
      Presented by Primitive at Tank Magazine were a suite of new designs that tackle some of the most pressing and sophisticated forms of surveillance today. The countersurveillance solutions include a series of ‘Anti-Drone’ garments and the Off Pocket™, a privacy accessory that allows you to instantly zero out your phone’s signal.
    
    

How long until they're outlawed just like encryption will.

edit: is there any proper way to easily quote text? So that it stays text
wrapped.

~~~
DanBC
> edit: is there any proper way to easily quote text? So that it stays text
> wrapped

Don't put four spaces in front of quoted text. Just use some quote-indicator
character. Most people on HN use >, but anything is fine so long as it's clear
what you're quoting.

------
dharma1
time to start rocking these
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRj8whKmN1M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRj8whKmN1M)

~~~
therobot24
From the video it looks like they're just preventing face detection (probably
using OpenCVs implementation of Viola Jones), though i don't think an actual
recognition system would do much better when provided a picture of you with
lights shining in the middle of your face. For most systems, a combination of
a hat, scarf, and sunglasses will work just fine (but keep in mind, if the
system uses NIR sensors then sunglasses won't work - they only block UV
light).

~~~
dharma1
yep that's why the glasses use IR lights - invisible to the naked eye but
visible/distracting to sensors

------
fapjacks
Surprise!

~~~
msandford
Slippery slope argument, meet Reality. Reality, this is Slippery slope!

~~~
fapjacks
Apparently you don't know many police officers. This, in fact, was inevitable,
following specifically from the circumstance that many police officers are
also reserve soldiers and spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan using those
tools. I'd estimate the vast majority of law enforcement organizations in the
US have personnel that are also in the reserves or guard. I deployed with many
police officers, and heard many of those police officers talk specifically
about getting a hold of these biometrics tools for use in law enforcement back
home.

You're right that not everyone shares my somewhat unique perspective, and so
to those who have no relationship with police officers and are therefore
ignorant of the facts, it may seem fallacious. And also it's fun to make those
quippy accusations, so I understand the impulse.

~~~
woodman
Your perspective is not very unique, there are a lot of veterans due to high
churn. It is my experience that there is very little crossover between the
military and police. Of the hundred-something guys in my last company, only
two went on to law enforcement. A few years ago I had a nonmilitary friend go
through one of the country's top police academies, and his stories aligned
with my experiences - there weren't a lot of veterans in his class. The local
PD has 120 officers, of that only two are veterans (neither of them were
combat arms). I have my theories about why this is, but that is another
discussion.

So the whole narrative, where police militarization is due to veteran hires,
rings pretty hollow for me. What we are seeing here is the result of an end-
justifies-the-means mentality. The military has the same mentality, but this
is very deliberately tempered by a focus on honor and duty - something that
law enforcement lacks by comparison.

~~~
fapjacks
That's interesting. What was your MOS? In the infantry, we had a much higher
ratio of police officers, and I was in a few different units which had higher
ratios than yours. In my last company alone we had -- roughly estimating here
-- fifteen or twenty law enforcement officers of various kinds.

~~~
woodman
0331, infantry machine gunner. We saw a lot of combat in Fallujah, which might
have taken the starch out of most. There is also the timing to consider, 01 to
05 were interesting years for the military - a very large injection of middle
and upper middle class folks.

~~~
fapjacks
Maybe there are more police officers are in the Army than the Marines. It is
definitely a significant demographic in line units in the Army guard and
reserves. FWIW we had the opposite happen: When I joined in 2000, there were a
lot of college kids and middleupper-middle class people. After the wars
started, it was basically people coming off of active duty to serve the rest
of their 8 years (four active, four guard/reserve), poor people that couldn't
afford college otherwise (myself included) and law enforcement. There was an
enormous shift, and a kind of unspoken understanding before Iraq that anybody
that didn't want to be in combat needed to get out. And so they found ways --
like PT tests and paperwork (and I suppose drug tests and DUIs) -- to get out.

~~~
woodman
I knew that the cultures were different, but I never would have guessed that
the Army had post-9/11 recruit quality problems - especially for combat arms.
When the fourth 9/11 anniversary rolled around the USMC leadership was
sweating bullets and pulling out all the stops for retention, because the
enlisted pool was the best it had been in living memory.

Everybody knows that bootcamp is designed to provide a common experience and
rebuild recruits, standardizing to the military's brand of discipline and
morality - like interchangeable-parts from the industrial revolution. I've
wondered what distance that influence would cover in one's life, because so
far it is still holding up in interesting ways. I've talked to guys I hadn't
heard from in ten years, and despite differences in profession and family
situation, a pretty strong pattern has emerged in uncommon
political/philosophical thought.

So maybe the influence is much more local. Maybe some soldiers become cops
because their drill instructors withheld affection :)

~~~
fapjacks
Heh, "withheld affection"... I'm going to use that.

I should say there wasn't so much a problem with recruit _quality_ , as the
people I mentioned were just as good at soldiering as the others, but it was
certainly different. Most of the men in my family were in the Marine Corps at
some point, and I worked with Marines on my second and fourth tours, so I have
a little bit of insight into what you mean about the culture difference. Also
I should say I always enjoyed working with Marines.

And with respect to your other point, I think military service is so valuable
for individuals that I strongly support conscription. I believe only good
things could come of requiring every person to go serve in the military (or
Peace Corps or something) for two years when they turn 18. If we did that, I
think the problems we're facing as a nation would see some positive change
within a single generation, and I'm confident enough in that statement that I
am sure you feel the same way. For all the things I hated about the Army, the
physical and psychological tools they equipped me with have helped enrich my
life in so many ways. Every time I think about my feelings about this, I
picture that scene from Starship Troopers when the guy wheels his chair out
from the desk and he's missing a leg and has a prosthetic arm, but he shakes
Johnny's hand and says "Good for you. The infantry made me the man I am
today"[0] and that's how I personally feel about it. I mean, I have all my
fingers and toes, but I feel like that guy. Including the tragedy, I wouldn't
trade the experience for anything.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPTPe33PQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPTPe33PQY)

~~~
woodman
The antics and over-the-top bravado, reaching levels of self parody, is an
acquired taste - the family connection must have provided a measure of
inoculation. There is a reason why they always put the infantry barracks in
the furthest corner of the base, next to the grenade range - because even
Marines get tired of the self promotion. I spent several months instructing in
a joint service training program at Quantico, and honestly the Army personnel
bugged the hell out of me because it was so hard to get a rise out of them :)
The Army's leadership in program management and standards development was
always impressive, the transition to COTS procurement in the 90s is a real
bummer when you look at all the interesting stuff the military was doing: Ada,
IDEF1X, etc.

As far as conscription, I think that would be close to the worst thing ever.
From a utilitarian perspective: it would be incredibly expensive and would
reduce force readiness. From a moral perspective: it is pretty hard to
logically justify the threats of violence organic to such an endeavor -
threats against the intended benefactors, civilians. I might have agreed with
you 10 years ago, if the infantry remained all volunteer under such a program,
but the utilitarian arguments no longer appeal to me. I wish I could put my
finger on exactly what bit of information flipped the switch in my brain and
made me an anarchist, but it was a pretty long process. It probably occurred
around the time that I was spending a lot of time studying first order logic
and cybernetics (As you can see, I'm a big fan of technology once popular in
the 70's). Applying lessons from those fields, related to scaling working
systems, to social systems - leads to the idea that a social system founded on
an immoral precept will never be able to compete against a system founded
otherwise. The test is pretty easy, if a rule has an exception then the
problem to which the rule applies was not well defined and this leads to
serious scaling issues. I could go on for hours, but I don't think anybody
really wants that.

Regrets. I don't have any, aside from not taking math more seriously as a kid.
I am rational and self interested, the product of my experiences - so if I had
it all to do over again, I would. But, if there was a button I could press
that would magically bring a few former Fallujah residents back to life - I
would press it.

BTW, the Starship Troopers reference is interesting because the author,
Heinlein, has a Naval Academy grad who used the book as a platform to describe
his preferred philosophy of governance. Ayn Rand did the exact same thing with
Atlas Shrugged. Both are good reads, but I'm sure you won't be surprised to
hear that I lean more towards Rand's objectivism.

~~~
fapjacks
Well, I can't say I'm surprised to hear what you've said in your last
sentence. It seems most people in the military and veterans adopt this
mindset. I really don't like labels, and I've always been kinda strange, and
likewise have some very "strange" ideas about how the world should work. But
suffice it to say that I am ultimately an anarchist, but also very much a
socialist. I would like to see big government and big capitalism die in a
fire, but a skeleton remain that provides social welfare for those that aren't
capable of providing for themselves. I have married into becoming a Swede, and
don't mind the high tax rate because of the social benefits it funds. What
I've found in talking with people from all parts of the spectrum is that
generally, most people share the sentiment that corporate capitalism and huge
government is bad, and that individuals should be empowered to change their
own fate. Once you get rid of the us-versus-them of people defaulting to
defending their favorite color, you get a lot of "Yeah, veterans missing legs
and orphans and the poor should be offered a leg up, and capitalism is a
pretty good tool for a lot of things" from both sides. You get a lot of this
kind of discourse in Sweden, for example, where there is instead fierce and
fallacious arguing in the States.

In my teens, I used to abhor the idea of conscription. But traveling the world
as an adult (outside of the military kind of "travel"), I saw systems with
conscription and that conscription having a direct positive impact on the
public's participation in government, which seems to most maximally bring to
fruition the will of the people, whatever their collective wishes are. A
distant cousin of "an informed decision is the best decision, regardless of
what is chosen". Places like Israel and Finland. Interestingly, Sweden
abolished conscription in the early 2000s, and I believe there is a resultant
apathy in the youngest generation that is pretty plain and obvious and
generally acknowledged even among that generation. It is very interesting to
have watched that happen, and I believe having abolished conscription is
directly to blame for that apathy.

With respect to your magic button, the way I look at it is that everyone
eventually meets their demise. A mantra my best friend instilled in me is that
everything happens for a reason. I don't want to get into religion because
we're not on mushrooms and that is a whole universe unto itself, but the point
I'm trying to make here is that our current mindset and state of being has
come at a price. The important thing to say here is that _we don 't get to set
the price_. Our experiences cost real, actual lives. I also carried a machine
gun my entire time in the Army, at various times I was also a Bradley gunner
and a .50 gunner. We pressed buttons that gave us experiences at a cost that
we didn't choose. That's just the way the world worked out for us in those
moments, and it is what it is. What I'm driving at is that it is difficult or
impossible to speculate about what our lives would be like without those
costly experiences, because those experiences are necessarily driving our
decisions today. It took a lot of time for me personally to come to this
point, and what it ends up doing is really brings those costs to bear, so that
I get much more out of life than I would otherwise. Once I stopped feeling
numb about the whole thing, even going out for a run on the trail next to my
house in the suburbs feels like a gift, and that's a pretty profound
realization, considering the general attitude of apathy a lot of the
population of the developed world feels. They take life for granted.

So, that was a tangent, maybe also not directly addressing all of the things
you've said. But maybe helps quantify some of the reasons I've said what I've
said.

~~~
woodman
Heh, I have a friend who would say the same thing - "Everything happens for a
reason." My response was always, "Everything happens because it happens." We
all have to choose at what level of abstraction we spend most of our time.
Logically I understand that free will is an illusion, because it requires the
impossible - deciding to decide before making a decision. Nihilism can be very
therapeutic in small doses, unfortunately I don't think the DoD will consider
it for treatment to PTSD :)

While I won't spend a lot of time considering the absence of free will,
analysis paralysis, propositional logic is pretty comfortable - once subtle
violations of axioms are skylined. As I consider self ownership to be
universally preferable, any system requiring its forfeiture is simply wrong.
Even in a democracy one does not enjoy self ownership, as every voter owns
some small part of everybody else vulnerable to the results of a vote.

This way of thinking can at best be a cold comfort, but it is nice no longer
feeling that sense of crisis when new information hits your brain and violates
the prior model of the world.

~~~
fapjacks
Before I forget (and I do that quite a lot), thanks for the interesting
conversation.

~~~
woodman
np, thanks for listening!

