I’ve heard of one a few years ago where there was a painting in the background that eventually was used to identify the hotel and then the hotel records could be used to tie it to a person. It was a number of years ago so I don’t remember the details to look them up.
I’m not sure how effective it is overall, and am certainly wary of anything privacy-eroding, but I do remember reading that story around the time it happened.
The first thing this site does is ask me for my location, and then berates me for not sharing my location.
Don't assume that someone opening https://traffickcam.com/ is there just to upload photos. Wait until I actually push some kind of "upload photos" button before you request my location.
FWIW: Whenever I open some unknown web site on the internet, I NEVER share my location. I only share my location when it's clear that location sharing is needed for a specific action.
> TraffickCam requires access to your location to double check that the photos you submit are actually taken at the hotel you select.
Ask for your thoughtful consideration...then your time of day...then your photos...then your tolerance for batshit ridiculous latency...then your on-the-spot location.
Then we would have to force all immigrants to actually use legal entry so they could also be fitted.
The problem with trafficking is that many victims have entered the US illegally and there are no records of their existence that cause authorities to question their whereabouts or even suspect they exist.
This can be solved with enough cameras. When those spot someone they immediately can check whether the person is tagged correctly. If not -> that's left as an exercise for the reader.
"Without user-submitted photos, the machine-learning system would rely only on photos from travel sites, which tend to be extremely clean and well-lit—a far cry from most evidence police are working with. "
I feel like any hotel owner would stop that from happening. Even if the net result is positive (catch the predator), the individual hotel will forever be associated with a negative (hey, look, there's the hotel that was used by predators).
For some hotels business is business. So they put the morals aside and turn a blind eye. Other higher end hotels simply prefer to do their own due diligence since reputation matters in the business. So they may address the issues but outside of any public eye.
I think that Michelin inspectors would be glad to earn some extra bucks, This people have ninja powers, have kitchen access multi-passes and are the only people in the universe that could start making photos to the stains in a restaurant WC and nobody would bat an eyelid.
Unless this is not so much about room control as many as "please write and submit a report about what you did over the weekend, that place yourself in a possible crime scenery", of course.
So we are handing over even more of our spaces to Law enforcement because won't somebody think of the children.
Has TraffickCam ever made a match on Sex Trafficking?
Whats to stop it's use for other crimes, like an Asian countries government using it to track meetings of the opposition? Or the location of a refugee.
Maybe don't take pictures of your secret government opposition meeting and post them on the Internet?
Traffickers would need to post photos to advertise their trafficking. Those photos could then be matched and traced. Secret government opposition meetings have no need to post photos. Indeed, if you are taking photos at all at your secret government opposition meeting, you are doing it wrong.
To quote Stringer Bell "...are you taking notes on a motherfucking criminal conspiracy???"
At least in the USA every data set available to police, every law of any strength has been extended, stretched or fragrantly misapplied/used (sometimes ruled illegally after the fact when defendant is able to determine what they did and has the means and wherewithal to appeal) well beyond its "sold" purpose. PATRIOT Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, parallel construction to allow NSA data collections to be used domestically, many others.
They have it. The incentive to use it "catch" people they know are criminals is great. So they use it. Why not, we're only using it to put away the "bad" people.
A photo of a hotel room, at nonspecific times and without people in it, seems as close to harmless as can be. And there is apparently a law enforcement use case for it that makes sense and does not violate anyone's rights.
I am so tired of reading this same slippery slope comment posted hundreds of times per day to HN. It seems like HN will settle for nothing less than law enforcement operating with the same tools and technology they had in 1776. This is very far outside what most people want, and in my opinion, by agitating against things like this for no clear reason helps to keep debate about other more real and significant privacy concerns we are dealing with today on the fringes.
Install now "scapegoatfinder" app. and kindly help a prosecutor with his political career to find travelling latinos and blacks available in the area
Some people were being jailed because a non-whit... err, a similar people appeared in a blurry video doing a crime. Now you can help police to track you and do part of the job for free.
Not to mention that police has yet a written report with the list of people that went to a place of interest in the week of interest (obligatory by law for all hotel owners if I'm not wrong). All that they need is to take a look to the facebook of this people to find plenty of photos and then discretely match it with their own photos. Maybe book a weekend to be extra sure. Facebook could perfectly make some additional profit selling this info (if is not doing it yet).
This is not finding people, is massively tracking people, without a jury order. Is a fishing trip.
Policemen do not need this apps. There are several police agents in each village, the 95% of the territory could be covered in a weekend just paying a visit to the five local hotels in the city, all at the same time. For bigger cities it would just take more time but is not an unfeasible task. Secret police could just book as travelling salesmen in any place of interest and silently comb the place for hours registering each crack in the tiles and each stain in the wooden floor.
As most hotels buy in mass furniture, pictures and machines, a combination of common objects will appear in all rooms. To make a database covering the 98% of hotels opened to public would not take more than two years probably, specially if they forget about pictures on the wall and focuse in rarely changing furniture or machines. To cross the database with vendors of some air conditioner model is not an unreachable goal. To estimate the area max of a room (or the size of a bed) in a photo showing a crime, can be done as long as you have enough pictures in the video. Tiles came in standard sizes. Maybe even a IA machine could be developped to search for a crack with the form of a particular broken polyline in the filtered results. Maybe police has it yet since 10 years ago... I don't know.
And there is facebook also to achieve a finer grain definition in particular areas.
Therefore the only thing new that the app adds to the equation is "you". You and the aspect of your room when you were using it.
The app is just an excuse to lure people into agreeing to be tracked, (maybe hoping that they forget about it later?). Moreover, to be tracked unnecessarily (it would only take a further visit to the place of interest to confirm the info, as I said. Policemen visit hotels in their area routinely).
But this info and agreeing can bite hard later the user in many unpredictable ways of course. For users is a "loser" situation.
As someone who thinks he has a fairly extreme view on user privacy, I can’t see what’s wrong with this. It’s a consensual sharing of pictures of something that’s already lived in by many people. I can’t even see where the slope here is.
For some people like me who basically live in extended-stay hotels, yes, it is my space. In the US, as much as it's trampled on, people will still fight for their 4th amendment rights.
Oh sure, of course! - just as with a rental situation where the landlord does a last inspection to make sure everything is in reasonably good condition.
I agree with the other commenter. This could just as much fight trafficking as it could be an "FDCS" or "Foreign Data Collection Scheme"
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has some excellent examples in their paper from a few months ago. If anyone knows if similar work being done, please suggest.
I can't speak about OPs specific project specifically but this is a relatively old tactic used by authorities to help both human trafficking as well as child pornography/abuse.
I've heard about several times in my work with various government agencies over the last 10-15 years.
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Robert Pless, Patrick and Donna Martin Professor of Computer Science, was recently awarded a two-year, $1 million grant from the Department of Justice to continue and expand a project that helps law enforcement identify specific hotel rooms where they suspect illegal activity has taken place.
Using a database developed by Dr. Pless and his research team, law enforcement can take photographic evidence collected as part of an investigation and search for similar photos. The database compares these with photos submitted by hotel patrons through the smartphone app TraffickCam and photos from a travel website for a match, which can tell investigators key information about where the photo was taken, including the specific hotel or hotel chain.
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https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/using-computer-science-tackle-human-...
The only result, always, is arrest of sex workers who in the US of course face criminal prosecution.
When you read about dozens of arrests in a big sex trafficking investigation, it is always woman who are being arrested, and on occasion clients.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/deadspin.com/when-the-robert-kr...