Al Franken Calls for Tight Rules on Facial Recognition Software

angry tapir writes "The U.S. Congress may need to pass legislation that limits the way government agencies and private companies use facial recognition technology to identify people, according to U.S. Senator Al Franken, who chairs the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's privacy subcommittee. The growing use of facial recognition technology raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns, according to the senator, who has called on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Facebook to change the way they use facial recognition technology." Derrick Harris of GigaOM says "My gut instinct is to call Senator Al Franken a well-meaning fool when it comes to his latest outcry," but concedes that in this case "he actually has a point." Harris writes in an editorial that "If you've heard about Alessandro Acquisti's work with the technology, you know why this possibility should be a little scary. Snap a photo of someone with a smartphone, analyze an image against a database of social media or Flickr pics and, voila, you have a name. From there, it's easy to get someone's age, hometown, interests, news coverage, you name it." Related: judgecorp writes "YouTube has added a tool which automatically detects and anonymises faces in uploaded videos. YouTube parent Google says it is intended to allow dissidents in places like Syria to share videos without risking reprisals form the government — but it warned that this is not an exact science, so users should check videos through before making them public."

Comments

Re:Syria?

[AliasMarlowe]

What about dissidents here in Google's home country, the United States of America?

Now I'm confused. Was "dissidents" a misspelling of traitors, terrorists, pedophiles, or pirates?

Re:Papers Please

[Rei]

and embarrassing photos of you drunk in college.

Meanwhile, In The Future: "I'm sorry, Mr. Davis, but without a picture of you passed out half-naked on a couch while your friends do Jell-O shots off your chest, I can't open this bank account for you."

Re:"Well Meaning Fool" is correct diagnosis

[Colonel Korn]

If the cops can tail you without a license, then why shouldn't they be able to track you with GPS. And if they can track you with GPS, why shouldn't they be able to track everyone? Sometimes the scale of something matters. Being able to recognize me when you see me on the street or on a facebook post is a little different from being able to find every single publicly available picture that I've ever been in.

A large contingent of Slashdot posters has always struggled to think of a concept in between the extremes. I think that's why Ayn Rand is so popular around here.

Re:Right, so

[interval1066]

Wow, are you a natural-born asshole...

I doubt he works at it harder than Al Franken does.