The Unblinking Eye

McAdder writes: "The LA Times is running an article about how Tampa police scanned the faces of BowlGoers as they passed through the turnstyles, and compared the images to images of people with criminal history. I wonder if they'd frisk me if I wore one of those Nixon masks ;>" It seems the story first appeared in the St. Petersburg Times.

Comments

Re:What is the difference ..

[Anonymous Coward]

A little less paranoia would go a long way

Let's see how far it would go...

POTENTIAL BOSS: I see from your DoubleClick profile that you surf several porn sites. Geekporn.com? Isn't it bad enough that you surf porn, but geek porn? You disgusting pervert. And salon.com as well - a bunch of dangerous free-thinkers, if you ask me. We block them at the firewall.

YOU: that wasn't me...it was my next door neighbor using my computer...

BOSS: According to our police check, you have seven speeding tickets - automatically deducted by the drive-through EZ-pass system when it detected that you must have been speeding to go from entrance to exit so quickly. Scofflaw as well! And here's a picture taken from a traffic light that shows you jumping the light. My my.

YOU: it was only a few miles an hour over the limit...

BOSS: What about this? Police camera records show that you are often in an area of the city associated with deviant lifestyles.

YOU: It's near a subway stop I use...I only pass through...honest!

BOSS: They also show that you had lunch FIVE times last month with a married woman who is not your wife.

YOU: She's a coworker...

BOSS: I'm sure. Perhaps we could ask her husband what he thinks of that. Also...I see that your medical record shows that you had a prostate exam five years earlier than is recommended for men. Do you have some sort of problem that we should know about? Also, a genetic test showed a positive marker for early heart-disease. That's too bad - we like our workers healthy.

YOU: I was merely being cautious, and that gene doesn't mean that I'll GET heart disease...

BOSS: Whatever. Your credit-card buying records show that you subscribe to Playboy and also take karate lessons. The only thing worse than a pervert is a violent pervert.

YOU: Karate's just a hobby...

BOSS: Your credit report is bad as well - you paid 30 days late 3 times in 5 years. That's not the sort of person that we want representing our firm. I've gotten the picture of a lawbreaking, immoral pervert who probably belongs in jail. I'm sorry, you're an untouchable.

YOU (silently): (maybe I should have been a little more paranoid!)

What is the difference ..

[cje]

.. between having cameras taking pictures like this and having dozens of real live policemen standing at the entrance, looking at people "manually?" How, precisely does this constitute an "invasion of privacy" or a "sacrifice of liberty?" Jesus H. Christ, if I'm going to plunk down $2,000 for some ticket up in the shitty nosebleed seats, the very least I can ask for is some assurance that I'm not going to wind up between Hannibal Lecter and Heidi Fleiss. Well, Hannibal Lecter, at least.

Oh, I suppose there is the possibility that "Big Brother" might take the pictures of you entering the Super Bowl and use them to control your life. Imagine how it might end up wrecking an otherwise-successful job interview:

BOSS: Well, Ted, I must say that I am very impressed with your skills.

YOU: Thank you, sir .. that is very kind of you to say.

BOSS: We'll be in contact. I can't make any guarantees, but in all likelihood we'll be extending you a ridiculously lucrative offer within the next 24 hours. Furthermore ..

The boss's assistant comes in and gives him a sheet of paper.

BOSS: Wait just a damned minute, what is this?

YOU: (shifting uncomfortably in chair)

BOSS: Is this a picture of you entering Super Bowl XXXV?

YOU: (hanging head in shame) Yes.

BOSS: Get the fuck out of my office.

Use your heads. A little less paranoia would go a long way.

Re:Where will it stop?

[www.sorehands.com]

and what rights do you lose by walking through a metal detector? the right to blow away a couple dozen employees of your hated "gub-mint?" settle down mcveigh-boy. metal detectors are a pain in the ass, but they are a necessary evil and are *not* any sort of loss of rights.

Yes, a metal detector at the door would have stopped McVeigh from driving the truck into the garage.

Increased security would have prevented the TWA 880 bombing...ooopps..it was a wiring fault.

Why not strip search everyone comming out of a store to protect us from theft? Or making everyone use chopsticks to eat on plane because a fork and knife can be used to kill. What about handcuffing everyone into their seats because some nut might break into the cockpit?

BTW forget the ID checks at airports. If my sister was able to get a fake ID at 16 to go drinking; I think that a terrorist could get one.

Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.

[localroger]

Also, the computer can observe peoples behaviour and alert a human operator if one of them is doing something suspicious, such as breaking into a parked car.

I would really love to see the software that is capable of determining that I am breaking into a car rather than, say, wiping birdshit off the windshield before entering it. This makes the facial recognition thing look like ELIZA for the TRS-80 by comparison.

Its just a question of trusting the authoriteies. If they abuse this power, unlikely, you can just vote them out. That is what a democracy is for.

You really should pay more attention to American politics. Do you think our democracy "worked" as you describe for the folks of darker complexion who were discouraged from voting in Florida by police checkpoints near the polls, or the ones who were unceremoniously dumped from the rolls because a database (built by a company closely allied with one and only one of our two major political parties) said they were felons?

I suppose your city doesn't see it as a major problem if a few people get stopped by the cops and questioned for a few minutes because some computer in a basement fucked up. But if your genes had the bad taste to give you a similar facial profile to some Genuine Bad Dude (tm) so that you got stopped all the time your personal self, I bet your attitude would change quick. Especially in the UK, land of the infamous Terrorist Act that allows you to be held without bond and interrogated for, what is it, 7 days? Yep, I'm sure you wouldn't mind being dragooned every time you entered a new city where you weren't personally known because this shit had become universal, after all, it's for the public good, right?

Been done here for ages, and it works.

[Urban Existentialist]

Here in the UK, this sort of face scanning software has been used for some time. In the city of Glasgow, which is about 1 million strong, the entire town centre is saturated with CCTV systems. They have computer systems that can scan the faces of people walking in the street and compare with a national database of wanted people. Also, the computer can observe peoples behaviour and alert a human operator if one of them is doing something suspicious, such as breaking into a parked car.

Crime in Glasgow city centre has fallen by some 70% since this system was introduced, and the city has become a much safer place to socialise in.

These types of systems are permeating the UK at an amazing rate, and they are really showing results. As long as they are controlled by the police, and used in a responsible manner according to the law, I really have no problem with it at all. You have to be incurably paranoid to have a problem, I think. Its just a question of trusting the authoriteies. If they abuse this power, unlikely, you can just vote them out. That is what a democracy is for.

You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-