Slashdot Mirror
App Uses Facial Profiling To Identify Perps
Hugh Pickens writes "Emily Steel writes that a new iPhone accessory that uses a picture of the person's face or iris to identify them will help police units identify suspects and look up their criminal record. To scan a person's iris, police officers can hold the special iris-scanning camera on device, called MORIS, about 5 to 6 inches away from an individual's irises. After snapping a high resolution photo, the MORIS system analyzes 235 unique features in each iris and uses an algorithm to match that person with their identity if they are in the database. To use the facial recognition system an officer takes a photo of a person at a distance of about 2 feet to 5 feet that analyzes about 130 distinguishing points on the face (video), such as the distance between a person's eye and nose, then scans the database for likely matches. Bernard Melekian says challenges remain in developing guidelines for the proper use of the mobile recognition technology for police work. 'If the purpose is to determine instantly an individual's identity and determine whether they are wanted or have serious criminal history, that is not only a desirable use, it is an important use,' says Melekian. 'To simply collect information on individuals to add to the database would not in my opinion be a desirable use of the technology.'" The range of offenses for which conviction (and sometimes mere arrest) now triggers the collection of DNA samples is expanding; I suspect that iris information, seemingly less intrusive to collect, will soon enough become part of applications for passports, driver's licenses, and concealed carry permits.
You have your number.
But don't bother waiting for a turn...
Somehow, I don't think that any of this is compatible with the classical conception of a representative, parliamentary republic.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
We already have such an I.D. device - it's called a National ID card.
If the police stops you and you aren't carrying one, it's fully within their right to ask you to go along to the station and get identified there plus whatever bacground checks needed.
Racial profilng is racist.
Therefore facial profiling is facist!
*ba dum ching*
And it would be called "iSpy."
Technology cannot solve problems created by human stupidity, ego, greed and shortsightedness.
"It's for your own good citizen"
"Why"
"Oceania Has Always Been at War With Eurasia"
This sort of tracking, still feels better than this....!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZqPQPhsuX4
Is there some reason why Hugh Pickens submits every single news article that he finds? Is he really that obsessive-compulsive? Is he trying to become an unofficial Slashdot editor?
And, seriously, "Hugh Pickens writes writes"?
Scanning people's eyeballs is all fine and whatnot, but what about the back of their heads? Can we get a back-to-face app here?
Although there is no scientific proof that fingerprints aren't unique, and therefore can only be used as exculpatory evidence, there is little doubt that your fingerprints don't change (unless you injure the skin deeply enough). But your iris changes constantly. In fact, some alternative medicine practioners can diagnose ailments by looking for features in the iris that indicate trouble in different organ systems. Sort of like reflexology of the eyes. See iridology for details.
While you're all worrying about whether or not your face will be entered into some large database, you should know that many major retailers (such as Target, whom I worked for) have ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) technology on their parking lot cameras. In fact, at least out there, the only two purposes of outdoor cameras is to capture license places and pictures of people's faces exiting the store. Since most of you use credit cards, your face, credit card, name, billing address, gender, make/model of vehicle, and license plate number are all available in a database that is updated in real time.
But you can worry about that guy with the cell phone if you'd like... I'm sure he's a bigger threat to your privacy.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
A desirable and important use my eye!
I have 129 facial points that look exactly like Charlie Sheen. Could be worse, but still not a great hand to be dealt. But I'm not alone: 130 facial points factored by 7B people on earth, what were my chances of this, exactly?
Gently reply
I am sure it won't give false positives, and that juries won't believe that it is infallible - oh wait...
I have a Nexus (preferred traveler) card for travel across the US and Canadian borders. After a lengthy application, background check, and interview, I was fingerprinted and iris scanned. My irises are my ID for crossing the US border.
Yours are probably next...
Straight after 2001-09-11 there was a clamour for more CCTV. Britain was already riddled with the things and they're getting better and better at recognising "known" criminals. Big Brother really is watching you. This article from the New York Times nearly 10 years ago rings very true and is well worth the time taken to read in its entirety: http://www.daclarke.org/WTChit/Rosen.html
I particularly shuddered at the quote:
"But CCTV cameras have a mysterious knack for justifying themselves regardless of what happens to crime. When crime goes up the cameras get the credit for detecting it, and when crime goes down, they get the credit for preventing it."
To a computer, you're not human, you're just data. You're either a perp, or a potential perp.
Is it just me... or does anyone else find having this banner avert at at the top of this story funny, and a little bit creepy:
http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/imgad?id=CIqXw4GjrIii8AEQ2AUYWjIIoKOt3JbQ7Ds
It links here if you're interested:
http://www.omniperception.com/cpsform/?gclid=CK_p8caBgqoCFc0P3wodWC5OzA
Whether you like it or not, you're going to lose some privacy when you're in a public space. Unless you go walking around wearing a mask or a disguise, you will lose your ability to conceal your identity because there's always a chance that someone can recognize. The only difference in this case is that the someone may be a machine.
If there are any restrictions on this technology, it should be based upon how the information is used rather than the use of the tool itself. For example, the police should not be able to detain a person purely upon a computer generated result and should use their existing procedures while identifying an individual (e.g. to avoid false positives). The use of the data in situations where a person would normally expect privacy (e.g. in their home) should also be curtailed.
You leave fingerprints and DNA behind and hence a big database of them is useful for the police to have in solving crimes. Of course you don't want your information in there because false positives happen at the very least.
But an Iris scan is really only useful in finding the a database match for the person standing in front of you. Good for ID purposes, not that useful for the police - they'd much rather have your fingerprints or DNA so they can compare it with the stuff they find at crime scenes.
I'll just betcha this app works on police, too!
We could take a facial scan whenever we interact with a policeman, get a list of prior complaints and check out review sites.
We could find out whether he's been accused of rights violations, racist behaviour, corruption - and the percent chance that he'll settle out of court versus fighting a conviction.
So... this tech will help keep me safe from criminals *and* cops?
I love this new tech! Let's do it! Woo-hoo!
MORIS has been around since 2009. What happened recently is that they made the iPhone dock slightly smaller and rotated the camera 90 degrees so officers could hold the phone in portrait mode instead of landscape mode when snapping pictures.
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BetterPrivacy - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/
Don't bother modding me up. This reply is only for SD NFN STM and is a Clue (TM)
http://www.motivationals.org/demotivational-posters-16300
Have gnu, will travel.
Because now what we can do is put the TSA on the streets and randomly check people on the streets. This will make it unpossible for terrorists to attack us in crowded places as so many people here kindly warned us about would be easy to do.
Citizens, do not be alarmed. This is for YOUR safety.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
On another note, if the terrorists hate us because our freedom, do they like us more now?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The iris scan instantly matched suspects to past criminal records, but the fingerprint scanning still needed some work, says William Conlon, Brocktonâ(TM)s chief of police. âoeIt has a lot of promise, it just wasnâ(TM)t quite ready when we had it,â he says. In other words, MORIS is finicky?
There must be a limit to this scanning process or they will start scanning people at the airports soon. Fingerprints are already collected.
All of us will be fined for every mistake that we make without even knowing what the mistake was. We will become suspects just for passing a street after a crime and tracked by molesters in official positions.
Solutions to limit scanning, anyone ?
Think Police State
I've wanted an App like that on my iPhone ever since I got it. Actually, I've wanted one for wearable computing since the first prototypes.
See, I have a great memory for faces, and a horrible memory for names and other details. I see people all the time and know that I know them - but I can't recall anything about them. Sometimes, a minute or two of hard thinking and it comes back to me. Sometimes I have to start up a conversation and hope that hints drop.
I'd love to death an App that I can point at someone and it matches their face to my database and shows me the Contacts entry with name, birthday and notes.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I give it a month (after if becomes widespread) before it identifies some innocent person as a murderer.
Seriously, all of these tech solutions for crime sound great on paper. But in real life they're ineffective and/or used for far less noble purposes. Plate readers were touted to "stop car thieves and terrorists", now that they're used in quite a few police departments I think they're using them for the most part to catch people who aren't up to date on their license/registration/fees/taxes/etc. I've even heard of cases where a person lost their license and lent their vehicle to a friend, that friend kept getting pulled over solely because the plat readers kept flagging it that the owner of the car was without their license. They'll tout it as a way to "catch criminals", but before too long it'll be used to mass collect biometric data from as many people as they can and take you in if you haven't payed your tickets.
And nine...nine rings were gifted to the race of Men...who above all else, desire power.