The Wall That Knows If You're a Criminal

Barence writes "A German company called Dermalog is showing off a wall-sized transparent display that can tell a person's age, mood and criminal intent simply by scanning their face. The system displays data about the user next to their face, and is a demonstration of a fraud-prevention system that matches criminal intent to certain characteristics. PC Pro's tester wasn't overly impressed. 'If the face was a good enough indicator of mood then it should have tagged me as "freaked out on business technological ennui," not simply "happy", and no police force would accept a description of someone as "aged between 45 and 75 — that's the gap between Daniel Craig and Jack Nicholson.'"

Comments

Face scan?

[clam666]

Phrenology!

Re:Face scan?

[jythie]

My thoughts exactly. I thought that was a bit of pseudoscience we had seen the last of...

Then again, the whole 'reading' people seems to be a new fad that has really picked up over the last few years. Books, TV shows, newsertainment, all trying to claim you can magically tell what someone is really thinking/intending without them knowing.... and even today they teach this garbage to LEO as if it was actually accurate.

Re:Face scan?

[sribe]

Phrenology!

Nope, not at all!

Phrenology on a computer! Which is obviously completely different and patent-worthy!

Re:Face scan?

[kannibal_klown]

Well, there are facial cues that statistically indicate you're feeling emotion X, trying to act manipulative, considering lying, etc. Not the common misconception of "looking to the left means this, to the right means that" but other things.

Some say it's very accurate. I'm in the belief that, even if it is... it's just statistics.

Humans are strange and there are lots of outliers: emotionally, psychologically, mentally, and even physically. So people shouldn't put too much faith into it and condemn someone just because they hit a few of the cues.

Even if 99% of people do this facial tick 99% of the time... there are billions of people alive today... not to mention there have been billions of people that have lived and died. As such, that 1% is a large number of people for who that tick might mean something else.

Re:Face scan?

[dpilot]

I don't believe TFA does this, but a few days back I saw an article hosted at MIT about cameras/video processing that "sees the unseen" by amplification of small differences. For instance, by exaggerating minute color changes in the face they were able to see peoples' heartbeats. They also amplified small movements of buildings, peoples' eyes, etc.

There is a whole slew of visual cues that we don't normally perceive, at least not consciously. The MIT article shows some of them. Now put together TFA with what MIT has done, and your statistics get better - perhaps frighteningly. (Perhaps what's even more frightening is when the statistics really haven't gotten better, but people believe that they have.)

Re:Face scan?

[TheCarp]

Exactly and thats just the start of it.

So you are walking into a building that requires you sign in, you show your ID, the system tells the security desk that you are 45, but your ID says 26. If it does this too often, it will either be ignored (useless system) or cause people to be detained needlessly (useless and costly).

You just had a screaming match with your soon to be ex wife over the phone driving in... ut oh, emotional distress right there.

Even wost, you may end up with people having major panic attacks because the scanner is telling security this person is under huge emotional stress, causing them to watch more closely and cause more anxiety.

Then the sociopath walks in and starts spinning well meshed lies right to the security gaurds face, and the scanner picks up no emotional stress, because he isn't really under any. But thats ok, security is too busy having the police escort out the girl who just broke down in a panic to really deal with him anyway.

Doesn't work? Doesn't matter.

[XxtraLarGe]

That still won't stop DHS from ordering one for every security line.

Re:Doesn't work? Doesn't matter.

[i kan reed]

How else are they going to generate the annual false positives they need to point to to justify their own existence, then, smart guy?

Re:Doesn't work? Doesn't matter.

[Thanshin]

Hard to sell.

Imagine a conference room with a salesman, a CEO and a bunch of politicians. Who do you propose they use to check whether the machine is actually capable of giving a negative?

Re:Doesn't work? Doesn't matter.

[Antipater]

Imagine a conference room with a salesman, a CEO and a bunch of politicians. Who do you propose they use to check whether the machine is actually capable of giving a negative?

The schmuck they had to pull into the room to help them find the "on" button.

Yet it will make criminals pass

[zwei2stein]

Most succesfull criminals generally have:

  * Honest looking face, do not avert eye contant and have firm grip
  * Dress the same or a bit better than their marks.
  * Are happy and unconcerned when doing their work.
  * Bathed and groomed.
  * Get a bit of charisma.
  * Are not dumb.

This is incredibly important for pickpockets - if you are in suit and looking like you are just comming from business meeting, people will not suspect a thing. And if you get caught, you can talk your way out because it can be played as misunderstanding.

Compare this to badly dressed, tatooed, nervous member of differently colored minory which causes people put their hands on their valuables immediatelly. (Those are good to detecting where people have their valuable stuff so that their coworker has much easier time)

Any system that judges people on looks is going to be way too stupid to know this. Most people are too scared to notice real dangers. And now they made software that mimicks this stupidity.

Bravo.

And we are not event getting to how evil this thing is because of basically labeling people randomly as criminals.

Re:Yet it will make criminals pass

[kannibal_klown]

I think you're over glamorizing the common criminal.

Sure, there are tons of con-men and con-women out there that could talk you out of your wallet's contents with a wink of an eye. And sure, there are a lot of well-dressed pick pockets out there... so you don't think they're up to something. And lets not even delve into the white-collar criminals.

But a majority of criminals are not that sophisticated and wearing decent clothes. There are PLENTY of thugs out there as well as hoodlum kids.

Try walking down a bad part of Newark or Chicago some time. Trust me, if-and-when you are the victim of a crime it won't be the handsome guy in a suit or the hawt girl in a nice dress. Chances are it will be a thug (of ANY color / creed / whatever) that takes your stuff.

Re:Yet it will make criminals pass

[Hatta]

Most succesfull criminals generally have:

    * Honest looking face, do not avert eye contant and have firm grip
    * Dress the same or a bit better than their marks.
    * Are happy and unconcerned when doing their work.
    * Bathed and groomed.
    * Get a bit of charisma.
    * Are not dumb.

This is incredibly important for pickpockets

Not just pick pockets. Politicians, lawyers, bankers, salesmen, and insurance agents too. These groups are responsible for the crime that causes the most damage to society. The ghetto thugs and disheveled crazy people are negligible risks compared to these people.

Re:Reliability

[kelemvor4]

So Daniel Craig walks up to this scanner and is greeted by a female voice that goes, "Good morning, Mr. Nicholson. We have detected that you are about to commit a felony. We strongly urge you to reconsider."

Or, "Good morning, Mr. Nicholson. Please enjoy this taser shock before our agents perform a body cavity search".

Put one in a bar...

[ravenscar]

If you put one of these in a bar and charged $.50 per face scan you'd make a fortune. At this point, this is probably all that this is good for anyhow.

Psycho-Pass

[Ultra64]

Sounds like Psycho-Pass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Pass#Plot