Slashdot Mirror
Florida Surveillance Cameras Claim a Victim
kris_lang writes: "The St. Petersburg Times has an article that describes how an innocent man was tracked down because he was used as a "demo" face for Visionics Face-It face recognition software with their on-the-street video surveillance system in Tampa's Ybor City district. The "demo" image was printed in the St. Pete Times, and then sold to U.S. News and World Report which used it in an article. A USN&WR reader in Oklahama misidentified the face as being that of her ex-husband wanted on felony child neglect charges. The Tampa Police tracked him down to his job site and interrogated him. Now here's a question: how did they identify him in the first place to be able to track him down? Well, Florida has also been using digital photos for their newer driver's licenses. So they already have a handy-dandy database to work with."
We have a guy who gets tagged as a demo person in a trial version of some new hardware. Kinda like being sent one of those "You may already be a winner!" envelopes; you didn't ask for it to happen, but it happened, and so be it.
Now, somebody sees you on national television (kinda like actually WINNING the prize) and decides that you owe them money (which happens a lot to lottery winners).
So the police come in, question the guy, and find out that nothing's really going on, that it was just a case of mistaken identity. Big freaking deal.
Ask yourself this: would you care at all if some other schmuck in Florida was walking down the street, somebody thought that he was their long-lost ex-husband who had been negelcting the children, and reported them to the police, only to find out it was mistaken identity? Of course not.
But because this was done using some new technology that hasn't been perfected yet, and because in some Orwellian universe this technology may be able to infringe upon privacy, well, it's important.
Keep things in perspective here, ok?
I have to start with this comment. If you don't think that putting cameras like this on every street is a loss of a Right, then you are blind.
Obviously you don't know what the phrase "expectation of privacy" means. In legal terms, it means that you expect to be unobserved. In public (particularly a restaurant, sheesh), by definition, you can't expect to be unobserved.
We're not talking about being observed, or in other words seen. We're talking about being monitored, about having your face scanned and compared to a database. That is fundamentaly different than being observed. And it's very different than simply having your picture taken. "Expectation of privacy" is not a legal term. There is a "Right to privacy" in my legal dictionary which I think is what you're talking about. According to that, there is a right to privacy, in the absence of a reasonable public interest. Now, I'm not going to argue with you about the term "reasonable", but the fact is that this right of privacy does exist, even in public. I don't know where you get your legal advice, but I hope you didn't pay a lot for it.
So then, do you think that all police should be banned from the streets, unless there is a crime in progress? No policeman should be allowed to view you in public?
I never said that, why do you pretend that I've said something I haven't and then proceed to argue that non-existent statement? I don't think that we should ban police from the street, I'm talking about surviellance camers.
Check out AbiWord.
Face-recognition systems assume the opposite: you are a wanted criminal and only a null result on their database search proves you are NOT, in fact, a criminal.
Errr, WRONG. Face-recognition systems try to find matches from their criminal database. They don't ASSUME anything.
It's like that guy I watched on the Travel channel who works free-lance for casinos in Vegas. He has photographic memory, and remembers the faces of the people caught cheating in casinos. He drives around in his car, and the casino people feed suspected cheater photos to him wirelessly. He looks at the pic, and tells them if he was caught cheating before.
The memory guy hasn't proven the gambler is cheating -- he just flags that person as a higher possibility than the others, and they keep a closer eye on the guy.
I have a right to expect that I am assumed to be an innocent civilian until proven otherwise.
You do have that right. Some cameras with face-recognition software haven't taken that away. The only thing that can take it away is mis-use of the technology. For example, picking up every match from the database, and taking them downtown to the local precinct for questioning, without some other mitigating factors.
These things should be ruled unconstitutional.
It is not unconstitutional for you to be brought into a police precinct for questioning. And if you are wrongfully harassed, you have steps you can take to fight back.
IANAL, of course
Oh, of course...
"And like that
The title of this post totally shows how DESPERATELY the editors want this to be an issue. When the software IDs someone incorrectly, fine.
INSTEAD, some lady in Oklahoma saw a picture of this guy, and said "That's my deadbeat ex!" This has no reflection on the software (which, BTW, I'm no fan of)
You hurt your cause when you present nondamning "evidence"
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
- Police install cameras
- Police take picture of guy
- Police put guy's picture in a magazine
- Woman buys magazine, reads article
- Woman believes (mistakenly) that guy in picture is her ex and calls police.
- Police go after man
- Man gets angry
I don't see any mention of face-recognition software anywhere in that list (nor the article). The fact that the cameras were on the street is largely inconsequential because I've seen cameras on many, many, many pieces of public (and private) property in the Seattle area. None of these are hooked up to face-recognition software (AFAIK) and they can be used to find criminals just as easily.marotti.com
OK, not that I agree with the system but realize that the SNAFU was really the wife's doing. The surveillance system was the means of observation. Couldn't she just as easily have seen him in the background of a live news broadcast or something and have the same result?
-just my 00000010
Double standard?
And I don't want to hear (or read) that "If you have nothing to hide, then it's not a problem" crap. An eye over my shoulder, even if for no other reason than to watch what I'm doing, is very disconcerting.
Especially when that eye is attached to an error-prone system that treats everyone it identifies as criminals. The Bill of Rights is supposed to guarantee that we are innocent until proven guilty, but cops and employers treat individuals the opposite. Not only is Big Brother a mean bastard, but he is also an idiot. If law enforcement has power that exceeds their competency to use it properly, they are as children with bulldozers; no matter how good their intentions, innocent people are going to get hurt. This incident had mild consequences, but it shows that the system is being used recklessly.Just because the system says that a picture of you looks like a picture of a criminal it has dosent meen your guilty. You arnt sentanced. Guns dont pop out the front of the camera and execute you. The cops come out and ask some questions. They didnt take this guy downtown and throw him in jail or ship him back to whatever state it said his wife was in. They didnt even take him before a judge. They found out who he was and went away. How manny people get called in a year for a lineup? Those people dont make the headlines but they go through more trouble than this guy did. The system is a tool not a judge and jurry. If someone had a sketch artist make a picture of you the same thing would happen. Hell its probably more likely to happen with the sketch artist. Its no different than what happens now with wanted posters, its just more efficient.
Here, we are seeing Government going beyond its Constitutional role to harass an innocent man. It really bothers me to see so many people in this forum say, "So What?". The "What" is that a person should not have to fear that the Government will randomly pick you out of the crowd and threaten you! Questioning is a form of Governmental threat because you know if you don't get the answers right or look the wrong way, you go to jail until you deplete your bank account on a lawyer -- plus as a bonus, when you are found innocent, you don't get reimbursed for your expenses.
If anything in the US, the cameras should not be trained on private citizens but on public officials. They are the real criminals. I would love to have the bright light of sunshine pound down on each and every politician -- focusing in on the actions they commit during their waking hours.
Frankly, as far as I am concerned, Uncle Sam should go have marital relations with himself. Its so sad to see the "Freest Country on the Planet" resort to this Fascist behavior. Even worst are the bleating sheep that think these cameras are a "Good Thing®".
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Now cops with no understanding of software failability are being given buggy software and the ability to drag people off at gunpoint based on its output
Holy cow. You started out by misunderstanding the article and then went way off the deep end. The software did not misidentify the man. A flaky single mom from the 2nd most boring place in the country read a national rag and thought she recognized her ex (who left her so he could become a construction worker in Florida). This has NOTHING to do with "flaky software" and it certainly has nothing to do with people getting dragged off at gunpoint by "the Man".
Holy shit. There are paranoid people here, who exaggerate to make a point.. every damn day.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Yes, yes, and yes.
The cops bother anyone that they can, and unlike the courts they generally consider you guilty until proven innocent. That's their job. Obviously you haven't been questioned by the cops lately.
I've got a deal for you, why don't you and everyone else who doesn't mind being monitored 24/7 just wear a radio collar so the police can keep up with you and make sure you're not doing anything wrong. The rest of us will just continue with our lives as they are.
The only people who don't want this are 1) criminals, and 2) people who cheat on their spouses and don't want to get caught.
Wrong! The only people who do want this are the sheep who don't understand that by agreeing to this kind of thing in the name of public saftey, they are slowly giving up every shred of personal freedom they have. Another poster said it, but's it's worth repeating, Rights just don't disappear, they're slowly eroded away over time.
Check out AbiWord.
Ok, get the story straight first please. The software had NOTHING to do with it, it was the published image that did.
This is the failure of a woman in the midwest and the Police of Tampa. The software didn't make the determination to pick this guy up, the police did based upon faultly info.
This is NOT 1984 nor will it ever be.
1984 was not just about cameras watching, but also a completely intrusive government. That is not the world that we live in.
That is like saying guns are bad, not the people that kill others with them. So, following that, if we got rid of the guns, there would be no murder right?
Just like if we got rid of the software, there would be no surveilance cameras right?
get real.
Make what happen? Give people an irrational fear of the police? By far, the vast majority of police officers are honest, decent people. What's the old saying, a few bad apples spoil the bunch?
Don't blame the police for the kid bolting and killing himself. Blame his stupidity, his driving skills (or lack thereof), and maybe put a little blame on society/news media.
I'd love to have a world where cops wouldn't have to carry guns. But when teenage gangsters already have better firepower then they do? I'm sorry, but we live in a violent world, these men and women put their lives on the line every day, and should have a means to defend their lives.
I think one of the most basic freedoms in the US is to be free of government surveillance unless there is at least some evidence (ahead of time!) that a crime has been committed. Otherwise, mistakes may happen, and apparently they often end with innocent people in prison - even on death row. Certainly DNA testing has recently borne this out on numerous occasions.
The Fourth Amendment must be used to prevent such invasions of privacy, or we'll slide down the slippery slope until we're living in a country that'd make the old Soviet Union look open and enlightened.
On a somewhat related note, I'd be very wary of a government that repeatedly calls for more police and prisons, even though the crime rate has been going down for years. (This same government has also decided to artificially inflate the crime rate by pursuing an unwinnable "war on drugs"...and is using that as an excuse for all sorts of excesses including confiscating vast amounts of private property.)
186,282 mi/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Shit, if the dude was black?
He'd probably be dead now.
But masters, remember that I am an ass: though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.
Having things to hide does not necessarily mean you have ILLEGAL things to hide.
My visits to a political party's headquarters,
a planned parenthood center, or my girlfriend's
house should not be monitored by the government, period.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The difference is who exactly is behind the camera and what the camera is being used for. A tourist is not an agent of the state, and the camera is being used for recreational purposes. By both context and chance, the opportunities for mistaken identity of those who *may have* committed criminal behavior are less likely than for a state-operated camera that is *supposed* to catch criminal suspects.
That and there's much less of a power imbalance involved when a tourist is photographing you. Wave to the guy in the oversized hat and Hawaiian shirt. When the state, officially the most powerful force on this planet, is photographing you, the equation changes drastically. Smile big (and nervously) and pray to your diety that you won't be ticketed for jaywalking on an empty street to get to your job on time by the city's new revenue machine.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
His truck had been stolen, but later recovered. However, the police had neglected to remove it from the 'stolen-cars' database. The result is that he was pulled over, roughly pulled from his car, and handcuffed for several minutes until the problem was sorted out.
it is now a crime to look like somebody else who is a criminal!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney