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Privacy Advocates Leave In Protest Over U.S. Facial Recognition Code of Conduct
Taco Cowboy writes: Nine privacy advocates involved in the Commerce Department process for developing a voluntary code of conduct for the use of facial recognition technology withdrew in protest over technology industry lobbyists' overwhelming influence on the process. "At a base minimum, people should be able to walk down a public street without fear that companies they've never heard of are tracking their every movement — and identifying them by name — using facial recognition technology," the privacy advocates wrote in a joint statement. "Unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain agreement even with that basic, specific premise." The Commerce Department, through its National Telecommunications and Information Administration, brought together "representatives from technology companies, trade groups, consumer groups, academic institutions and other organizations" early last year "to kick off an effort to craft privacy safeguards for the commercial use of facial recognition technology."
The goal was "to develop a voluntary, enforceable code of conduct that specifies how the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights applies to facial recognition technology in the commercial context." But after a dozen meetings, the most recent of which was last week, all nine privacy advocates who have participated in the entire process concluded that they were thoroughly outgunned. "This should be a wake-up call to Americans: Industry lobbyists are choking off Washington's ability to protect consumer privacy," Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, said in a statement. "People simply do not expect companies they've never heard of to secretly track them using this powerful technology. Despite all of this, industry associations have pushed for a world where companies can use facial recognition on you whenever they want — no matter what you say. This position is well outside the mainstream."
The goal was "to develop a voluntary, enforceable code of conduct that specifies how the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights applies to facial recognition technology in the commercial context." But after a dozen meetings, the most recent of which was last week, all nine privacy advocates who have participated in the entire process concluded that they were thoroughly outgunned. "This should be a wake-up call to Americans: Industry lobbyists are choking off Washington's ability to protect consumer privacy," Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, said in a statement. "People simply do not expect companies they've never heard of to secretly track them using this powerful technology. Despite all of this, industry associations have pushed for a world where companies can use facial recognition on you whenever they want — no matter what you say. This position is well outside the mainstream."
By pulling out of the process, they're basically ensuring they will have zero say in the outcome.
"War makes me sad." - Me
I'm perfectly fine with this, as long as their right to point their omnipresent cameras at me is balanced by my right (codified into law, of course) to point a fucking shotgun at said cameras as well as their sickening fucking heads.
There has been a major push to get basically every security camera in downtown DC networked into the government systems. It's sold as a why-wouldn't-you-want-this measure, and IIRC almost everyone has signed on.
We'll see if CV Dazzle becomes fashionable.
At a base minimum, people should be able to walk down a public street without fear that companies they've never heard of are tracking their every movement — and identifying them by name — using their employees eyes and ears. When I walk up to a receptionist he/she better ask for my id. And how dare that fast food employee remember my normal order. Big Brother is here.
The goal was "to develop a voluntary, enforceable code of conduct
Because they work for/with the government, those privacy advocates are -- by definition -- adults. Yet they are so fucking naive as to make me wonder whether or not they are mentally retarded.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
yeah, right.
in Guy Fawkes masks.
Maybe they could object by pointing out that various congress critters have a habit of being seen (and now recognized) with women other than their wives in locations other than their offices. That might strike closer to home for some of them. Just a thought.
"Industry lobbyists are <insert negative thing here>"?
When did anybody in the US think we aren't living in a plutocratic oligarchy?
Though please do note: I said ruled by the MONEY... not the rich... parse that as you see fit.
@Whee
.
Privacy in cell phone communications was not commonplace until some Congress critter's cell phone calls were taped and made public.
Privacy in facial recognition will not become a reality until some Congress critter is caught and embarrassed via the use of facial recognition.
Congress does not care about privacy until they are the victims of the lack of it.
People should make sure the CEOs of these companies that track you are in the database. Then follow them, photograph them and post it on google maps with date and time.
If someone follows you around writing down everything you do and everywhere you go, that is called stalking.
Haven't people been complaining for decades that businesses don't recognize them anymore? There has often been nostalgia for a time when people were recognized by name when they walked into their bank.
Wouldn't this just be reviving the "Good Olde Days", at least for small town America? Or is facial recognition only okay when done by a MeatCreature?
They can't use facial recognition on you if they don't have a photo of you to start with. Unless you're hopelessly dumb and allowed photos of your face, linked with your name, to be posted on the Internet, that's not going to happen unless the government starts giving them access to things like drivers license database. If that's the way it's going to go then it's time for a full-on revolution, because everything else has failed.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Identity theft will now include your face. I for one, intend to wear my motorcycle helmet 24/7 and call myself "The Stig".
It should be noted that when facebook started their facial recognition stuff, I uploaded dozens of photos of Mark Zuckerberg to my profile, and identified them as me. Facebook still has no idea what I look like.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
[stupid_laws]
But if a company does it with cameras installed everywhere they're not physically following you, they're only writing down everything you do and everywhere you go, that is called marketing.
[/stupid_laws]
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
If corporations are people as the US Supreme Court and former candidate for President Mitt Romney have said, then they are obviously people who can ignore laws and customs they don't like. If a human person were to use facial recognition on a widespread scale to follow the public movements of and to gain personal information about another individual, they would run afoul of several anti-stalking measures, at least.
Not so for our corporate ubermenschen
This has been troubling me for over a year. Last winter I twice got ads for something I picked up at a retailer, never having searched it online, causing me to look up and find these articles.
Admittedly I've lived in very small villages before where there was no privacy, and I can relate to those who say that the idea of privacy is a fairly modern thing. But never in a village was there such a preponderous difference in power between villagers than there exists between individuals and the corporations who can now track our every move.
BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/busine... NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02... Here is a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?... http://adage.com/article/digit...
Gently reply
When you're in public, anyone can recognize you whether it be man or machine.
Not if the machines aren't there, they can't.
Anyone can take pictures of you and what you are doing.
And anyone can be thrown in jail for breaking the law, if we choose to make something illegal.
Your post makes me sad. I only just wrote a post of my own about why people who just say you have no right to privacy in public are the biggest problem here. I was really hoping to get more than two more screens down the discussion before I found someone who literally said that without the slightest nuance, qualification, or actual argument in favour of their position.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
When you're in public, anyone can recognize you whether it be man or machine. Anyone can take pictures of you and what you are doing. There is no concept of "privacy" when you are in public.
Yes. Actually there is.
If i sit down at a table with a restuarant with my friends,
I fully expect that the restaurant isn't going to record my conversation and put it online, sell it, or do anything else.
I fully anticipate that the waiter or other patrons might overhear snippets of our conversation. But if I catch them actually making a concerted effort to listen and record it; my entire party will be extremely pissed off.
Why? Because there is a concept of "privacy" when you are in public. Nearly all of us in society implicitly abide by this informal social contract.
When an entity moves from incidentally intruding on our privacy in public spaces to methodically and deliberately intruding and we NOTICE it, they get dealt with.
The current trend for corporations is to do it, but to do it beneath our notice. Everything from facial recognition cameras to advertising cookies... all do things that we'd vigorously object to if they weren't beneath our notice. If we noticed google employees snapping our pictures, following us around, taking notes, sitting behind us at our desks writing down everything we searched for and did, they'd be out on their ass in very short order.
But the cameras and the cookies are beneath our notice; that doesn't make it ethical or right. And the legal system SHOULD catch up to our expectations here.
Start finding and hacking the cameras recording me.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
We are becoming "1984"
But mix in the "CtOS" from the game Watchdogs
and we have what the U.S. is turning into.
I predict there will be a boiling point and the next civil war even if it's soon to 50 years away will be the citizens vs law enforcement.
militarizing police and militarizing corporations is grossly against the law of posse comitatus act.
Corporation lobbyists roll over government. What's new?
What's 'new' (over the last 6-8 decades or more) is the idea that allowing government which gets rolled over by big money/special-interests/monolithic Parties and so was originally designed to be very limited, more and more power & control over everything and everyone is somehow a good idea.
Very Progressive.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
There's an app for that.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
"When you're in public, anyone can recognize you whether it be man or machine. Anyone can take pictures of you and what you are doing. There is no concept of "privacy" when you are in public."
To quote a /. comment I once saw (thanks, "fuzzyfuzzyfungus"), "most of your protection has always been logistical." "Privacy" in public has been available for a long time. Previously impossible actions were never considered, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be prohibited.
As expanding technological capacity tries to undermine expected privacy don't feel like there is any conceptual mandate to accept it.
-- "Oh. This guy again."
Did they really think that Amazon is going to put its profit on the line to fulfill some code of ethics, even if their views did prevail? (the article mentions that is was a "voluntary agreement", so they were not bound to follow it)
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Humans are very adaptable, the main upshot of this type of shit may be a reduction in skin cancer 30 years from now once everybody learns to wear a ski mask all the time.
If this really does become ubiquitous people will find new fashionable ways to wear apparel, make up and skin art that confuses the cameras.
The question is not whether it should be illegal to impose such surveillance, but the reality of what has been happening since the '90s. Look to areas like Baltimore's poor parts of town, where video cameras monitored by the police have been a mainstay for decades. Look to the UK, which has more CCTV cameras than any other nation.
We may not like it, but the writing has been on the wall for a "surveillance state" for a long, long, long time, and anyone who thinks otherwise is only fooling themselves.
It's going to take some serious waking up of the people and politicians to stop what is already in motion. Right now, such surveillance is legal whether you like it or not.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The key would be transparency or the lack thereof. If I could access the same source data base as the government is using I'd really have very little problem with this.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
All of this is reminding me of this guy. I cannot help ROFL when I see these videos. The are so hilarious and I consider them to be among the best works of art of our time.
If I ever happen to see this guy in public filming me I will simply say "I love you! You are awesome! I'm so glad you are filming me!"
With regard to the stores tracking people: I know its a serious issue, but it is also a potentially hilarious one. I can imagine the myriad ways that you could completely fuck with their analytics by engaging in various activities.
Actually that video above is the wrong one. That one is creepy. I was thinking more of videos like this.
I can't find the original video unfortunately. These later ones are not as good.
The real threat to privacy is from government use of facial recognition technology. Worrying about whether the Banana Republic or Google tries to recognize your mug from a camera is such a useless distraction from the real threats that one really has to wonder whether these "privacy advocates" aren't really just in league with the NSA.
Seriously.
It's called Tumblr.
And do not forget the more important part, with whom you are with. Association with know objectors to our policy? Reeducation camp for you.
Exchange mobiles with friends and confuse their data. I don't understand why in that uk event where police is cross-referencing bracelets and faces to train their cams and get more faces on the system, why did not anyone come out with the civil disobedience idea of exchanging bracelets on mass.
There's a fap for that!
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com