Slashdot Mirror
Indiana Bans Driver's License Smiles, For Security
Smelly Jeffrey writes "According to a recent article, Indiana BMV Communications Director Dennis Rosebrough states that applicants for a new or renewed operator's license or state identification card will no longer be allowed to smile and say cheese. Apparently new facial recognition software being employed by the state fails to function when the face is distorted by something as innocuous as smiling. Also on the list of taboos are hats, eyeglasses, and hair that hangs down over the face. The article fails to mention, however, the legality of beards, mustaches, and bushy eyebrows." Similar restrictions are in place for the Enhanced Driver License (which serves as a sort of limited passport) implemented by the state of Washington, among others.
Beards are a great point. In my license picture I have no facial hair, now I have a full beard. My hair is also quite a bit longer. I wouldn't say I look like a completely different person just a mere two years after getting this one taken, but I doubt I would be recognized by this facial recognition software.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
... is for those people who don't want to be detected by the recognition software to go around smiling when in the view of cameras that use it?
As those who have read my old sm62704 journals know, I was very nearsighted all my life, until I got a cataract in my left eye that was caused by prescription eyedrops. My eye surgeon implanted a CrystaLens inside it (you will be assimilated, resistance is futile), and my vision in that eye is better than 20/20 now. The doctor said I should no longer have any "corrective lens" restrictions on my driver's license.
My driving record was exemplary so last time my license was renewed I could have had it done by mail, but I went in anyway, extatic. For the first time in my life I was going to have a license without vision restrictions!
Also for the first time, I'm smiling in the picture. In light of the circumstances, how could I not?
And it actually looks like me, unlike every other picture I've ever had on my license. You should vote those morons out of office. A picture of a normally happy person who is frowning does not look like him.
Note to the mods- "Hoosier" is not an insult. Indiana is known as "the Hoosier State", and that was the motto on their license plates for decades. Indiana's citizens are proud to be hoosiers.
Free Martian Whores!
Brilliant - actually, I'm glad they allowed him to keep his hat. Saying people aren't allowed to do things, but then making an exemption for religious reasons is pointless (as now the rule doesn't apply to everyone), and discriminatory against those who have other reasons. But it's particularly annoying when they make judgements and claim that some religious reasons are acceptable, whilst some religious reasons are not. Whilst I accept that this guy probably had different intentions, in general, who's to say that someone's belief that they must wear a hat because they think they're the Joker, is any less legitimate that someone's belief they must wear headwear because they think God told them to?
As for UK passports not allowing smiles - I'm amused that most of the photo machines still have photos on the outside showing people with smiles (not to mention with dogs in the pictures, or random "fun" backgrounds added in...)
I never smile anyway, but what's with this "you can't wear glasses" rule? That seems really stupid considering I'm always wearing glasses. Will the cops now ask me to remove my glasses so they can compare my face to the drivers license?
Also:
Why is Indiana using facial recognition software? Is there now a database of faces that police are searching every time a crime is committed???
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
don't get deluded into thinking that demanding papers is a sign of fascism. The basic tenet of fascism is the bundling of powers of state and industry, not playing wehrmacht sergeant. it might be a sign of a totalitarian state, but there are plenty of countries that have a register of all their citizens, but have not devolved into the fascist state you seem to fear so much. It saves a lot of trouble if you know who lives where, pays taxes and is eligible to vote. I would be more worried by erosion of education by the state, as illiterate/dumb people are a lot easier to control. Two word comments are pretty dumb, if you ask me... :)
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
>>>What it is doing is trying to make the 50 states DLs uniform.
"I have searched but I cannot lay my hand on the part of the Constitution that grants the U.S. that power." - James Madison. QED the law is unconstitutional.
Of course so is the U.S. law that mandates drinking age be 21 and forced many states to change their age of consent from 18 to 21. I still don't understand that one... even though I agree with age 21 I think the decision should be left to each government for its own specific region. If Wyoming wants the drinking age to be 18, let Wyoming do so. I don't live there, so what do I care what the Wyomingites do?
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Seriously.. whose software are they using?!? I happen to work for one of the most predominant companies in this business and *none* of these requirements affect our algorithm's ability to match (source image or candidate).
Apparently our sales team needs to do a better job of picking up these prospective customers. (Or the government needs to stop buying their "big-brother" tools from the lowest bidder)
That is what the E. German border guards were famous for doing, so ... Yes, probably so. Not that this will *actually* happen, but if you meet an especially scrupulous cop (in the sense of scrupulous attention to detail and procedure) then the glasses may come off.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Believe what you want. In my case, it's not a religious remark. I'm a security professional, thank you very much. They're telling you like it is. YOUR remark is the mantra of the religion of putting more into the government- there's no reasoning, no contemplation of what the consequences might be, nothing. Just a blind faith that the government that brought you the current economic crisis (don't buy that it was the Republicans OR the Democrats- both parties' people are to blame here...) and a whole host of other things are going to get this right.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Favorite "getting carded" story:
I'm in an airport bar that has a very conspicuously posted sign "We ID All Guests". Ok, fair enough. I order my beer, bartender cards me, no sweat.
A few minutes later, a man older than me (I'd guess he was mid to late fifties) sits down and orders a drink. The bartender asks for his ID. He starts ranting and raving about how unreasonable this is, finally relents, and pulls out a badge case. He shows her his "Retired Placer County Sheriff's Dept" ID. She looks it over for a second, hands it back to him and says "I'm sorry, sir, I'll need to see something with your birthdate on it."
You could have fried an egg on this guy's forehead.
He did finally show his driver's license, finally got his drink, and *then* noticed the sign hanging behind the bar. He eventually sheepishly apologized, but the rest of us just sat and stared at the moron making a scene.
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
As in the Netherlands, so probably an EU thing. Again, I don't know the rationale. A quick browse suggests, again, that it's for biometric purposes, and that a smile with bared teeth distorts the biometric data of the face too much. A smile without teeth bared is allowed, though, here.
Stefan.
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
The drinking age of 21 was required to receive federal funding for highways. Something about drunk driving. Louisiana, for example, at one time from what I have heard, didn't take federal funding for its highways (state taxes on oil and gas companies bought their roads) and the drinking age there was 18.
In that respect, there is nothing unconstitutional -- if you can get the funding some other way, you don't have to raise the legal age limit.
I would suspect (though I doubt) there's some similar requirement with the RealID thing.
The only problem being that most humans don't do facial recognition. A neighbor stole my wife's drivers license photo ID, and used it to get all sorts of medical care and drugs. Nobody looked hard enough at the photo to see that it wasn't her. The only similarities they had were brown hair. A photo ID is mostly useless when people are careless.
"There can be little doubt that union activities lead to continuous and progressive inflation." F. A. Hayek
Of course so is the U.S. law that mandates drinking age be 21 and forced many states to change their age of consent from 18 to 21.
There is no law that forces or mandates the age 21 drinking limit on states.
There is an item in the funding bill for the highways & interstates- if you don't have a 21 limit, you just don't get federal money.
But no, there is no federally mandated drinking age.
As for the Madison quote, the Constitution LIMITS the power of the government, it does not GRANT power to the government. But in any case the issue is state vs. federal rights, not the idea that we have a nationwide ID card.
While I don't agree with the methodology, there are some states with some pretty shitty ID's that need to fix their cards. There are even some states that are still using the old dot-matrix printed paper in cheap laminate cards, that lack even a hologram & can be made at home with a $20 printer from the early 90's.
Incidentally, my state gave the feds a big, fat, middle finger, even going so far as to pass a state law specifically rejecting National ID. However, our ID's actually exceed the security mandated by Real ID, even though they don't comply with its specifications.
There's something about this that rubs me the wrong way...
I've worn glasses since I was in the third grade. I always wear my glasses. Without my glasses, the world is a bunch of blurry colors. If I were asked to remove them, I would be hesitant to comply. I would feel very vulnerable without them. I've never thought of myself as handicapped, but without my glasses, I am...
It doesn't seem right that I am required to remove my glasses for a picture. Or to remove them so a LEO can get a better look at me.
I suppose next they will require amputees to remove their prosthetics. Or perhaps they can prop up people with wheel chairs against the wall to get an accurate measure of their height...