Fugitive Child Sex Abuser Caught By Face-Recognition Technology

mrspoonsi sends this BBC report: "A U.S. juggler facing child sex abuse charges, who jumped bail 14 years ago, has been arrested in Nepal after the use of facial-recognition technology. Street performer Neil Stammer traveled to Nepal eight years ago using a fake passport under the name Kevin Hodges. New facial-recognition software matched his passport picture with a wanted poster the FBI released in January. Mr Stammer, who had owned a magic shop in New Mexico, has now been returned to the U.S. state to face trial. The Diplomatic Security Service, which protects U.S. embassies and checks the validity of U.S. visas and passports, had been using FBI wanted posters to test the facial-recognition software, designed to uncover passport fraud. The FBI has been developing its own facial-recognition database as part of the bureau's Next Generation Identification program."

Comments

It's tinfoil time!

[mythosaz]

There's been a lot of 1984-esque technology stories of late, each of which has been tied to catching a child predator.

The tinfoil crowd sees this as how "the man" intends to deliver all of these intrusions to us -- by showing how they stop kid touchers.

Me? Meh. Neat that we're cross-referencing FBI wanted posters against passports. Seems a good use of the technology -- better than tagging people on Facebook automatically, I guess.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[Kenja]

I would think such systems would automatically flag people in tinfoil protector beanies for closer scrutiny...

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[93 Escort Wagon]

What we really need - but will never have - is some sort of independent civilian oversight group designed to make sure these sorts of programs operate within some specific narrow parameters - with effective enforcement power.

Looking for passport fraud? Go ahead and look through all the passport pictures... as long as you immediately discard every single one that doesn't match.

Looking for a stolen car? Go ahead and use that vehicle-mounted license plate scanner... But you can't store any of the non-matching plates for even a second.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[Ralph Wiggam]

What we really need - but will never have - is some sort of independent civilian oversight group designed to make sure these sorts of programs operate within some specific narrow parameters

That's what the Judicial Branch is supposed to do. We don't need an entirely new structure. We just need better execution from them.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[Jane Q. Public]

In this day and age, you almost have to have a driver's license. How is it fair that they make you get one, and then they use privacy-violating facial recognition software on it? They shouldn't be allowed to use this information as they please. They should need a specific warrant to even look at it, and I don't think all these government organizations should be sharing information. Freedom and privacy are simply more important than safety.

doesn't disgust me.

Because you're anti-freedom. Enjoy the fruits of your labor, the very same fruits that have grown time and time again throughout history.

Too bad it's an AC comment. I agree 100%.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[rmdingler]

I know of several people who were dismissed as tinfoil hatters prior to the Snowden revelations.

just saying.

Facial recognition programs on 300 and umpteen million folks(Your Metrics May Vary), to rightfully monitor 10,000 with legitimate probable cause? I'd rather be free than that safe.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[redeIm]

This is a very expensive and inefficient way to solve the problem.

Yes. That is the point. All of this automated surveillance has gotten out of control, and allows the government to oppress people more efficiently than ever before. That is not a good thing; sometimes the government should not be inexpensive or effective.

The oversight never does any good, will be subverted eventually, and doesn't solve the fundamental problem: The data on innocents should not be collected to begin with.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[mythosaz]

Police, I suppose should wander the streets with blindfolds on, only removing them if they get within 20 yards of an out-of-bounds ankle bracelet or a ringing alarm. :/

If you add "automation' to existing processes, freedom isn't necessarily lost.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[rmdingler]

Your point is not without merit. Law enforcement is a sometimes thankless, dirty, ugly job that pays far too little for a vocation in which other folks shoot at you.

OTOH, I assure you the people enforcing the laws already have many, many electronic surveillance tools already at their disposal.

Do those with access to sensitive information routinely abuse that privilege? I would say the evidence is pointing in that direction.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[c6gunner]

I know of several people who were dismissed as tinfoil hatters prior to the Snowden revelations.

I strongly suspect that those people can still be safely dismissed as tinfoil hat wearers. When you spit out a hundred different conspiracy theories every day, one of them is bound to be right eventually. That's the magic of probability and large numbers.

Re:It's tinfoil time!

[c6gunner]

All of this automated surveillance has gotten out of control, and allows the government to oppress people more efficiently than ever before.

Kinda funny, then, that bankrupt regimes with 1980s era electronics are orders of magnitude better at this "oppression" thing than our own high-tech governments.

We Are All Under Suspicion Now

[Anonymous Coward]

Scanning travel documents for hits in criminal (or other databases) is yet another case of data being re-purposed for uses other than the original intent. It is the same problem I have with things like Visa selling lists of what people pay for using a Visa card, Verizon selling a list of what addresses I travel to and what websites I browse and my pharmacy selling my prescription information.
 
Repurposing of data for unrelated uses is deeply corrosive to the trust that society needs to function. It keeps us all metaphorically looking over our shoulders, wondering in the back of our heads just how this information generated by going about our normal every-day lives might end up harming us. Even if one in a million times it helps catch a pedo, that still doesn't justify the damage it does to a free society.
 
There will always be crime, even in the most authoritarian of countries. But copious amounts of dignity and privacy are necessary for a healthy society - when you constantly have to second guess yourself it makes you less willing to be open and honest with others, makes you less willing to take risks, to be unconventional. Just compare the amount of creative development in the west to that of the USSR in the same time frame, or even North Korea now. Every time a database is repurposed, our society gets a little bit less robust.

Re:We Are All Under Suspicion Now

[jklovanc]

I don't think using facial recognition to verify the identity of someone using a US passport is re purposing data.

Even if one in a million times it helps catch a pedo, that still doesn't justify the damage it does to a free society.

How will these identity verifications damage a free society? The will definitely impact passport fraud.

Re:We Are All Under Suspicion Now

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the day free speech is permanently revoked and saying anything bad about our dear Leader is punishable by death. Now they have the tech to find and exterminate you with extreme ease.

Re:We Are All Under Suspicion Now

[Anonymous Coward]

> That, and to make sure the passport is really the person who claims it is his.
> You can dispense with the photo altogether for "yes, this passport is mine" purposes if there is another practically-un-spoofable

For over a century we've had passports without such unspoofable methods and without significant problems. Just because the technology is now there to cross-check photos does not mean we must do it. Do not fall victim to the authoritarianism of technocracy.

BTW, when you get a passport you provide the photo. You can tweak it such that the facial recog algos fail but humans still recognize you. We are far away from an unspoofable system.

Re:We Are All Under Suspicion Now

[redeIm]

Sorry but everyone on earth is a potential criminal. I don't care how many times my finger prints (they were taken for a background check) are compared because I have never committed a serious crime (I have a few speeding tickets).

Agreed. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. History confirms this.

Re:This Juggler's Only Crime

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be such a tight-ass. I suppose we shouldn't make any jokes about death, divorce, marriage, or any of the other things that happen in life because there are real people that really suffered from it.

Re:Where?

[rmdingler]

When an American citizen seeks political asylum in Russia,

well,

it's time to take a good look at ourselves.

Whenever it's advertized like this, then it is bad

[gweihir]

If they trot out the child abusers (usually carefully selected so that nobody has any sympathy), what is actually announced is really bad for individual freedoms. Expect this to be used against you on a traffic ticket in 5-10 years or to identify people participating in lawful demonstrations. That is a sure way to a police-state and that one is universally followed by totalitarianism some time later.

Re:Where?

[gweihir]

The idea of a police-state is that you cannot hide. Sure, for really bad crimes, it is fine for the state to throw a lot of resources at it, bit what they did here is cheap and can be applied universally. That the index case seems to be somebody carefully selected so that nobody has any sympathy is just a propaganda trick. I bet they had at the very least several hundred hits.

And if you think a police-state is not so bad, after all it just mercilessly enforces the rule of law, here is news for you: 1. "The law" and morality, ethics and what is right are two different things. For example, the killing of the Jews in the 3rd Reich was legal. 2. A police state is universally followed by totalitarianism, because at some point all opposition can be silenced legally.

Re:"The FBI has been developing"..

[gweihir]

Indeed. And now they are ready to break it to the public and have searched for a nice, repulsive individual for a few months, ignoring countless others where the public might have noticed how bad the technology actually is for individual freedom.

Re:This Juggler's Only Crime

[Wraithlyn]

Oh lighten the fuck up, we are laughing at some clever wordplay, not because we think child abuse is funny.