Through a Face Scanner Darkly

An anonymous reader writes in with a story that raises the issue of how public anonymity is quickly disappearing thanks to facial recognition technology. "NameTag, an app built for Google Glass by a company called FacialNetwork.com, offers a face scanner for encounters with strangers. You see somebody on the sidewalk and, slipping on your high-tech spectacles, select the app. Snap a photo of a passerby, then wait a minute as the image is sent up to the company's database and a match is hunted down. The results load in front of your left eye, a selection of personal details that might include someone's name, occupation, Facebook and/or Twitter profile, and, conveniently, whether there's a corresponding entry in the national sex-offender registry."

Comments

I do not look forward to this.

[feufeu]

I want to be able to meet someone and get to know him/her by actually talking to him/her.

And no, I don't give a fuck about sex offender list crazyness.

I do not want *anybody* to tell me who i should be afraid of or not.

Re:I do not look forward to this.

[feufeu]

Nothing, for now.

Everyone wearing stupid Google glasses, in a dystopian future.

I hope I am not the only one here who would have an awkward feeling if I knew that someone I meet just did at least the equivalent of a Google search on me before we even talk.

Re:I do not look forward to this.

[Jane Q. Public]

"You don't have to justify your non-hate of a convicted sex-offender by downplaying their guilt. It's perfectly acceptable to say that he committed a crime, and has changed his life, and is now a law-abiding citizen."

Why don't YOU accept the fact that some things that get people on sex-offender registries are inherently ridiculous, and therefore a travesty of justice?

Did you know that in some states, going out behind the tavern and peeing in the bushes because the bathroom is full can get you put on a sex-offender registry for life?

The laws are fucking ridiculous and need to change. Sure, some people are guilty of horrendous crimes. But taking people who have committed a pretty damned trivial offense, and lumping them together for life with child rapists, is at least as offensive as those child rapists.

Look up the actual laws. Get a clue.

Re:I do not look forward to this.

[Jane Q. Public]

"You seem just as adamant that this person you don't know at all is most likely guilty."

And this is a very good illustratration of one of the BIG problems with such registries: no matter how trivial the crime, people will assume (A) that you're guilty, and (B) that you are a child rapist, even if you were only convicted of a trivial offense.

Studies have shown that people almost never inquire why someone is on a registry. Instead they just assume the worst.

And it also shows why a national registry is an outrageously BAD IDEA. A person who was an offender in one state would face a lifetime stigma, even in other states where the "offending" activity was perfectly legal.

Re:I do not look forward to this.

[Anonymous Coward]

0) He served his time.
1) He may not even have committed the crime.
2) Whether or not he did or not, he served his time. See 0)

If that's not enough why not:
a) execute them
b) imprison them for life
c) once they have served their time, give them the option of living in pleasant "sex offender" reservations where their legal needs will be provided for and they can live comfortably for the rest of their life, where they don't have to be amongst all those people that don't want to be with them.

Otherwise what would you have these excriminals do? Forever be unable to easily get a job or house? After all there are calls for more women in XYZ fields, so how many decent jobs can he get that won't have women especially in this climate?

Sexual offender registries are a life sentence.

Re:I'm glad I'm not an atractive woman.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should update our privacy laws and stop allowing companies and the government to store all this information about us in shitty databases to begin with.