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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.
I'd damn well like to keep my awkward smile on my driver's license!
If your anti-terrorist/pedo/freedom/whatever facial recognition software is so sketchy that it can not cope with eyeglasses or facial expressions, it is not doing its job, and neither are you.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
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.
...that it can bet beat by a simple smile, much less something like a beard or actual disguise. Another one of those government boondoggles that's supposed to make us feel safe, but actually just wastes money and effort.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
... 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?
This is a rule in the UK already for passports, driving licenses, immigration applications etc. Also the background can't be pure white, no hair can be covered (except for religious reasons), only one person per picture, and it's quite tightly defined where in the photo the face must be.
Why not tell people, "you can smile if you want to for your license, but we also have to shoot a picture of you not smiling"? Then, record both images, so that the recognition software has two looks available for that individual. Heck, get a shot of them with and without glasses, too.
This approach would make people happy, promote friendliness, and improve security.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Kind of hard to get your six-year-old a driver's license in Indiana, anyways.
Real ID should make any sensible person cringe. Take five minutes and read how the federal government has mandated a variety of criteria for states' drivers licenses, the cost of which to the states is in the millions and is entirely unfunded (not to mention unconstitutional!) and poorly executed in states where it has been effected.
Take a moment today to call your state legislators and see where they stand on your states' Real ID compliance. If they oppose it, congratulate them and consider donating to their campaign. If they support it, swear on your mother's grave to see them unseated and replaced with a responsible legislator.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Also on the list of taboos are hats, eyeglasses, and hair that hangs down over the face.
So I guess Slash is out entirely.
Which is why Congress is, at this moment, working on the CAN-SMILE act, which will put a stop to smiling, along with other un-American behavior like being happy, being friendly, playing with your children, giving to charity, and staying out of debt.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Residents of Indiana will no longer be allowed to smile in public when the Homeland Security Alert Level is Orange or Red, to improve security. Image recognition software is not able to easily recognize and track citizens movements if they smile, which causes terrorism and child pornography.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
BMV Communications Director Dennis Rosebrough said if a criminal went to get a driver's license under his name, the criminal's photograph would be compared to an old photograph of Rosebrough and the BMV could be alerted the next day that the two don't match.
This system isn't even realtime. What good does it do if a criminal gets away with a state-issued ID a full 36 hours before anyone knows that he shouldn't?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Whenever your not at the DMV, wear glasses/smile/frown/etc...
They'll never know its you.
Also on the list of taboos are hats, eyeglasses...
Local reaction: Newspaper reporter Clark Kent was quoted as protesting this in the strongest possible terms, while wealthy socialite Bruce Wayne said he didn't really see this as a problem.
obviously taking lessons from the Louis Lane school of identifying people.
And the employee that gives out the passport is not allowed to question your believe. By this reasoning someon managed to gat a official id card dressed as joker. He later fialed to a a drivers license as joker because the employee refused. In that case you also seem to have no rights.
by the way, later his card was taken in because the card is still owned by government..
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!
Amazon needs to be taken down under the Patriot Act:
http://www.amazon.com/Groucho-Glasses-Fake-Mustache-Brows/dp/B001HHECYU
Squirrel!
But just like its name sake, the legislation will have so many exceptions for politicians and non-profits that it ends up with no teeth.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
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
Does having a long, 1900's mustache short-circuit computer face detection? If so, this means that Snidely Whiplash was a visionary with a keen sense of crinimal discretion. This would also confirm what I've always known - that Ned Flanders is a dangerous man on the run and that the Pringles guy is a criminal mastermind.
WHY was your post modded insightful? You present an argument, but don't back it up. They already HAVE the ability to look up most state licenses right now without this amongst other things.
It does NOTHING of what you think it will.
It does NOTHING of what they claim it will.
Trying to make them more uniform does nothing for security.
Trying to make them all be in a single database (i.e. One of the other requirements of RealID) makes it easier to hack in or grab a single ID and go to town with ID theft. (Niiice...)
With it not doing what it says it does and increasing the risks involved with it all, it doesn't make ANY sense whatsoever.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Indeed, nothing new, This is about Tzar Peter the Great (1672-1725): To add insult to injury, Peter personally cut off the beards of his noblemen. All men except the peasants and priests had to pay Peter's yearly beard tax and wear a medal proclaiming, "Beards are a ridiculous ornament." If we re-introduce the beard-tax we can pay the development of better face-recognition systems.
When I was photographed for a military ID card in 1962 I was told to relax every facial muscle, no expression whatever.
rj
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?"
One, the glasses partially hide your face.
Two, if the photo has you without glasses, they can always compare you to it by asking you to take your glasses off. If the photo shows you with glasses, they can only compare by getting you to wear the same glasses.
Next episode, why they have braille on drive-thru ATMs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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)
This is easy to crack. Don't smile for your DL picture, and do smile the rest of the time. It will make the world a better place in the process.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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
Last time I flew to Canada via the US, US immigration wanted to take a picture from me _without_ wearing glasses (funny, as you can never find me "in the wild" without wearing glasses ;-).
On the return flight, US immigration wanted to take a picture of me _with_ glasses.
Wasn't there a law in Nazi Germany prohibiting laughter in public places?
I know I've read about it somewhere but I just can't find any reference online at the moment.
I did find this gem though.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If a simple action like smiling can make the facial recognition useless, I would suggest fixing the software, not banning smiles.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Yes, the man in his fifties getting carded - just to make really sure that those dang teenagers don't get their hands on the Devil Drink - is clearly the moron in that situation.
sic transit gloria mundi
No?
Law: No alcohol for underaged.
It's sometimes hard to tell if someone's 25 or 18. Or 30 or 21.
But you clearly can tell some 40+ person from a 21 person, so why ID? Just because of a stupid rule?
People who apply rules literally without understanding what those rules are for, those are the morons. Plus the ones who think that mindless application of rules is a good thing.
There's a film on at 11. It's a documentary about irony. Don't watch it - you don't need to.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If I were Indiana, I would tell the developers to go back to the drawing board because the software doesn't meet the requirement of actually WORKING in a practical way.
The secret is out. From now on, if you ever commit a crime in Illinois within range of a surveillance camera, be sure to smile as you do it.