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Germany Tests Facial-Recognition Surveillance On 300 Citizens (dw.com)
An anonymous reader quotes DW:
Earlier this year, with no shortage of publicity, Berlin police found volunteers to participate in a test of a prototype facial-recognition system at Sudkreuz station. The system seeks to match images of people on CCTV cameras with pictures of the volunteers in a test database. Volunteers also wear transponders providing information about their whereabouts. Comparing the two sets of data will give a good indication of whether the technology is of any use.
Another DW article reports the six-month test is attracting criticism: Germany's interior minister is pleased with the initial results, but critics are wary of increased surveillance... The 300 testers who volunteered for the project carry a transponder that apparently only transmits data on ambient temperature, battery status and signal strength, according to the project staff member in the Sudkreuz station control room who explained the technology to [German Interior Minister Thomas] de Maiziere. But [activist Paul] Gerstenkorn contends the angle and acceleration of the testers are recorded as well... For German Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Vosshoff, the fact that active and not passive technology is being used is going too far. Unlike a passive chip, the transponder constantly transmits information that anyone can collect with the help of freeware available on the internet.
Vosshoff says the police have not "sufficiently" informed the testers, and called for the project to be temporarily halted...The interior minister has vehemently defended the project, saying the technology is not being used to catch petty criminals such as shoplifters, but terrorists and serious offenders. Four weeks into the test phase, De Maiziere has praised its "surprising accuracy" - specifically referring to people recognized by the software whose pictures are already stored in police databases. According to Germany's federal police force, pictures of all other passers-by captured by the surveillance cameras are "immediately deleted." After the six-month trial phase in Berlin, a decision will be made on whether automatic facial recognition will be implemented nationwide in Germany's train stations and other public spaces.
Another DW article reports the six-month test is attracting criticism: Germany's interior minister is pleased with the initial results, but critics are wary of increased surveillance... The 300 testers who volunteered for the project carry a transponder that apparently only transmits data on ambient temperature, battery status and signal strength, according to the project staff member in the Sudkreuz station control room who explained the technology to [German Interior Minister Thomas] de Maiziere. But [activist Paul] Gerstenkorn contends the angle and acceleration of the testers are recorded as well... For German Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Vosshoff, the fact that active and not passive technology is being used is going too far. Unlike a passive chip, the transponder constantly transmits information that anyone can collect with the help of freeware available on the internet.
Vosshoff says the police have not "sufficiently" informed the testers, and called for the project to be temporarily halted...The interior minister has vehemently defended the project, saying the technology is not being used to catch petty criminals such as shoplifters, but terrorists and serious offenders. Four weeks into the test phase, De Maiziere has praised its "surprising accuracy" - specifically referring to people recognized by the software whose pictures are already stored in police databases. According to Germany's federal police force, pictures of all other passers-by captured by the surveillance cameras are "immediately deleted." After the six-month trial phase in Berlin, a decision will be made on whether automatic facial recognition will be implemented nationwide in Germany's train stations and other public spaces.
Fake news. CNN or it didn't happen
Maybe these 300 people should be considered enemies of freedom and privacy.
"His name was James Damore."
"Oh, it's just for terrorists! We delete the pictures! ...after we've saved them."
This is a recipe for disaster. I'd rather be shot dead than tethered to a tracking device. I can at least turn my phone off and remove the battery.
This sounds great. Now even the people in Cologne get to live in East Germany.
...will be to identify and track political activists and democratic protesters. I bet we'll see a substantial uptick in arrests and harrassment after political rallies and protests once this is rolled out.
Regardless of what their laws say:
Our leaders.
Just throw up their pictures and decide it's free hunting season and the situation can be dealt with.
Nobody should be eating corn (including you).
It's Monsanto GMO crap.
So it begins ....
We all know the first directive will be Don't Hassel the Hoff. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Please let me give an education to some on the force of gravity: You may feel as if you are held to planet Earth by gravity yet in the grand scheme you are actually held to the Sun by its gravity (you go around the Sun once a year held to it by gravity) yet don't feel the Sun's gravity as it passes over head each day because the Sun is nicer than Earth. Just as someone walking down the street could in fact be God in possession of the highest amount of gravity of all, yet you in a similar fashion don't feel Gods' gravity or other forces so dismiss the person as not being God as you walk on by. For instance even I could be God, which meens CmdrTaco et. al. are in the dog box!
> The interior minister has vehemently defended the project,
> saying the technology is not being used to catch petty criminals
> such as shoplifters, but terrorists and serious offenders.
You wouldn't want to be against catching TERRORISTS, would you? My goodness - if you're not with us, then you're obviously one of them!
It's just not the same. I went looking for, why.
What's behind America's Test Kitchen's lawsuit against its famous co-founder
Posted on November 9, 2016 at 6:00 AM
Christopher Kimball
Christopher Kimball, who founded and, in 2015, left 'Cook's Illustrated,' has a new venture, 'Milk Street Magazine,' which debuted Oct. 18, 2016. (Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Magazine) ( )
By The Washington Post
On Oct. 31, as first reported by the Boston Globe, America's Test Kitchen filed a complaint in Massachusetts's Suffolk County Superior Court against Kimball and his new company. His co-defendants are his wife and former ATK employee, Melissa Baldino; Christine Gordon, Kimball's former executive assistant at ATK; and Deborah Broide, who worked as a public relations consultant for ATK.
"Mr. Kimball spent the last year of his employment with America's Test Kitchen creating a new venture which literally and conceptually ripped off America's Test Kitchen," the lawsuit says. (While "America's Test Kitchen" is the brand's flagship public television series, it's also the name of the multimedia corporation that includes its cookbook operations, online cooking school, Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines, a now-defunct radio show and a variety of other assets.)
The lawsuit claims that Kimball essentially stole company resources to create a competing venture, Milk Street, that, like ATK, includes radio, television and online presences. Both companies are based in the greater Boston area.
"It's more complex than a former employee going out and starting a new business," Jack Bishop, ATK's chief creative officer, said in an interview. That's because Kimball, one of ATK's founders, is still considered a partial owner.
"No one is really happy we're here. Let me start with that. I'm not the only one who has known Chris and worked with Chris for a long time, but we are here because of Chris's actions," said Bishop, who also frequently appeared with Kimball in "America's Test Kitchen" and "Cook's Country" segments. "It is what it is."
Scott Lashway of the Boston office of firm Holland & Knight, the attorney representing Kimball and his co-defendants, declined to comment. But in an interview with The Washington Post last month about the new venture, Kimball said Milk Street is inspired by global cuisine that is reliant less on heat and time than on spices and levels of flavor. "It's just a whole new way of thinking about cooking," Kimball said. "In my prior iteration, which lasted 35 years, there would be no starting point outside of the kitchen. . . . With Milk Street, I think, we're always starting someplace outside of Milk Street. We're trying to tell the story to give a little bit of context. We're trying to travel to actually go learn something."
Among other things, ATK is seeking damages for Kimball's "breach of fiduciary duties" from Kimball, and from the co-defendants for "aiding and abetting" him. It also seeks the return of a portion of Kimball's 2015 salary, as well as part of Baldino's, Gordon's and Broide's, since it accuses all of building Milk Street on ATK time.
The suit also seeks "all profits Kimball and CPK Media derived from the theft and misappropriation of ATK's confidential information, trade secrets and business opportunities."
We've pored over the 39-page complaint, as well as emails attached to it. Here are some of the big take-aways.
* ATK alleges that Kimball used company resources and relationships to create his new endeavor.
"To quickly break into the marketplace with a viable and recognizable company," it alleges, "Mr. Kimball stole confidential information from America's Test Kitchen, solicited America's Test Kitchen employees and outside relationships and misappropriated corporate opportunities belonging to America's Test Kitchen."
Among ATK's allegations: that Kimball sought to capture the email addresses of readers; that Gordon misrepresented herself as doing business for ATK while sea
Nice nightmare you're working on there.
Hitler lives and he's 128 years old.
Obergruppenfuhrer Merkel wasn't happy with the way tattoos on the forearm worked out last time so now it's facial recognition.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Finally Germany can enact its broad ranging emigration and immigration reforms, just like they've been intending since the 30s :)
Most of the posters on /. seem to understand why more surveillance is bad. My question is: What can be done to stop this pervasive growth of government spying? What can we do about it right now, to forestall what is at the end of this path?
... are to be the first into the gas chambers when they are actually built this time around.
The machine is always watching.
After all, they can't track us with our cellphones all the time, there are gaps in coverage due to obstacles, etc. and so they want to cover the dead zones with an alternate method of keeping tabs on it. Eventually we further correlate with odor detectors, strain gauges, public microphones, and the chips embedded in our bodies to create the cradle-to-grave leashes our masters desire. After all, they are going to want that electronic notification when the dead rise from their graves, or investigators exhume that body we would rather not have them fully examine...
Most people have a tracking device already.Its called a mobile phone.
I think it's bad.
Sorry cops.
The "New Germans" must be kept safe.
They aren't Germans at all, of course, but every white country must learn to be multicultural... even if it kills them.
The question is not whether the technology works. We can probably make it work after a fashion, and it'll get better after that.
The question very much is whether we, and that's all of us, not just those in power, actually want this. Or any of the other ever more pervasive surveillance tricks. Phone tapping, data retention, ANPR, biometrics, having to carry government ID everywhere, you name it. Yes, we can make it work. But do we want to shape our lives that way?
If not, speak out. Loudly. And you'll have to remain ever vigilant, and teach your kids the same, about speaking out.
Speak up. Teach the rest of us. Make clear it'll create a world in which you don't want to live or raise children.
Speak up. Have your friends and family speak up. Speak up again. Teach your neighbours why it's important and have them speak up also. Keep on speaking up. Any way you can.
This actually goes for all our technology, but moreso with tech that makes puppets out of us, as this does.
These algorithms that recognize faces, fingerprints or other "difficult" things are usually just doing binary comparisons: how likely is the subject the one from database-picture 1? 2? 3? There is a number from 0-1 that represents the likelihood of a match.
So when forced to make a decision, you take the one with the highest number, provided that numbers is larger than say 0.5 or 0.8 or whatever threshold you choose. These things work just fine with 100 or 300 subjects in the database, but once you actually start using this in real life you're going to fill up the database with thousands and then ten thousands of possible matches. That's when the reliability goes down enormously. False positives: I see subject X while that person is not in the database at all, or I see subject X when it's actually subject Y who is in the database as well.
To perform a valid test you should find 40000 other photos and put those in the database as well before you start testing....
"After all, they can't track us with our cellphones all the time,..."
Indeed, and the newest ones have or will have face recognition built-in, so they _know_ it's you and not only somebody knowing your pass-code and they are recording 'only' _metadata_, that's newspeak for 'every step you make'.
Is this expected to work on fundamentalist Muslims that cover their faces as part of their religion and are the primary (albeit not only) vector for terrorism?
"The interior minister has vehemently defended the project, saying the technology is not being used to catch petty criminals such as shoplifters, but terrorists and serious offenders."
It will not stay that way.
... There were way more than 300 volunteers. There were thousands and there is no compensation. Privacy is a lost cause.
They give the german government the excuse they need to track native Germans. Good old bait and switch. Security!
Dear Slashdot, please not that using the EU flag for Germany is quite imprecise, and probably offensive for many German people.
"the technology is not being used to catch petty criminals such as shoplifters, but terrorists and serious offenders" ... if you're caught robbing granny for crack you get a pass LOOOL ... now that's believable ... buy stock in baseballcaps, get the scramlApp NOW at half price, track thy neighbour with the freeware. In soviet germany the nazis will be defeated with their own tools !
... they practically gave the continent to the fanatics and now have to resort to all those things they so loftily spent money on speeching out against
... if it didnt all braincells would have fled by new and im the least of my brethren am i not ?
it's not getting out of hand, it IS out of hand, and they blame europe but europe is to blame for trying to carry too much in a decade where wages and employment stumble downward so this is like dropping nazi-germ in a petri dish of nazi-food
and we down here is all idiots, and its getting worse cos lately theres a "pick a side" attitude developing. Something you can't see from the 56th floor of montparnasse i'm sure. I been talking about this is gonna end in pogroms and long knives from one way to the other one way or another but thats probably inciting and hatespeech and when it happens it's gonna be my fault ? or maybe someone else who saw this coming from a lightyear away how long have i been yelling i want out of here ? europe isnt far enough away from here ? 10 years ? 15 ?
the more i try the more it traps me
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?