
Taser has started its own in-house AI unit - mattlevan
http://www.vocativ.com/402771/ai-body-cams-cops-google/
======
paunchy
I work at TASER/Axon, the company asserted to have this technology. This
article, which appeared on the front page of the Drudge report this morning,
is extremely disingenuous.

They have repackaged a press release that announced our investments in
computer vision and machine learning and have made a huge leap that we have
built or are currently building facial recognition into our cameras. This is
false.

We believe that AI has the potential to streamline police work and reduce
inefficiency. Police officers spend a substantial amount of time (65%
according to a Netherlands study) doing administrative tasks like report
writing and filling out forms. Our goal is to reduce this wasted time so that
officers can spend more time in the street and with their communities.

If this sounds interesting, we're hiring! Come join our team in Seattle and
write code that saves lives.

~~~
hackuser
Thanks for sharing your perspective. Reducing inefficiency would be great, but
what is TASER/Axon's view about this technology's effects on privacy and civil
rights (EDIT: and on their responsibility to create products that protect
rights and sell them to users who will do the same).

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coleca
The title of the article is misleading. The article actually states that
Taser's cameras do not have facial recognition. They use face detection to
blur and redact faces from footage captured by body cameras. And far from real
time they say that they hope to take that redaction process that takes eight
hours to 1.5 hours for an hour video clip.

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hu3
14 years ago I told my teacher at a very respected uni that real-time facial
recognition would surely be used by gov for security.

He said I was insane and that this would be extremely hard to implement and it
was very improbable that it would ever happen. He basically demoralized me in
front of my colleagues.

Needless to say he failed to convince otherwise and I lost all respect for
him.

~~~
anigbrowl
One rule of thumb I've found very useful is that if someone says a proposed or
imagined outcome is impossible rather than asking how would that work, it's
probably bullshit.

Obviously if they can follow through with a good reason like pointing out a
violation of thermodynamics or some inherent mathematical paradox you should
take that seriously, but the more reflexive the dismissal the less well-
founded it usually turns out to be.

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ctdonath
Per the comments noting that this (police-mounted face recognition) isn't a
thing:

I'm amazed that pervasive face recognition _isn 't_ a thing. I figured it
would be the killer app for Google Glass, popping up notes about everyone you
see. Apple & Facebook could leverage it from the face tagging in Photos & FB.
Police could be well-served by a vest-mounted lightweight system giving likely
identifications of encountered suspects (or anyone) from mugshots et al. Thing
is, all the technology is there waiting for use; it's a killer app just
waiting for society to put up with it (just like privacy invasions that were
intolerable back when and are normal today).

(I'm not necessarily _advocating_ it, just figuring it's inevitable and ready
to explode onto the scene.)

~~~
Eridrus
It exists in Russia under the name FindFace.

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confounded
The only viable solution to this is regulation, and our only real hopes for it
are the ACLU and the EFF.

~~~
xiphias
It's too easy to implement, so it can't be regularized. The only thing you get
in return is that you'll be able to recognize the faces of police officers as
well with the same technology. The world is shrinking, and it will feel like
we're all living in a huge village.

~~~
kbenson
> and it will feel like we're all living in a huge village

A very apt way of putting it. For a while now I've held the opinion that
anonymity (and to some degree privacy, at least the privacy you expect from
anonymity) as we know it is a short-lived artifact of our accumulation into
larger groups, where it's not possible to know everyone around you and almost
everything about them. The farther back you go, the less anonymity there was
to the people that you saw every day.

In that respect, what we're seeing is a return to the norm. That doesn't mean
it's better, but I'm not sure there's a way to actually prevent it exept on an
individual basis, and then only with a lot of work on the part of that
individual.

~~~
confounded
> _In that respect, what we 're seeing is a return to the norm_

In no way. Note that the article is about police body cameras. This is less
about technology than it is about the power of the state over individuals.

~~~
kbenson
I'm not sure what you think gives the state a monopoly on this. There's
massive amounts of information about most people online, and there will be
even more in the future. I think it's likely that in the future even if you've
never put a single picture of yourself online, there will likely be enough
images of people in public and associated information to identify you anyway
(use a credit card at a store? Why wouldn't they choose to associate your
image from in-store cameras with that customer record?).

All the more egregious aspects of online marketing and tracking are coming to
the physical realm. You too will likely be able to access this information for
a price. Good luck trying to stop it. Honestly. The world would be a better
place in my estimation if you could. I just have little faith in measures
designed to combat economically incentivized behavior.

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zip1234
Facial Recognition - This is who person is based on this face

Facial Detection - This part of image is a face

The article is referring to facial detection and object classification and
not, as is mentioned, facial recognition. Also, it would certainly NOT be real
time. Computers are still quite poor at this even if they take a super long
amount of time and processing power.

~~~
randomdrake
_The article is referring to facial detection and object classification and
not, as is mentioned, facial recognition. Also, it would certainly NOT be real
time. Computers are still quite poor at this even if they take a super long
amount of time and processing power._

Visiting the links presented in the article, you'll find this is possibly not
correct. The article may have misrepresented but it does lead to a study that
specifically mentions "facial recognition" capabilities on these devices.

"A Market Survey on Body Worn Camera Technologies" from Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory and sponsored by the Department of
Justice’s National Institute of Justice in November of 2016 found 9 different
devices capable of facial recognition[1]. The software itself comes from a
handful of startups and technology companies.

They define facial recognition: "Facial recognition features allow the user to
identify or verify a person from a digital image or a video frame."

Relevant to Hacker News, this article is timely probably due to the mentioned
Dextro being acquired by AXON[2] (owned by TASER) to utilize their software in
their body camera[3].

[1] -
[https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/250381.pdf](https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/250381.pdf)

[2] - [https://medium.com/@dextro_co/dextro-
announcement-d21212463b...](https://medium.com/@dextro_co/dextro-
announcement-d21212463bf2#.2d5btj2z4)

[3] - [https://buy.taser.com/axon-body-camera/](https://buy.taser.com/axon-
body-camera/)

------
ianaphysicist
Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes.

~~~
ctdonath
So the system recognizes the mask as a known mask, recommending immediate
application of laws punishing wearing masks in public for nefarious purposes,
which is rather the whole point of wearing that particular mask.

