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Face Recognition + Mandatory Police Body Cameras = Mass Surveillance? (siliconvalley.com)
Facial recognition software is already in use, and it has privacy advocates worried. An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area Newsgroup.
Southern California-based FaceFirst sells its facial recognition technology to retail stores, which use it to identify shoplifters who have been banned from the store, and alert management if they return. Corporate offices and banks also use the software to recognize people who are wanted by police... Several local law enforcement agencies have expressed interest in the technology, but so far none have had the budget for it. FaceFirst sells software police officers can install on their smartphones and use to identify people in the field from up to 12 feet away.
Some privacy experts worry facial recognition technology will show up next in police body cameras, with potentially dangerous consequences... The problem, say privacy advocates, is that all kinds of people come into contact with police, including many who are never suspected of any crimes. So lots of innocent people could be caught up in a police database fed by face-recognizing body cameras. The body cameras could turn into a "massive mobile surveillance network," said Jeramie Scott, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
One-third of America's police departments use body cameras. (And just in San Jose, there's already 450 neighborhood cameras that have also agreed to share their footage for police investigations.) The new technologies concern the ACLU's policy director for technology and civil liberties. "You have very powerful systems being purchased, most often in secret, with little-to-no public debate and no process in place to make sure that there are policies in place to safeguard community members."
Some privacy experts worry facial recognition technology will show up next in police body cameras, with potentially dangerous consequences... The problem, say privacy advocates, is that all kinds of people come into contact with police, including many who are never suspected of any crimes. So lots of innocent people could be caught up in a police database fed by face-recognizing body cameras. The body cameras could turn into a "massive mobile surveillance network," said Jeramie Scott, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
One-third of America's police departments use body cameras. (And just in San Jose, there's already 450 neighborhood cameras that have also agreed to share their footage for police investigations.) The new technologies concern the ACLU's policy director for technology and civil liberties. "You have very powerful systems being purchased, most often in secret, with little-to-no public debate and no process in place to make sure that there are policies in place to safeguard community members."
We already have mass surveillance in private hands. Ever been to a casino? Do you know what kind of tech they use?
The real question is how we keep police accountable to the public, not how to make sure the police are kept away from every new technology.
The problem is not using such technology but relying on such technology. Too often it is believed above common sense. We have DNA databases that have now outgrown the probability of a match so if you enter data you get more than one match. If facial recognition says that a person is a suspect that does not mean that the person is a suspect and does not mean that there is a reason to arrest or detain said person. It does justify watching said person but not harming them in any way including harming them by detaining them.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Body cameras should encrypt their contents as they capture them.
Records at the station house should be dumps of the encrypted data.
The keys should be stored elsewhere, available by subpoena or warrant.
In addition to making body cam data useless for mass surveillance, wearers can be required to have the camera running all the time - nobody gets to see officers in the bathroom unless they are accused of beating someone up there.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Police need to have bodycams to protect us!
If the police have bodycams who will protect us!
Everyone should be watched and not watched at all times and simultaneously. Like there has to be an unbroken universal superposition both of surveillance everywhere and nowhere, just in case someone might do something bad with either. Instead of pointing to something and yelling "problem!" and expecting others to solve it, solutions could be presented instead.
Face recognition isn't reliable enough for mass surveillance; that is, unless you have context or additional information, you'll get thousands of false hits for every face you try to look up in a national database even under the best of circumstances. With people actively trying to fool the system and the kind of poor quality you get from wearable cameras, it's even worse.
Frankly, I'd rather have police accountability than privacy from having people see my face while I'm in public.
... with the introduction of smartphones with a camera or 3.
The thing is, this is unstoppable. So we might as well look at the advantages instead of running around like headless chickens all the time. Officers need these to prevent violence towards the officers AND the public to avoid unnecessary police brutality, now everyone IS accountable for their actions, I can't see this as a bad thing.
It's also highly unlikely that all video data will be stored for eternity because EVEN though we do have massive storage capacities, just imagine 7 million cameras with gigabyte storage all having to be centralized in some giant network, it would still take ages for any data processing to go trough that with image recognition, and there will probably be enough errors to keep an army of workers busy going through all of that.
And an extra little thing... ...the gov. constantly WANT to add survellance powers but TAKE away our retaliation powers (counter survellance, or private survellance) as we need to trust the powers that be 100%, I for once - never did, and history repeats itself over and over again with officers breaking the law by browsing gov. citizens data bank for personal use and not professional use, this is because they're ALSO human - as corrupt and curious as the rest of us.
The only thing you can rest assure of, there are those in the public who also have survellance capabilities, heck...I had this back in the 80s and kept a close eye on those I wanted to keep a close eye on, including the law enforcers - and they were as clueless then as they are today. If you want to stay out of trouble - stay OFF the radar, because they already have ALL the dirt on anyone of you, they just don't know you exist - yet!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
How much an administration can change things:
2013: Although we at the ACLU generally take a dim view of the proliferation of surveillance cameras in American life, police on-body cameras are different because of their potential to serve as a check against the abuse of power by police officers.
2017: You have very powerful systems being purchased, most often in secret, with little-to-no public debate and no process in place to make sure that there are policies in place to safeguard community members
They pretty much wrote the white paper on police camera's which had very weak provisions for privacy because of purported unnecessary violence against members of grassroots terrorist organizations and violent criminal gangs, now you're asking why these things are purchased - because you asked for it, it's no secret that police are recording you, we techies told you that when they started with red light camera's and CCTV and cheap tech is only going to make it easier.
It's impossible to fight it at this point, you should've fought it when they started recording in their cars and on street corners. Now you can only 'defend' yourself because the tech itself is too cheap and available to stop the tide. Even if you wanted to, cops would just go out and buy a GoPro just like they do with guns and everything else they don't want to be too official.
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Mandatory Police Body Cameras = Lots of Selfies
Mandatory Police Body Cameras + Government only = Mass Surveillance
Mandatory Police Body Cameras + Full Public Access = Public Display
The Mandatory Police Body Cameras were implemented to avoid polices from shooting random black people and getting away with it. A lot of innocent people were killed with no justice with cops overpowering them in court, while other times police have a hard time presenting their judgement on the situation.
Case in point, it was to protect the citizens and the polices from corruption. The citizens see the police with the camera and believe the officer will follow order (and not kill them). The polices see the citizen behaves to avoid being sued.
As long as the citizens can review the result (any corruption from police), it is a fair system, which is better than the they have money and win lawsuits regardless of you're right or wrong. Some other points, the polices should be able to record as long as he/she is in a public location. The citizens should have the right to decline those polices from entering private properties, and the cameras should also be in a closed system without internet to avoid hacks.
Face Recognition on the other hand... is stupid. Unless the camera concluded the subject as a criminal (recorded stealing), why would they need face recognition (using thief face to find name)? To mark wrong targets and show how bad software companies are? We know polices are stupid and companies are incompetent. We don't need more stupidity in this world.
So true, I live near an intersection that gets a fair number of red light runners. It is also a major speed trap. The other day as I am about to go after the light turning green, I spot a guy definitely not stopping and it is way past pink. Guy goes thru, I proceed. As I am headed up the road I immediately see a motorcycle cop with a radar gun, who had to see the guy run the red. But he did not pursue. He was holding the gun waiting for the next speeder. I'm thinking somehow the speeding tickets are more profitable or less trouble, not sure which. Problem is the red light runner is the one who is going to kill somebody.