As It Searches For Suspects, The FBI May Be Looking At You (technologyreview.com)

schwit1 quotes the MIT Technology Review: The FBI has access to nearly 412 million photos in its facial recognition system—perhaps including the one on your driver's license. But according to a new government watchdog report, the bureau doesn't know how error-prone the system is, or whether it enhances or hinders investigations.

Since 2011, the bureau has quietly been using this system to compare new images, such as those taken from surveillance cameras, against a large set of photos to look for a match. That set of existing images is not limited to the FBI's own database, which includes some 30 million photos. The bureau also has access to face recognition systems used by law enforcement agencies in 16 different states, and it can tap into databases from the Department of State and the Department of Defense. And it is in negotiations with 18 other states to be able to search their databases, too...

Adding to the privacy concerns is another finding in the GAO report: that the FBI has not properly determined how often its system makes errors and has not "taken steps to determine whether face recognition systems used by external partners, such as states and federal agencies, are sufficiently accurate" to support investigations.

Comments

Now...

[WSOGMM]

If only they used that system to fight the real evils! like to spot and take away your car keys when you're eating and driving at the same time. or maybe just to take away your food when you're somewhere on your way to heart disease. i hear if your skin's black there's a correlation to you having marijuana in your possession. fucking hedons

The problem with these sorts of arguments

[rsilvergun]

is that most of people will never be impacted by the surveillance, at least not in a way they can see and feel. It's the same reason why America can't get away from the antiquated insurance model for health care. And If by some chance you are impacted you're misfortune leaves you completely marginalized...

Maybe in a flying pig's eye

[shanen]

Maybe the FBI and various other authoritarian people are watching us?

Maybe in a flying pig's eye, but maybe there's a solution?

Too many people are deluding themselves with such notions as "It's okay since I would never do anything wrong."

WRONG. You certainly will do plenty of things wrong, and the police don't believe there is such a thing as an innocent mistake. If they watch you closely enough, they have you by the balls, which they've already been watching, to boot.

That's just the stick side of our loss of privacy. Of course no one is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. There are plenty of laws on the books and if the police want you badly enough and have enough data on you, then they will get you. Not just the police, however. Criminals, too, without even commenting on the other similarities.

The carrot side of privacy loss is actually worse. By knowing your interests, tastes, and even your strengths, you can be manipulated and twisted. Maybe it's relatively harmless like buying the "right" toothpaste or a worthless certificate from Trump University, but there aren't any limits. Considering monetary threats, there's always debt slavery, which is how a lot of kids feel about their student loans. If you're a threat to the authorities, the question is what sort of sex crime you can be seduced with... Or maybe the biggest threat is to your most precious and limited resource, your short time on earth? As today's google sees it, based on their massive amounts of personal information you have so foolishly entrusted to the google, "All your attention are belong to us."

Solution? Oh yeah, I was mumbling about a solution, wasn't I?

KEEP YOUR OWN PERSONAL INFORMATION. Just make it illegal to keep anyone's personal information without that person's permission. The information can exist, but it has to be stored where and how the person wants it to be stored, and anyone who wants to look at it needs to ask nicely and then delete the copy of the information as soon as the purpose of the asking has been satisfied.

Oh wait. Can pig's fly?

the law and the courts can be bullshit

[FudRucker]

what about fingerprints, they can be used to arrest someone, but fingerprints are inadmissible in court because fingerprints are not accurate enough to prove if the person is guilty, i bet there are similarities with the human face too, i seen people that looked alike close enough that if i seen two people that looked alike but after knowing them i could tell the difference and then i dont see them for 10 years or more and then see them again i could not be able to tell them apart, unless there was some signature feature i did not forget like a noticeable chipped or crooked tooth when they smile or a tattoo or scar, or a mole

thinking you have rights is now a crime

[frovingslosh]

What the fuck are you bitching about? We're the FBI, we don't give a damn if a few innocent people get swept up in our investigations. And if they can't afford a really good lawyer then they won't be innocent by time we are done with them anyway. Get over yourselves, this is America. You have no rights any more.

Whoah, really?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You mean if you do fuzzy searches for matches among 412 million records you might get false positives? Shocking.

The bad part comes later, when some of those "matches" might have some other tenuous but invalid connections to other data points that happen through sheer chance to link to whatever crime is being investigated.

Example: If your face coincidentally happens to match on 10 out of 14 of their probable data points or indices, AND you also happen to have (for example) visited the same store as the real perpetrator within a certain time frame (another data point), guess who's going to become elevated to the status of a prime suspect? You, that's who.

And once they get a hit that matches like this, tunnel-vision sets in and they spend the rest of their time "proving" it was you, whether it was or not. And good luck proving it wasn't you- you might be able to do so, but it's gonna cost you. It might end up costing you your home, job, spouse, etc etc, not to mention the contents of your bank account. Defense attorneys aren't cheap.

Once they (mistakenly) decide it's you that committed some crime, enormous resources are brought into play to "prove" your guilt, and good luck standing up to them or coming out unscathed.

I'm all for using technology to solve crimes but "push button proof" often morphs into lazy investigations and miscarriages of justice. But why should the authorities care? It's not going to be them spending years in prison. They'll go home and sleep in their own bed tonight while you're being strip-searched on your way to jail.