
Facial recognition technology is everywhere, and it may not be legal - SimplyUseless
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/11/facial-recognition-technology-is-everywhere-it-may-not-be-legal/
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williamcotton
_The scramble suit was an invention of the Bell laboratories, conjured up by
accident by an employee named S. A. Powers... Basically, his design consisted
of a multifaceted quartz lens hooked up to a million and a half physiognomic
fraction-representations of various people: men and women, children, with
every variant encoded and then projected outward in all directions equally
onto a superthin shroudlike membrane large enough to fit around an average
human.

As the computer looped through its banks, it projected every conceivable eye
color, hair color, shape and type of nose, formation of teeth, configuration
of facial bone structure - the entire shroudlike membrane took on whatever
physical characteristics were projected at any nanosecond, then switched to
the next...

In any case, the wearer of a scramble suit was Everyman and in every
combination (up to combinations of a million and a half sub-bits) during the
course of each hour. Hence, any description of him - or her - was
meaningless._

From A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick.

Published by Not Known in 1977

~~~
chopin
It might be simpler to just wear a Burka.

Although at least in Germany this will collide with masking regulations (you
are not allowed to mask in public gatherings).

~~~
omginternets
I don't think the point was that we should all go to the scramble-suit store
and buy a scramble suit...

~~~
marincounty
No, but we need to keep ahead of this technology, and fight it whenever we can
--for those that care? I'm beginning to think most people just don't care?
What I find ironic is any criminal with any forethought is going to become a
master of disguise--without going to that much trouble.

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NoGravitas
Obligatory link to CV Dazzle (a site exploring the use of avant-garde
hairstyles and makeup to foil facial recognition):
[http://cvdazzle.com/](http://cvdazzle.com/)

~~~
crottypeter
[https://xkcd.com/1105/](https://xkcd.com/1105/)

~~~
serf
Now imagine the cops in that comic have an unlimited amount of post-its which
catalog the most minute and esoteric details about the faces of everyone in
their city.

Also imagine that the cops have the ability to sift through and read those
post-its at mechanical speeds.

Also, instead of cops they are Wal-Mart greeters.

Then you get closer to reality than the comic did regarding the topic of
computer vision.

~~~
kbenson
I hope you aren't implying a comic strip glossed over some details in an
effort to reduce the message to a small, easily consumed and memorably
sequence of events, just so they could fit within the limits of the form. I
hold the medium in far to high a regard to consider that a possibility! ;)

Joking aside, I think you were primed to interpret the comic in a specific way
which may not have been the intent. I don't think it was saying much about the
state of surveillance using computer vision as much as it was showing the
absurdity, _at this point_ , of using a method that prevents computer vision
from working but also makes you uniquely and easily identifiable. Eventually,
if enough of the populace takes up a similar method of obfuscating their
identity, then it's useful, as you are again anonymized as one among many, but
until then you are an anonymous member of a very small group (possibly
containing only you), which itself isn't very hard to identify. Not all that
useful.

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sageabilly
I've spent the last three years either working for a company actively
implementing facial recognition (and other biometrics) into both
security/identity products and consumer retail products or just researching
biometric technology in general.

I've come to the conclusion that there won't be a great shift forward in these
technologies until someone comes along and completely reinvents the concept of
privacy itself. I've seen retailer after retailer try to implement
improvements to consumer experience (either through beacons and directed
coupons or through some sort of identity recognition) only to be met with
ENORMOUS backlash [1] from consumers freaking out because the store can tell
where they are in the store at any given time. In security, iris recognition,
voice recognition, and facial recognition are all methods of identification
that cannot be stolen and yet all are methods of identification that freak
people out to no end. _They 'd rather carry around an ID that can be stolen,
copied, and sold on the black market thus ruining their financial livelihood
for the rest of their lives than switch over to a more reliable biometric
based method of identification_

Privacy as we knew it is dead. It died a long time ago; hell you could
probably argue that it started to die the first time anyone published a phone
book because if I knew your name then I could figure out where you lived.
Biometrics, to me, is a recapturing of privacy and personal identification
because you no longer have to worry about relying on third parties to protect
your identity (which is obviously not working [2]), YOU ARE YOUR IDENTITY.
Your face, your voice, your fingerprint, your iris, all of these things cannot
be spoofed and are uniquely yours _and cannot be taken away from you_.

As for the article, this is a perfect example of the kinds of things that
require a reinvention of the notion of privacy. Used to be if you were
captured on camera in public no one knew who you were unless someone you knew
saw that picture and could identify you. Now with facial recognition, that's
not possible anymore. But Pandora's box has been opened and it cannot be shut
again so articles like this just seem totally pointless in light of that-
they're missing the fundamental issue that facial recognition is a thing that
exists and it's not going to stop existing just because we're all unsure how
we feel about it. Yes I _absolutely_ agree that facial recognition needs to be
an opt-in where it can be, like on Facebook or Twitter or whatever. However
we're living in a time when absolute right to privacy and anonymity in public
no longer exists, and we need to figure out how to navigate that fast or else
all of this biometric technology that can and should be used to make life
easier is going to be regulated all to hell and we'll be stuck in paranoia-
ville and afraid to leave our homes.

[1][http://consumerist.com/2013/05/10/nordstrom-decides-to-
stop-...](http://consumerist.com/2013/05/10/nordstrom-decides-to-stop-
tracking-customers-smartphones/)
[2][http://www.cnbc.com/id/102752205](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102752205)

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pjc50
_Your face, your voice, your fingerprint, your iris, all of these things
cannot be spoofed and are uniquely yours and cannot be taken away from you._

And you can't take them away from other people, nor revoke them when they are
"compromised". In particular for faces and voices, they can be used to
identify you without your knowledge and consent. That means they can be used
to discriminate against you on whatever basis the discriminator chooses. This
may just be price discrimination, which is what people are concerned about in
the retail context. Or it may be more extreme. You could use it to deny job
applications or credit to anyone who'd been at a political demonstration
filmed by police, for example.

[https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/val-
swain/disrupt...](https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/val-
swain/disruption-policing-surveillance-and-right-to-protest)

We have enough trouble with the simple human-recognisable biometric classifier
of "race" being used to discriminate against people.

~~~
murbard2
Price discrimination? Denying credit? Sure, but there are far worse things to
worry about.

How many people have escaped genocides with fake passports, or fake laissez-
passer?

Worry that biometric will make it harder to escape being sent to the gulag,
not that Walmart will deny you store credit.

~~~
pjc50
Well, I was trying to give plausible first-world examples of the top of the
slippery slope, because people might readily dismiss arguments about genocide
as hyperbole.

I'm reminded of
[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/IBM.h...](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/IBM.html)

In some ways we have the reverse situation prevailing; people are successfully
escaping the genocidal collapse of the middle east into Europe, but are under
threat of deportation by increasingly determined immigration enforcement.

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venomsnake
Can you carry a small laser on you that can fry the sensor? It is not that
hard to make it invisible and automated.

~~~
IshKebab
No, a small laser won't fry a normal camera. And how will you know where all
the cameras are anyway? Also that would be very illegal.

~~~
jacquesm
A green laser will happily burn out sensors, but you'd have to really work at
it to burn up _all_ of the sensor because the laser light will typically only
fry a couple of pixels at the time.

It's not a magical 'point and fry' solution, more like a take up position and
stand around for half an hour or so while the laser systematically hits every
bit of the sensor long enough to fry it. A hammer would be a lot more
effective (assuming you can reach the camera).

~~~
NoGravitas
> A hammer would be a lot more effective (assuming you can reach the camera).

So would a can of spray paint.

