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Amazon Pushes Facial Recognition to Police, Prompting Outcry Over Surveillance (nytimes.com)

Nick Wingfield, reporting for The New York Times: In late 2016, Amazon introduced a new online service that could help identify faces and other objects in images, offering it to anyone at a low cost through its giant cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services. Not long after, it began pitching the technology to law enforcement agencies, saying the program could aid criminal investigations by recognizing suspects in photos and videos. It used a couple of early customers, like the Orlando Police Department in Florida and the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Oregon, to encourage other officials to sign up.

But now that aggressive push is putting the giant tech company at the center of an increasingly heated debate around the role of facial recognition in law enforcement. Fans of the technology see a powerful new tool for catching criminals, but detractors see an instrument of mass surveillance. On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union led a group of more than two dozen civil rights organizations that asked Amazon to stop selling its image recognition system, called Rekognition, to law enforcement. The group says that the police could use it to track protesters or others whom authorities deem suspicious, rather than limiting it to people committing crimes.

143 comments

  1. Typical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Amazon, Google, Microsoft, et al. The problem with these companies is that they want to be everything to everyone. Impossible. Do one or maybe two things really well and focus only on those things. Evil results otherwise, as we are seeing.

  2. Prime Citizen by Zorro · · Score: 1

    You are either a Prime Citizen or a Suspect.

    1. Re:Prime Citizen by Grand+Facade · · Score: 1

      All your everything are mine, for a small fee.

      Free 1 day shipping after Tuesday next week.

      --
      Rick B.
    2. Re: Prime Citizen by houghi · · Score: 1

      One does not exclude the other.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  3. explains a few things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that's why prime subscription just jumped $20.

  4. Should law infocement be hard? by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I get that Law Enforcement in general is trying to help the public, and are trying to find tools to make their job easier and more efficient. However in order to protect our freedoms law enforcement needs to be hard work, even if it means our lives are measurable less safe.

    We cannot have Safety and Freedom. For increase safety there is a trade-off in freedom. While there may be some rules that will increase safety by a factor of ten and reduce freedom by one tenth, and may be considered a fair trade off, there are other things that may give us marginal safety benefits with a large hit to our freedom.

    Law Enforcement professionals work with the scum of the earth all the time, this is affecting their judgement, and their job is to keep people safe. So I do not fault them for wanting more tools to make their job easier and more effective. However we as citizens need to stand up and say. "We thank you for the effort and your hard work. But we can't let your job be easier at a high costs of our freedoms"

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by imrahilj · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think this is the way to think about things. The problem is that once a freedom decreasing measure is tried, it brings along with it a bureaucracy that will argue for it's continued existence, regardless of effectiveness. The TSA brought us a decrease in freedom, without an observable increase in security. Now that it exists, however, any discussion of its failings will not lead to a discussion about dismantling the TSA, it will only lead to discussions about how it must use more resources and be more intrusive. The ratchet swings only one way.

    2. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      "We thank you for the effort and your hard work. But we can't let your job be easier at a high costs of our freedoms"

      It only impacts your freedom because busybodies passed thousands and thousands of laws to punish thousands of non-violent behaviors and decisions. Repeal the laws against everything and you won't have to worry so much about your freedom. (Keep and enforce the laws against violence and you won't have to worry so much about your safety either.)

      Technology doesn't move backward. And even if you make rules against law enforcement using this technology, since when does law enforcement obey rules? Law enforcement mostly works around the rules.

    3. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      These systems were set up under a few laws when it was easy to know if you're a criminal or not. Now everybody is guilty of felonious behavior every day and the authorities only need want to do them in to arrest them. Ask a cop sometime if he could find a reason to arrest you. If you're not a black man he may give you an honest answer and not arrest you.

      This is the primary utilitarian problem with mass surveillance and the desire to avoid it is symptomatic of tyranny.

    4. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Laws do need to enforced beyond the Violent people. There is a lot of degrees of safety beyond just physical harm. But many laws need to be enforced justly. A benefit of the law vs the cost should be evaluated, also the intensity of the enforcement. We are stuck on the idea of English Law, where Law is Law and Context doesn't matter.

      Were you driving 15mph past the speed limit. "Yes" That will be a $150 fine and points off your license. "But it was a straight road, with no traffic and I can see for miles ahead of me." Sorry the law is you are fined $10 for every mile per hour past the speed limit, and points will be taken off you license if you are going past 10mph the limit.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Grand+Facade · · Score: 1

      This is why I am against AI laws/regulation. It will not protect me, it will however do the opposite and guarantee rights to AI controllers.
      Look at what has happened with all other legislation where corporate differences abide.
      Most legislation of this type is used as a tool by corporate interests to protect their own interests and limit competition.

      Law enforcement already has facial recognition, my guess there is more that just FR being offered here, likely it is access to data.

      Amazon must be getting access to your phone's camera and storing data, are they also listening and will they become the "thought police".

      --
      Rick B.
    6. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      Laws do need to enforced beyond the Violent people. There is a lot of degrees of safety beyond just physical harm.

      Not as much as you imply. Beyond physical harm, property crimes need to be enforced because if they aren't then people will take their justice privately.

      But many, many laws don't meet a "compelling state interest" test. They aren't necessary. Some guys a long time ago thought they'd be nice to have. That's not compatible with the culture and technology any more.

      But many laws need to be enforced justly.

      That's not going to happen. Laws will be enforced aggressively on some groups while other groups get a pass. The only solution is fewer laws: if the offense is so bad that no one gets a pass, then the law will be enforced justly.

    7. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get that Law Enforcement in general is trying to help the public, and are trying to find tools to make their job easier and more efficient. However in order to protect our freedoms law enforcement needs to be hard work, even if it means our lives are measurable less safe.

      We cannot have Safety and Freedom.

      This. A million times this. Safety and Freedom are, in many ways, opposed to each other. The safest societies (for some people and groups) are the most repressive because they work to destroy anything or anyone that does not "conform" or obey the laws. This very efficiently gets rid of many bad people. Pushing drugs? Just kill them or imprison them without a trial. Have thoughts or ideas that may cause trouble for the regime? Same treatment. Want to protect yourself because the authorities won't do it or your part of that society that is deemed dangerous (and those repressive societies need something to galvanize the public against so that they can be shown to be "protecting the public")? Forget it, because your dangerous and therefore must be persecuted and destroyed for the good of society. That is really safe for the masses of the people. It, however, destroys any Freedom to do anything.

    8. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      I don't get that they're trying to help the public. Most cops went into the job because they're too stupid to go into politics, washed out of the military, but still want some combination of power over other people and adoration. US policing generally attracts the wrong kind of people.

    9. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by swb · · Score: 1

      This should be upvoted.

      Nearly every law passed is done so with the idea -- not even consciously considered -- that enforcement isn't 100% automatic and perfectly efficient.

      Speed enforcement is pretty good example -- nearly everyone rationally accepts that there should be speed limits on most roads for general safety. Yet speed cameras face a ton of opposition and probably from the same people who wouldn't even argue for Autobahn-style "no speed limits" in Montana.

      I think if we get to the point of perfect enforcement of any law due to technology, we will need to re-think what kinds of laws we pass or re-calibrate the penalty mechanism to have much more finely graded penalties. Going above the posted speed limit violates that law, but is going above it by 2 mph for 2 seconds on an empty road the same violation as going above it by 50 MPH for 30 minutes on a crowded freeway?

    10. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or barely enforce speed limits at all, but have a much more violent society. Speed all you want, but if you run into someone's kid, know that they may beat you to death on the spot. Much better form of justice -- allows good drivers to speed, saves money on cops and jails, and serves as a form of population control :D

      This kind of thing happens all the time in places like India and Tanzania.

    11. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by gweihir · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Law enforcement must be hard and it must be unable to catch all criminals or even most of them. Because the alternative is a police-state and that is much, much worse than having some unsolved crime. Law enforcement itself is mostly unable to see that problem. They believe by solving all crime, they make a better society. Unfortunately, nothing could be farther from the truth. They routinely overlook what that does to freedom and they usually completely forget that "the law" and right and wrong can be arbitrarily far from each other. Utterly immoral and destructive campaigns like "the war on drugs" would give nice examples where the problems lie, but they just cannot see that.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    12. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

      Nah, most dumb cops in the US just see their careers and an opportunity to control people. They don't even think enough to think "better society."

    13. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      This is why I am against AI laws/regulation. It will not protect me, it will however do the opposite and guarantee rights to AI controllers.

      Oddly enough, this statement looks almost exactly like my reasons for being against both AI laws/regulation and gun laws/regulation...

      Note further that I expect that we'll have both kinds of laws regulations springing up real soon, followed, by and by, by the people now calling for such laws/regulations to whinge when said laws/regulations impact them adversely....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    14. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But context always matters. When you smashface a Trotsky nibberizing lib.slut you do no evil.

    15. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      If you aren’t driving recklessly, how is your speed anyone’s business? If you are driving recklessly, there are specific laws with severe penalties for such behavior.

      The whole idea of speed enforcement on roads is very backward looking, very “inside the box" thinking. Auto accidents and injuries per mile driven are a tiny tiny fraction of what they once were. And we are on the cusp of a technological revolution that will make car crashes with injuries rare enough to warrant a segment on the evening news.

    16. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Law Enforcement professionals work with the scum of the earth all the time, this is affecting their judgement, and their job is to keep people safe. So I do not fault them for wanting more tools to make their job easier and more effective. However we as citizens need to stand up and say. "We thank you for the effort and your hard work. But we can't let your job be easier at a high costs of our freedoms"

      Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. -- Nietzsche

      (I'm not really a fan of his writings, but that quote's great and apropos)

    17. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 2

      Most cops went into the job because ... , washed out of the military ...

      I seem to remember reading or hearing about that cops who were former military were less likely to shoot someone and generally did a better job. Yup it appears that I did read that so I would prefer to have more ex-military cops given the available evidence.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    18. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by deesine · · Score: 1

      Somehow we've come to accept that $300 is somehow "just punishment" for speeding, when it's really just a raw revenue grab with many officer's time dedicated to just that. We've been conditioned that this is ok, in the country of No Taxation Without Representation!

      --
      damaged by dogma
    19. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      I'd be all for automated camera enforcement. Set speed limits at reasonable levels (say 30mph in built-up areas, 70-80mph on freeways). Set the cameras at 5-10 mph over that limit. Fines should be a % of income, so as to make them as painful to the rich as to the poor.

      Automate the traffic cops out of a job -- added bonus is that cameras can't pull someone over because of their color or their type of car, so the racism/classism argument would go away. Cameras also can't go on a fishing expedition and think a donut crumb on the car's floor is actually crystal meth (really happened in Florida).

    20. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      cameras can't pull someone over because of their color or their type of car, so the racism/classism argument would go away

      Think again.

    21. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by swb · · Score: 1

      I knew somebody would debate this, but what exactly does "reckless" mean?

      I think it is ambiguous enough that it leaves room for someone arguing that 60 in a 30 zone is fine because they're super good at driving, there's nobody using the road, or some other reason.

      I think some speed limits represent real concerns, like the time to stop relative to the potential for someone to cross the road, or to provide a predictable velocity of oncoming traffic for people trying to cross a road on foot or in a car.

    22. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by geggam · · Score: 1

      Law Enforcement is there to enforce the laws. Laws should help the public, many times they do not

    23. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      I knew somebody would debate this, but what exactly does "reckless" mean?

      It means what the law defines it to mean. Google says "reckless driving is often defined as a mental state in which the driver displays a wanton disregard for the rules of the road; the driver misjudges common driving procedures, often causing wrecks, accidents and other damages." If it's ambiguous, then the jury will say "not guilty".

      I think it is ambiguous enough that it leaves room for someone arguing that 60 in a 30 zone is fine because they're super good at driving, there's nobody using the road, or some other reason.

      That's a road design issue or an abuse of the law to profit from fines. If your road is perfectly straight and there are no obstructions or traffic, and you need people to go 30, then put in a stop sign and/or some artificial stuff in the median or something similar. Make it obviously reckless to go fast. Then only reckless drivers will go fast.

      I think some speed limits represent real concerns, like the time to stop relative to the potential for someone to cross the road, or to provide a predictable velocity of oncoming traffic for people trying to cross a road on foot or in a car.

      It's a road engineering issue. If there are line of sight issues, you can put up a fence so pedestrians only cross where they can be seen. Or slow traffic with a traffic circle or whatever else is needed. That stuff actually works to prevent injuries in non-reckless driving situations.

    24. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I'd be all for automated camera enforcement.

      Unfortunately, the people who run the cameras are corrupt as all hell. The problem is that once you privatize or commercialize automobile, yhey realize that after analysis that they can alter the settings just a little bit, and.....

      Profit!

      http://www.chicagotribune.com/...

      http://www.thegazette.com/subj...

      http://www.moremonmouthmusings...

      One of the biggest tricks aside form massaging speed numbers is shortening the Yellow light times to the point where if you see yellow, you better stomp the brakes. We had a lot of discussions here about this, and my reaction is that if we get redlight camers in my city, teh instant I see a yellow light, I am locking the sprags. If it's a choice of getting a redlight ticket, or getting rear ended, I'll take the latter. Lo and behold: https://www.motorists.org/issu...

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    25. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 1

      Law enforcement should be difficult. It's getting so that only the people running the system can abuse it. How will future terrorists who help the US go to war have a chance to convincingly board an airplane and do some damage?

      "I see here that the All Pervasive, All Knowing AI was turned off the entire time Al Bombolla took his one way trip to the capital." And the "Super Financial Transaction Crime detector will need a built in flaw on any transaction over $1 Billion unless they want to be constantly waking people up at the Fed.

      All this technology will be intrusive right up to the point before it can actually guarantee safety, because scaring the public to get more funds and allowing people in power to steal a bit more -- those are cherished, American traditions.

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    26. Re: Should law infocement be hard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "These kind of things happen in backwards, third world shitholes..."

    27. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      No, law enforcement is trying to instill order. Their job, which was decided by supreme court cases, was to maintain public order, NOT help the public. I've been a cop and had to quit being a cop because I didn't see the public as the enemy. The scumbags, yes, but public != scumbags though some(public) == scumbags. OTOH some(cops) == scumbags too. I agree with everything else you say.

    28. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by MoaDweeb · · Score: 1

      I was reading an article the other day about a Special Forces chap who went back to his hometown of Savannah, Georgia and has the bizarre idea of treating citizens as neighbours not baddies.
      What struck me was how poorly paid the job is $40,000 p.a.

      In NZ new cops out of college get $NZ 62,000 which is roughly the same but goes up from there. Also they had old Crown Victoria's that were in need of replacement etc.

      Quite surprising, you pay peanuts and you will get monkeys.

      --
      New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
    29. Re:Should law infocement be hard? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Depends on what a nation will do. The US has clear legal guidance on that

      "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"

      So it takes a lot of work with the private sector and contractors domestically in the USA for police to get their parallel construction ready for the legal system.

      In nations such as the UK you can just build a Ring of steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and capture at every face, passenger and license plate in real time.

      The real problem for US police investigations is they only get to keep searchable digital images of criminals. That makes looking for suspects in photos and videos on social media more difficult in the USA.
      Police in the USA would have to have a suspect database and a every US citizen photo database.
      Two groups of people who have had no contact with US police and who should not exist as data sets in any US police database domestically.
      US police cant just keep every old and new images of every US citizen over decades so the FBI can match them in seconds should any US citizen do a crime.
      Digital privacy laws sets the USA apart from nations like the UK. Laws and rules the FBI have to follow and not have any domestic database of all US citizens.
      Someone is giving the US police and government images it should not have to find a "suspect" vs digital images of all US citizens.
      Why is the USA so super protective of all images collected by city, state and federal databases and won't share with the FBI and other federal law enforcement?
      Why the super strong privacy protections for data sets that cant allow the FBI to take one image from a crime and look back over all images every city, parish, state and federal database that has US citizen images?
      That fast digital comparison of all existing US image databases would clear up voter fraud, illegal immigration, inner city crime, cyber crime, ID fraud, shared ID crimes, academic fraud with one modern database. Image matching is fast so it could be real time just like in the UK.
      US courts and prisons would be full for a while. All illegal migrants would be discoverable. But then everyone would know that any photo ID was a police ID and change their methods.
      Better to keep easy ID methods and make all criminals think they have federal "privacy" in their part of the USA?
      The private sector that now helps US police "discover" online images would not have so much work if federal officials can set up their own police database.
      So US law enforcement has to pay for and work with the private sector to create its own lists and them work out "how" they found the person without an image later.
      Stop a car for a random legal reason in a state. Use that unique K9 that alerts on every car. ID can then be discovered in a very normal and totally random way.

      Another way for US law enforcement to get around powerful US domestic digital privacy laws is to have a winning company in say France, Ireland "win" a federal US law upgrade and modernisation contract.
      Then the "contractors" can preform all kinds of searches in say France as they have no extra privacy laws for US data sets "found" globally on social media.

      Lots of ways around matching every US citizen to images of interest to US law enforcement well outside any privacy laws.
      A cell phone thats too hard to log into? Dont have the password? Never use a US company to get the data out. Make sure the "winning" method is with a company outside the USA. Match up every image recovered outside the USA and send the "results' back to the USA.
      No new database was created or used in the USA.

      The faces of people in the

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  5. Well ... by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 2

    Well ... if Amazon is selling this to whoever, then I'm sure some "protesters" will also use this to face ID people at the "wrong" political rallies, etc.

    Since "protesters" love to get people fired, blacklisted, harassed at home, etc. that should be fun.

    It's the tech genie. You can force yourself to put it back in the bottle, maybe, but you can't really force everyone to do so.

    1. Re:Well ... by Virtucon · · Score: 2

      Oh I'm sure there are already organizations who've signed up but presumably only state/local gov't agencies would have access to the camera networks. That doesn't preclude the use of a few well placed go-pros at protests that could also serve as a data source as well.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    2. Re:Well ... by crtreece · · Score: 1

      How about protesters use this tech to identify agent provocateurs planted by LEO and inciting violence?

      --
      file: .signature not found
    3. Re:Well ... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Well ... if Amazon is selling this to whoever, then I'm sure some "protesters" will also use this to face ID people at the "wrong" political rallies, etc.

      You mean neo-nazis, right? White supremacy isn't a political position, it's racism.

      Since "protesters" love to get people fired, blacklisted, harassed at home, etc. that should be fun.

      The solution is simple, don't be a racist.

      The irony of racism is that the highest level of genetic diversity (lots of "race mixing") ultimately results in superior offspring. That's not a political view, that's scientific fact (see also Darwinism).

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    4. Re:Well ... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Problem is, it's not only racists who get affected -- liberal protestors get doxxed just as often. Especially if they're fighting against police abuse.

  6. where is the line? by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok, I know there is somehow a fundamental difference between a computer system with unlimited memory and processing power, versus a person who has really good memory.

    But entertain me on this thought experiment. Why is having a police force use such a system so different from if they had on their payroll someone who was really really good at remembering faces? Or someone who knew everyone in town?

    At what point is an automated / faster system an unreasonable infringement of your rights compared to what each of us can do to some degree? Is it the natural size (200-300 people?) of our memory and human facial recognition that sets the limit on what is an invasion of privacy or not? Where is the line? What is different about using this system compared to a police officer asking everyone he/she can find whether they know person X?

    I find the definition of reasonable privacy difficult to nail down.

    1. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the police forces role is no to perform mass surveillance of its citizenry. that is a police states role.

    2. Re: where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They ostensibly have good judgment - a human in the loop, doing the watching, seems to be where society is comfortable placing the limit on police surveillance. Police, like all other humans, tend to laziness and shortcuts. Every form of automation expands the scope of potential abuses. Western civilization isn't quite mature enough to properly use technology without trampling all over its primary freedoms. We might get to a point in a few decades where we do find a proper use for tools like this. Big data is a terribly powerful thing, so we should resist its use by governments until we can account for the consequences.

    3. Re:where is the line? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      NO! NOOOOOOOOO!!!
      I will not sacrifice our privacy rights. We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They mine our personal data, and we fall back. They assimilate entire databases, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And I will make them PAY for what they've done!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    4. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're missing the point. No one actually really cares about them scanning faces.

      What people care about is other people then using that data to do bad things, stalking, harassment, silencing political opponents, blackmail etc. All of which are things that have repeatedly happened with state and private surveillance. The real privacy issue is that you can't trust others to actually be responsible and hold themselves correctly accountable to even entertain the idea of giving people this power.

    5. Re:where is the line? by Kiuas · · Score: 2

      But entertain me on this thought experiment. Why is having a police force use such a system so different from if they had on their payroll someone who was really really good at remembering faces? Or someone who knew everyone in town?

      Okay I will try my best. I Just recently I warthed the documentary about automated surveillance systems sold to and used by the police both in the US and here in Europe called Pre-crime after the concept from Minority Report. The doc itself was alright, not the best, I would have liked more details and practical examples but it gives some insights into the kinds of systems currently in use and in development. Essentially these kinds of systems can be divided into 2 main categories:

      1) The kinds that use open and public data about crimes and do not involve personal factors like face-recognition. These systems are meant to help the police to figure out which areas should be patrolled in more, and where the crime is currently clustering.
      2) The kinds using both private and public information. These take personal information from different sources, including but not limited to social networks, financial systems and for example state services like social security, past arrests etc and 'score' individuals to try to give a number to them indicating how likely it is that said individual will either perpetrate or be the victim of a crime. Such systems are currently in use at least in Chicago, parts of the UK and parts of China.

      Okay so, take your example and assume you have an officer on duty with supreme photographic memory that's capable of remembering a lot of faces. He sees someone on the street that he thinks is a fugitive or a suspect and they pursue him. If something goes wrong and the guy's injured or killed and turns out to be a different individual, the cop can be held accountable legally. However what's happening with these type 2 systems and what the documentary describes is that it takes and unknown number of variables, and then uses an unknown algorithm to come up with a score that's supposed to tell the officers who is a danger or who might be in danger. In the doc they mention one of the guys who's in the 'heat list' of around 400 individuals in Chicago that has a 'high threat score', not because of his own past criminal history but because of who some of his friends are. Now, with such a system if you happen to end up on such a list there really is no way currently to get of it. This means whenever these guys are walking out in public if the police pull up information on them from the system they're far more likely to be stopped.

      Now imagine someone like him, who doesn't have an extensive criminal history but is on the list due to his personal connections gets into an interaction with the police. Do you think the cops will treat such a guy in the same way as they would any other normal individual? Even if the guy's doing nothing wrong a the moment, the system is there to remind them that this is a 'high risk' target. Do you think that increases or decreases the chances that officers will resort to use of force because their algorithm is telling them this guy might be dangerous?

      That's the problem core of the problem. It's not the same as some guy seeing a face he remembers from a past case on the street or knows to be a gang-member. These estimations seem objective, but the fact is we're still dealing with probabilities at best. What the scores generated by such systems are telling you is that there's an N percent change according to them that this guy might at some point commit a crime. But there's essentially no way of telling whether those probabilities are accurate for a given individual, yet the police trust the score gioven by the system. One example mentioned in the doc was that a woman had been tweeting about a card game by the name of 'Rage' often, which the system interpreted as a sign of aggressive behaviour which raises her score. But the cops on th

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    6. Re:where is the line? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      I think you're falling into a nerd trap by pretending we don't have black and white even though we haven't exactly narrowed down the shade of gray that marks the border, like when does a fan become a stalker or perseverance become harassment or a bad deal become a fraud. We're never going to exactly define how high you can go on a rooftop and how big a telephoto lens you can use before it's an invasion of privacy. I think we need restrictions on collection, storage and sharing of data and metadata, I don't think the human mind is the right template but the question is what is necessary to deliver the service and should you be allowed to opt out of the rest.

      For example if I go to buy groceries then what they need is payment for goods, obviously they should be able to register that in their inventory/financial systems but the rest is not essential. And some of it is necessary for billing but not permanent storage. When it comes to sharing I think commercial transactions by default should have a consumer-vendor confidentiality. It's probably stricter than humans since they gossip, but I don't think my hair dresser and clothing store should be able to pool their information, even if it's necessary for each separate business. Obviously the information has value so they should be able to give discounts but not force you to share with "business partners" through boilerplate agreements.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re: where is the line? by houghi · · Score: 1

      You do not ask the person with memory all the time what somebody is doing all the time even if there is no need for it.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    8. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where is the line?

      IMHO that is a lot of the problem: there's a continuum, not a line. So it's always possible for someone to argue the reasonableness of the next step. It's a series of individually defensible steps, but the end result is terrible.

      Clearly there is a qualitative difference between somebody on the street seeing someone walk by and forgetting the next day, and an all-seeing surveillance apparatus that sees everyone walking down the street, never forgets, and makes inferences from that data and can be mined at any point in the future for any reason. But there's no line between them, so instead of a strong rallying point, objections are diffuse and spread out over a long period of time and many separate events.

      You see this dynamic in many of the worst parts of human history. You never get there all at once, in a single step. Insert FrogAnalogy.txt here...

    9. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's because the system doesn't just have 1 set of eyes looking for a particular perp, it potentially has access to thousands of simultaneous video sources. It could be made to track everyone in something close to real time as soon as they enter a public area. Further scrutiny of the data points produced could reveal all manner of information i.e. associations, political affiliations, etc. This is the infringement that is feared. To my mind legislation should be in place BEFORE government/law enforcement are allowed to use it because reactive legislation always requires a victim beforehand

    10. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't believe this is +5 insightful. It's quite clear what the difference is. One situation lends itself to targetted, time limited surveillance with a clear objective. The other situation lends itself to ubiquitous unlimited untargeted surveillance.

    11. Re:where is the line? by dave562 · · Score: 1

      You left out a very important variable in your equation. A single person can only be in one place at one time. A facial recognition system is everywhere.

      For me, I think that there needs to be a limit on the extent of the investigation. To use the example from Washington County, the system was used to identify a thief. That is obviously a good outcome.

      How many people who were not the thief, were investigated?

      If during that investigation the police discovered one of those other people doing something illegal, would they then attempt to apprehend and charge that person as well?

      Given the question above, it quickly becomes a slippery slope. Law enforcement effectively gets a pass to investigate EVERYONE. They get a free pass to say, "Although I was looking for Person A, I also observed Person B committing a felony, Person C committing a misdemeanor, and Person D doing something suspicious that might have been a National Security concern, so we referred them to DHS."

    12. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok, I know there is somehow a fundamental difference between a computer system with unlimited memory and processing power, versus a person who has really good memory.

      More than a few of those, actually.

      But entertain me on this thought experiment. Why is having a police force use such a system so different from if they had on their payroll someone who was really really good at remembering faces?

      It's a human as does it, not a machine.

      Why is killing people with drones, even robot foot soldiers, a quite entirely pointless way to wage war? Why is having "boots on the ground" still so all important to actually winning a war? Same sort of thing.

      What's the point of being alive? We're really sticking our heads in the clouds here, be it philosophical, religious, esotheric, or otherwise flavoured clouds. This air is rarefied, but it comes down to the basic conclusion that humans matter, and machines are but a sideshow. Mistake the sideshow for what matters, and you're off into utterly depressing pointlessness.

      Machines like these do not empower the people. They are the strings that make the people into puppets, dancing for their government masters. This is the tail that wags the dog because the government gets its reason to be from serving the people. Turn that around and it ceases to be legitimate. That is what unchecked technology like this enables and accelerates.

      And it's all because of that all important little detail, why are we alive? Is it to march in step for our great leader? I don't think so.

      Or someone who knew everyone in town?

      That goes two ways: Someone who knows everybody is also known by everybody. The faceless jerk^Wclerk behind the screen flickering match alerts, not so much.

      That is a fundamental difference: Small town, everybody knows everybody's secrets. Big city, nobody knows anybody else's secrets. Modern surveillance state: The state knows everything about you, and you don't even know who's looking at your file. That imbalance is what makes the problem, indeed takes the sense out of life. This imbalance can easily be (ab)used, see "panopticon".

      I find the definition of reasonable privacy difficult to nail down.

      I don't have a ready answer either. Neither of has to answer this alone, as this is a people issue: As a people, in fact as humanity as a whole, we will have to choose just how much we want our overlords to be able to overpower us with technology and how much we want the technology to empower us. Unfortunately if we don't choose, those in power will choose to use the technology to empower them and not us. Even more unfortunately, the longer we wait before we choose to empower ourselves, the longer the struggle to get that control back. So choosing now would be good, but it looks like not enough of us have seen the issues and therefore will need to experience them. And so we all will.

      Anyway, I suspect that the only philosophically sound approach is to take a fundamental stance like with censorship: Only no censorship at all is acceptable. Not just for governments, but for all parties including companies. Whether that's still tenable with facial recognition or whether eradicating its use will require destruction of our tech base so as to put integrated circuits out of reach entirely, remains to be seen.

      On another note, add mood recognition and data mining and whatnot else, and we're in "psycho-pass" territory. With guns that scan you and if found mentally unstable, issue a death warrant. "The beatings will continue until morale improves" taken to eleven. But I have no doubt that it could be done, even now, if you don't mind shooting some false positives.

    13. Re:where is the line? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      I find the definition of reasonable privacy difficult to nail down.

      Probably because you never spent a single minute thinking about others peoples rights of privacy?

      If they are looking for _you_ and figure you were at 11:00PM at Times Square, for what fucking reason do they need to have _me_ in the database pointing out _I_ was at 11:00PM at the Louvre?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    14. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But entertain me on this thought experiment. Why is having a police force use such a system so different from if they had on their payroll someone who was really really good at remembering faces? Or someone who knew everyone in town?

      Are you doing a propaganda post?

      You might as well ask, why use computers at all? You can do any math you "need" with the side of a fence and some berry juice to write formulas with. We should just throw all the computers into the garbage.

      Efficiency matters - and makes abuse much easier. Iron weapons helped to destroy bronze age civilizations because - once the right techniques were developed - they could be produced far more easily and efficiently than bronze weapons. The industrial revolution led to even more efficient and hence dangerous weapons. The atomic age made things even worse.

      With the information age, we now have to deal with the problem of information as a weapon: the right to privacy is in part about preventing the weaponization of information for the purpose of destroying people's lives.

      Part of being civilized means learning from the stupid mistakes of the past, instead of being even more stupid.

      I find the definition of reasonable privacy difficult to nail down.

      Expecting an easy definition is an unreasonable expectation - and indistinguishable from police state propaganda. Only in science and math can we hope to (sometimes) get easy definitions.

      In the absence of an easy definition, we still need to proceed to limit the ability of various entities to abuse privacy.

      Law enforcement, particularly US law enforcement, has a long history of abusing technical capabilities. Private entities aren't much better, and are sometimes worse. Neither group can or should be trusted with even the freedom they have today to abuse people's privacy - even if that means we need a new Constitutional Amendment, or jury nullification, or replacing all the current judges with ones that will actually be willing to do their jobs.

    15. Re:where is the line? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You cannot have the former without the latter. Surveillance is a slippery slope that, if fallen down, will forever change society.

    16. Re:where is the line? by ChoosyBeggar · · Score: 1

      Agreed, these new "intelligent" software-based systems aren't perfect, yet they are still very powerful tools. I'm not concerned that innocent people might be flagged & scrutinized. That's what the human operator is for: to screen "possibles" produced by the computer, & separate the true criminals from the innocent people talking about metal bands & fantasy games. In short, there's nothing wrong with the authorities using facial recognition, so long as our agencies continue to prosecute the guilty. Have I ever been stopped & questioned by police when I was completely innocent? Yes, I have. They asked their questions, established I was the wrong person, & I went on about my business. Freaking out & getting combative in such a situation can take it from completely harmless to an actual crime in no time.

  7. Soon at an Amazon Echo near you.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We all know they will find some excuse to bolt facial recognition on a new generation of speakers.

    1. Re:Soon at an Amazon Echo near you.... by SScorpio · · Score: 1

      The Echo Show already has a camera.

  8. For "could use" read "will use". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yes, the tech is all wonderful and "could" help catch criminals... or anyone else you please.

    Meaning that it's a fuckton of power you're putting in the hands of law enforcement. And we put restrictions on the amount of power we put in their hands for a very clear and tangible reason. So, dear proponents, how do you propose to restrict this awesomely powerful thing so that it will do more good than evil, hm? I'd love to hear your well-thought-out explanations of just how your plans and measures will work. And, of course, you will not assume they will always work but you will also explain what to do should they not quite work as envisioned. I think this is a reasonable thing to ask of proponents of new technology that gives law enforcement awesome new power over not just criminals, but over everyone.

    1. Re:For "could use" read "will use". by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      With a fuckton of power comes nada responsability to those in power.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:For "could use" read "will use". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the American Buglar and Bikies Association purchases facial recognition via a front company. We like snapping the courthouse, because sometimes jurors need reminding.
      International Airport. Off overseas means easy pickings of vacant residences, after cutting the power first.ANPR is already giving our members a headsup to unmarked cars and officers who deserve retribution. Indeedy,we live in uncharted waters. Wonder how judges feel, knowing Amazon has their mugshots open to the anyone with a buck.

  9. Same with license plate readers by Kohath · · Score: 1

    The tech isn't the problem, the police and the laws are the problem. If you're in public, you won't be able to hide. It's long past time we change our laws and reform our law enforcement so regular people won't see any need to hide.

    Time for a government that's less authoritarian and less punitive. Let us live our own lives and make our own choices.

    1. Re:Same with license plate readers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That ship has sailed, my friend.

      We're likely just a few short years away from parents OKing kids being chipped in the hospital for the assurance that they will "never be able to get lost," and that the parents will "always be able to know where they are." Nobody will think twice about it because we're all so used to constantly being tracked via our little digital pocket assistants and phones. And nobody's gonna give a shit that it also means those kids will, for life, be trackable at every moment by law enforcement, government, whatever business holds the license on the chip, etc. Who cares? They're "safer" now.

      We all had such high hopes for where technology would lead us back in the seventies and eighties. Who knew it would just be a new way to handcuff ourselves to the establishment?

    2. Re:Same with license plate readers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who knew it would just be a new way to handcuff ourselves to the establishment?

      Every cyberpunk author.

    3. Re:Same with license plate readers by Kohath · · Score: 1

      No science fiction stories, thanks. We can make better decisions without being distracted by fantastic science fiction scenarios.

    4. Re:Same with license plate readers by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      It's not fiction when it's actually happening: https://www.scotsman.com/news/...

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    5. Re:Same with license plate readers by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Dateline 1 April 2016. You got trolled.

    6. Re:Same with license plate readers by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I find it hard to berate Amazon for this. Can facial recognition when used correctly provide societal good through improved law enforcement? Of course.

      The issue is whether it'll be used correctly.

      Anybody having a go at Amazon over this also needs to have a go at any company that sells firearms, cars, uniforms, radios, coffee or anything else to the police.

    7. Re:Same with license plate readers by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      You're implying that improved law enforcement is a societal good in itself. Preventing murders, beatings, and robberies is a social good. Catching teenagers having a beer, people smoking a joint, fining jaywalkers where there's little to no traffic, etc, are just the government and their hired thugs (cops) being meddlesome.

    8. Re:Same with license plate readers by Cederic · · Score: 1

      No, I'm not. I'm saying that societal good can be achieved through improved law enforcement, and that this technology can help.

      How you define 'improved law enforcement' is a political discussion that's entirely fucking irrelevant to my point.

    9. Re:Same with license plate readers by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      I'm saying that laws in the US are already over-enforced. Societal good would be achieved through inefficient and degraded law enforcement. e.g. when DeBlasio pissed off the cop union in NYC and cops went on "strike", refusing to arrest for minor offenses or give parking tickets, violent crime didn't go up. Life went on, and people got a respite from harassment for a while.

    10. Re:Same with license plate readers by Cederic · · Score: 1

      You're arguing over the definition of 'improved'. Learn to fucking read.

    11. Re:Same with license plate readers by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      Damn you comical holidays!

      OK, so that was a bad example.

      Here are some better ones:
      https://www.allure.com/story/r...

      https://www.usatoday.com/story...

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  10. Permanence is the problem! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Humans forget. Humans forgive.

    A picture can still have people cry bloody murder, 50 years later.
    And statistically, it's said that there are about 5000 people with the reasons, the will and the means to actually murder you for it.

    And then there's the whole Cardinal Richelieu "7 lines to hang a man" problem.

    This is why the equivalent amount of human cops would be quite a different thing. (Aside from showing more visibly, how totalitarion society has become.)

  11. Double edge sword by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

    I'd wager when a politician or two is ID'd with someone they would prefer not to be associated with and it cause political problems for them we'll see some laws enacted.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    1. Re:Double edge sword by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They'll make exceptions for themselves. Like Congressmen are exempt from TSA screenings if they bring their own security detail.

      Freedom isn't for us little people.

    2. Re:Double edge sword by Grand+Facade · · Score: 1

      All political entities except the "scapegoats" will be excluded from facial recognition databases.

      Just like political callers are exempt from the robo calling regulation....

      --
      Rick B.
  12. Re:What "outcry"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "...and cuckold our sons."

    Sounds like your sons are pussy boys, you pathetic bottom-feeding cock-gobbling loser.

    Doesn't that depress you so much you want to kill yourself ?

    Do it.

  13. And soon to be added . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    voice recognition.

  14. Violence is what you do, when you failed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I never agreed to the conecpt of revenge.
    As in: That it was acceptable, to be violent to a person who one deemed evil, wrong, violent themselves, or whatever.
    Because I cannot say "Harm is wrong", and then go, and be a good role model, by harming them myself!
    Much lesss expect them to not conlude that harm is aww-right and only being dominant on the definition of right and wrong matters.

    What gives me the right to declare right and wrong anyway? Or declare that it would be universal.
    If a society of nothing but murderers in an embargo would be more successful than mine, would I still be right? Who defines success anyway? Goals vary.

    Sun-Tsu already knew that war and harm is only that last resort, that you use when you realize you have failed.

    Succes would have meant preventing it from happening in the first place, by actually investing resouces in people's well-being and wealth, in the face of natural disasters or other adversities
    Not by fueling organizations that care about literally nothing but taking away people's wealth without giving something equal in return and getting away with it (if necessary, over their dead bodies).

    1. Re:Violence is what you do, when you failed. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Violence may be needed to immediately stop the action. However the Violence shouldn't be part of Revenge, or even punishment or correction, but to over power and stop the action of the time. If someone is trying to hurt me, I will be violent and try to hurt them first, and harder, to stop them from completing their act. In theory I may have been able to talk them down, but the Risks are too high for me to take the chance.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  15. Why try to stop progress? by Escogido · · Score: 1

    Look I totes get it, surveillance state yadda yadda. I hate it as much as the next guy here. But why try to stop the progress? This is just algorithms and database, if Amazon can offer such a service but is talked out of it somehow then someone else will. If you want to stop this, there has to be legislation against this kind of service, rather than pushback against isolated incidents. And even then someone would eventually make "black" version if the AI scraping off public databases. Either way privacy is kinda screwed so I'd rather see this kind of service regulated and public.

    1. Re:Why try to stop progress? by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      A geometric increase in insanity requires a geometrically stronger response to it. The control freaks, the power-addicted, they'll use your "just algorithms and database" and it won't be pretty. Regulations are farcical. They're selectively used to control and obtain power.

      Instead, the US right of free association should come without fear, any fear. Monitoring and surveillance stanch the courage to be free, and freely associate with whomever and whenever you as a citizen want to, unfettered by peering eyes that want to bruise your relationships into something sinister as coughed by bad AI.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    2. Re:Why try to stop progress? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      But why try to stop the progress?

      If you were in a wagon that was progressing towards a 100' high bluff, why wouldn't you try to stop it?

      "Progress" is just movement in a direction - not necessarily a good one.

      One can progress towards a precipice of destruction just as easily as they can progress towards enlightenment.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  16. Re: APK MARATHON ALL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    STFU

  17. Look at China's Facial Rec - Incredibly disturbing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The new facial recognition system is all over the streets and on police worn glasses. The goal? The system learns your normal patterns and alerts a human when you even go to another neighborhood.

    Guaranteed this will lead to a reduction in rights, freedom and ability to move. It will create paranoia and will be abused. Plain and simple.

    Isn't it creepy enough that we have facial recognition all over the place? Airports, drivers licenses, license plate readers and heck even DOTs in different states are mandated to put up Bluetooth / Wifi readers along the roads. We just got a bunch of them. (Solar powered White boxes with small rubber antennas)

    Humanity is using technology for evil purposes that will be abused.

    Everyone seems to have forgotten that Windows 10 still spies on you and that google quietly snuck in needing location services turned on for growing amount of Bluetooth and Wifi functions. Amazing what we forget when we accept things little by little.

    Tech Companies are not your friend any longer.

  18. Nice to see the inconsistency here by Virtucon · · Score: 0

    We already have mass surveillance everywhere. We have license plate trackers that scan you not only while you're parked but while you conduct your daily business driving. We have surveillance systems at every store, nearly every business and now more and more homes. Congress for years has had a war on cash to take care of "scofflaws of taxation" but it's really about tracking every financial transaction you do as well. All Amazon does is take images and associate
    you with your picture to tie up the loose ends? Your privacy? Your Freedom? They're long gone because the technology is cheap and scales. What we need is a Moore's law for surveillance.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  19. No such thing as privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Privacy has long been dead, Police have been using many pieces of technology for years. Ever since 9-11 there has been a focus to use technology to identify people, automobiles, and many countries with stronger security then the US already use facial detection in public places. Get a clue tin foil hat people, privacy is dead. You want privacy live in a cave and don't come out.

  20. Re:APK MARATHON ALL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank you cdreimer for plowing APK's ass on a regular basis. Because of this slashdot has been a more pleasant place. Unfortunately you have not blasted him in the ass enough to completely keep him occupied. So we kindly ask that you redouble your efforts to sexually dominate APK.

  21. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  22. Re:Slashdot management should resign by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot management should resign. This site is an embarrassment.

    No one forces you to visit this site.

  23. Dear Mr Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Conservatives also are concerned with civil liberties and the sureveillance state. You must have skipped that lesson in your moscow school.

  24. Re:What "outcry"? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am American and many people agree that the vast majority of the public SUPPORT this kind of law and order in this country and you libtards are the minority, AGAIN. This is why we support who we support even though it makes you weak snowflakes so angry, the people who will make this country great are the ones who oppose the city thugs who terrorize our daughters and cuckold our sons.

    See, this is why the rest of society thinks you're dumb. You have not thought this through, and it shows. You only support this because you think it will be used on those you deem undesirable, whether that be people convicted or suspected of crimes, or people in this country illegally, or "libtards". But there is nothing stopping it from being used on you and your fellow travelers; at which point you will cry about your rights and how unfair it is.

    What if this service were used to keep track of NRA members, or people in a citizens militia? What if it were used by the FBI to watch for people wearing MAGA hats? Would you still support it? Or would you recognize it as the affront to your rights that it is? Whether you like it or not, when one group loses its rights, it makes it easier to take them from another group. You should fight for the rights of all people, not just those you like or agree with. Because that's how you protect your own.

    --
    "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  25. If the police 'could'... by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 1

    you can have NO DOUBT the CIA and NSA ALREADY ARE !!.

    --
    âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  26. Re:Slashdot management should resign by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shut up, Tardchris.

  27. Re:What "outcry"? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

    You support the pigs up until you start crying about the "deeeep staaaate."

  28. Re:Look at China's Facial Rec - Incredibly disturb by Grand+Facade · · Score: 1

    Corporate Hr will use this data to control it's employee's of-duty behavior.

    "We have a photo of you on bourbon street wearing lots of necklaces, this is a violation of our corporate policy"

    "We have a photo of you at a gun range, corporate policy does not permit that."

    "You were photographed in the grocery store purchasing a competitors product, that is a violation of corporate policy"

    coming soon,
    "Your TV reported you for making derogatory comments about our trusted partner's products"

    --
    Rick B.
  29. Re:What "outcry"? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

    I am American and many people agree that the vast majority of the public SUPPORT this kind of law and order in this country and you libtards are the minority, AGAIN. This is why we support who we support even though it makes you weak snowflakes so angry, the people who will make this country great are the ones who oppose the city thugs who terrorize our daughters and cuckold our sons.

    Damned if this one doesn't check all the "Russian TrollBot" boxes...

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  30. Re:What "outcry"? by gweihir · · Score: 1

    No understanding of human history? Cheering in the next fascist catastrophe? Check on both. But what can you expect from AC scum.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  31. Re:What "outcry"? by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed. The reason fascist states can still be constructed is that there is a large population of morally-challenged morons that a) are willing to apply any amount of violence to anybody that is not like them and b) that have no clue that they are just a bit later in the chain of victims.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  32. Re:APK MARATHON ALL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's heart-breaking watching you struggle to pronounce Funko... Your odd mouth tics and large dewlap just add to the sadness.

  33. Guns Make Americans Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who cares as long as you got your guns right??

  34. Trump fears Beszos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just like the criminal paedophile he is, Trump is afraid of technology outing him.

  35. Old News by Matheus · · Score: 1

    I mean really... It baffles me how much people don't know about the state of Biometrics and their use around the world and this country. "ZOMG!! Law enforcement has this new tool that's going to steal my privacy!!" News Flash: Law enforcement from the local to the federal level have had this technology and have been using it successfully for 30+ years now.. Amazon's latest effort is pretty good but it's not even close to the forensic quality algorithms the "quieter" side of the industry have at their disposal. All of the "they might use this to do that" type conversations are funny in that "they can and already are and have been for a long time"

    Get mad about it all you want but please stop thinking this is new or anything that can be stopped. Your privacy is a myth.. stop pretending you have it. The only thing Amazon has done here is make this tech more accessible for *you to use. "The Man" already has it and better and didn't need Amazon to provide it.. AWS just made it cheaper for them to procure.

  36. Re:What "outcry"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And this is why you liberals never win elections. ANytime a conservative expresses an opinion you dont like you cry wolf about "russians". Sad.

  37. Stop Posting stupid stuff by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

    The solution is simple. Stop posting every single mundane second of yourself online.

  38. Same reason war drones are scary by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    it lowers the bar for abuse. It makes all sorts of nasty things that weren't practical suddenly worthwhile. There's all sorts of implications on this. For one thing, we have pretty uneven law enforcement in this country. A popular example is a pretty woman in a low cut dress getting out of speeding tickets. A not so popular example is how our drug war is waged mostly on minorities and was started by Nixon to attack the left.

    On the one hand if big data forces even law enforcement that's a good thing. But on the other hand it's not hard to alter the inputs. Then there's various inherent biases. Black people's faces are harder to recognize (remember XBox Kinnect?) That could lead to uneven outcomes when white people are easier to collar. Or it might go the other way when more leg work is done chasing down black people to make up for perceived inequalities in the system.

    I guess my point is we haven't really put a lot of thought to long term side effects of something like this. Like a lot of things there's no quick and easy answer. It's going to be a mess.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Same reason war drones are scary by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      That's funny about the pretty woman. Cops in the town where I grew up were caught for selectively pulling over pretty women, and giving them the choice between a sexual act and a trip to jail. Fortunately, they eventually picked on the wrong woman -- I think at least one of them got some serious jail time. (Hopefully he'll be on the other end of the situation in prison.)

  39. Amazon's Rekognition is horribly innacurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The AWS Rekognition image recognition service that is the basis of this is no doubt the same technology behind Amazon's Prime Photos people recognition, and it's ridiculously inaccurate, especially with black people. Prime Photos seems to think that almost any random black woman appearing in our photo collection is my wife, even when there's no family relation whatsoever. Even I, who have difficulty recognizing faces, can easily tell them apart, yet Rekognition cannot.

    Prime Photos does not let you correct its erroneous identifications. I have no doubt that law enforcement will not second-guess Amazon's identifications.

  40. Freedom to view is inherent in public space by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    However in order to protect our freedoms law enforcement needs to be hard work, even if it means our lives are measurable less safe.

    I agree with that generally, but not in this context.

    If you are in public anyone can see you. What is the ethical difference between an investigator or member of the public seeing you walking around and calling the police, vs. an automated system scanning every face in the city? There is only a difference in scale, not in ethics.

    Now where I would start to question things would be if they were identifying and tracking location of everyone it finds. That I find ethically questionable, even if inevitable see: past story of car repossession company doing this ALREADY with a mobile fleet of cars.

    But just recognizing everyone out in plain sight? I don't see the reduction of freedom there, at all.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Freedom to view is inherent in public space by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      What's the difference between recognition and tracking? If a spy-camera recognizes you, it knows you, John Doe, were at point A at 12:41PM, and the next spy-camera that recognizes you knows you were at point B at 12:43PM, etc, etc. Unless you're advocating not keeping the data unless there's a match to a specific face.

    2. Re:Freedom to view is inherent in public space by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      In a well-functioning law enforcement system, the police wouldn't have access to any of the data collected by the cameras and recognition systems until a judge signed a warrant specifying exactly which locations, times, and/or people are relevant to a specific crime.

    3. Re:Freedom to view is inherent in public space by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Better yet, the data shouldn't be collected. We don't need to solve every crime -- a crime-free society is a totalitarian one.

    4. Re:Freedom to view is inherent in public space by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      I know that it's impossible to solve every single crime, but I would like to see as many solved as is reasonable. If adequate protections were in place, I would be okay with such data being treated as any other search, especially, as I said, with regards to needing a warrant.

      Of course, I have no illusions that our current system functions the way it would need to before I'd agree to collecting this data. I'm speaking purely hypothetically.

  41. Re:What "outcry"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you sir are correct, I've become convinced that one of the biggest issues with the right-wing fanatics is they always assume that the loss of civil liberties will never apply to them

    so people in favor of school prayer their attitude is "because of course all schools will use prayers that I find agreeable"

  42. Re:What "outcry"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am American and many people agree that the vast majority of the public SUPPORT this kind of law and order in this country

    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

    you libtards are the minority, AGAIN.

    So, Benjamin Franklin was a libtard then, asshole?

    What you're saying is you and people like you support fascism, the erosion of your liberties and freedoms ... all in the name of law and order and your own perceived security.

    Twenty years ago, even Republicans would get riled up about this. But, now they've all proven they are in favour of rights and freedoms only when convenient.

    I hope you one day get to experience all of the unintended consequences of shit like this. Then your arrogant self can stand around and say "gee, I didn't see that coming".

    You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide is the battle cry of cowards and fascists. You're clearly both of those.

    America is truly in the shitter.

  43. Re:What "outcry"? by slew · · Score: 1

    Indeed. The reason fascist states can still be constructed is that there is a large population of morally-challenged morons that a) are willing to apply any amount of violence to anybody that is not like them and b) that have no clue that they are just a bit later in the chain of victims.

    Ironically, I think you just described ANTIFA members too... Many are a bit morally challenged, they are willing to apply violence to anybody like them and it is inevitable that left will turn against them when the tides of public opinion change about free speech...

  44. where is the comparison? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    You're really asking what the difference is between an automated system that can scan/process millions of photos in a searchable database with what a single person can remember?

  45. That is what I saying I want but won't happen by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    it knows you, John Doe, were at point A at 12:41PM, and the next spy-camera that recognizes you knows you were at point B at 12:43PM, etc, etc. Unless you're advocating not keeping the data unless there's a match to a specific face.

    Exactly - if you are not a Person of Interest (just to throw a TV reference in there), I would say ethically you'd want the system to not keep track of who it was it recognized being there.

    But the reality of course, is far different - as I mentioned with the repo firm, there are already *private* firms recording where license plates are, all around a city, multiple times per day. They don't discard any of that (AFAIK) because someday that car might need to be repoed...

    Now indépendant of the ethics of the situation, I still maintain that if you are where you can be seen in public, you have absolutely zero expectation of privacy. You might WANT privacy but you cannot realistically EXPECT it.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  46. Re:What "outcry"? by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 1

    If this sort of service started to be used in the ways you suggested, then we would possibly do something about it. However, just because something can be used for "bad" purposes doesn't mean we should throw it out.

    If you're in public you have no expectation of privacy. If law enforcement wants to build a database of who was at a rally or protest, then more power to them.

  47. 1984 isn't a novel anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1984 has arrived. The extreme danger of Amazon getting in bed with government for the purpose of facial recognition is that Amazon is ALSO heavily pushing its Echo/Alexa products for the home.

    Essentially, once your face has been identified, Amazon can conveniently provide all your Echo/Alexa audio records stored on its servers after the inevitable warrant is served to retrieve them, and local authorities can troll those records in an attempt to catch you admitting to a crime.

    Worse than that, you could be tracked almost anywhere through voice recognition in tandem with facial recognition so long as an Alexa-enabled device is nearby, once your face/person has been flagged as a "person of interest."

    Because of the immense marketing data Amazon, Facebook, and Google gather on you that's already remitted to numerous 3-letter government agencies, it would be rather trivial to target specific groups of people, such as specific religions, minorities, the disabled, immigrants of all kinds, specific political persuasions or policies, or whatever else. The sky's the limit here.

    In other words, if/when your government goes bad, Amazon is completely willing to be the accomplice facilitating the stripping of your civil rights.

    The only appropriate response to these developments is outrage.

    As a certain Ian Malcolm once said, "Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

  48. False Dichotomy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "If you're in public you have no expectation of privacy."

    Well, people can see you, obviously, and some might know you. Most people do expect some privacy though, even in public. The people around you may only approach you on the basis of how well you know them. And in most cities and towns, the people around you are relative strangers. A stranger cannot simply come up to you and demand your name for instance. You have set up a false dichotomy wherein you are either in a state of 'privateness' or in a state of 'publicness'. In reality most of our lives are spent in between.

    If you are really OK with being IDed through facial recognition, any time you are in public, then you ought to be OK with random stops to produce your identity papers too. No ID papers? Then you get arrested for not having your papers.

    This is the problem with a police state, and the problem with your argument. Also, what gives the police the right to ID everyone at a rally or protest? AFAIK there is no such right or authority, so right there that is the police overreaching. I imagine they can demand ID if they have arrested someone, but to demand ID merely for attending a public gathering? I don't think so. Even a 'best efforts ID' would be going too far, which at least removes the element of coercion. But who's kidding who, the police like to imply they have authority even when they actually don't.

  49. Re: APK MARATHON ALL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are a sad sack of Shit. Holy fuck. Only a mother could be proud of something so disgusting as yourself.

    You truly are a piece of dog shit. You fat shit eating cunt bag.

  50. Re: APK MARATHON ALL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    8 views LOLolololololo

    Let me get this straight, you've been spamming this link on slashdot for a week now, and the most you got was 8 views? LOLOLOLOL methinks those 8 views are you and your mom refreshing the video.

    LOL 8 views LOLOLOl I'm done.

    You know what? I'm not even going to make of you no more. I now realize it isn't your fault. You are just a sad human trying to find his way in this fucked up world. So, best of luck to you and your endeavors Mr. Chris Dale Reimer aka Creimer.

    May you receive double the views today. I will pray to my savior to make it happen.

    ENGAGE! Ensign, make it so.

  51. Re: What "outcry"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ironically, you just described the Republican Party..

    Fucking idiot. Why are you so scared of antifaS? Do blacks with guns scare you? Good, you should be scared, that is the point.

    Now that the shoes on the other foot, it doesn't feel so good now does it. Now that people are trying to take away your rights and what makes you a human. But it was ok up until the 60/70s to lynch a black person and get away with it. It was ok to call them a nigg3r and not let them in a white only establishments.

    Now that the white man has lost control, we see him foaming at the mouth and his true colors show. You are scared shitless that black people are gaining power and white people are slowly losing it.

    Get over it, YOU are the minority now. WE are the majority. And we have a new set of rules we are bringing with us. A new world for a new breed of people.

    Run white boy run. You have much to fear. So much so that you don't even grasp the enormity of the situation.

  52. Re: What "outcry"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL! If you agree with that post you aren't a libturd or a repubtard. YOU ARE A FUCKING ID10T

  53. I Always Knew A Scanner Darkly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    was the correct religion to follow.

  54. Re:What "outcry"? by wyHunter · · Score: 1

    Um, I'm pretty right -leaning and this horrifies me and most of the right wingers I know would feel the same way. This guy is just an idiot, or a troll. Or hell, maybe some supposed right wingers DO support this, but this is more something lefties would love.

  55. Re:APK MARATHON ALL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why don't you ask your goats?

  56. Re:APK MARATHON ALL MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hi, This Eliza! Do you often refer to yourself as goats?

    (Notice how I copied your oxygen-deprived crammar, Tardchris?)

  57. Re: What "outcry"? by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

    Hi, conservative here, retired criminal also. Guns only scare me when our over zealous police departments have them. The gang members normally stick to shooting at their own kind. Rarely are non criminals involved. Antifa group are some of the lowest scum of the earth in my opinion. They wont even show their faces and only act tough in large groups. I would love to have a group of them come up to me and say some dumb shit, would be an interesting outcome. I probably shouldnt have wasted my time replying to your post as you have made yourself seem like a racist piece of shit. But what the hell, someone thats been on the other side of the fence needs to chime in every now and then right? Remember the people screaming the loudest about something are normally the people that dont care about the issue at hand and are trying to use it for nefarious purposes. I fully oppose facial recognition in the sense that the EU and mainly the UK use it. I can understand running it against known criminals with the video footage from a crime. More power to them. I however do not think we should have a nation wide CCTV network owned by the cops scanning everybody's face that walks down the street, even if it would get rid of the scum like antifa, I would rather deal with them on my own. As for the race war you are trying to incite, I hate to break it to you... Its not going to happen. There isnt enough racist scum like you left in america. Tensions are higher than they were 10 years ago in my opinion, but you can thank the news and previous administration for that. I wish you the best of luck in life, but with the attitude you currently have I feel its going to be a rough life.

  58. Re:What "outcry"? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

    If this sort of service started to be used in the ways you suggested, then we would possibly do something about it. However, just because something can be used for "bad" purposes doesn't mean we should throw it out.

    If you're in public you have no expectation of privacy. If law enforcement wants to build a database of who was at a rally or protest, then more power to them.

    In my opinion, that would violate the 1st and 4th Amendments. Making a list of everyone at a location is a warrantless search of that location (violation of the 4th Amendment). And it would have a chilling effect, possibly violating their right to peaceably assemble (violation of 1st Amendment). What possible business would the authorities have in keeping track of people at a political rally? They are not committing crimes. What lawful purpose would that serve?

    --
    "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  59. Re:What "outcry"? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

    Um, I'm pretty right -leaning and this horrifies me and most of the right wingers I know would feel the same way. This guy is just an idiot, or a troll. Or hell, maybe some supposed right wingers DO support this, but this is more something lefties would love.

    I agree, the poster I was responding to was an idiot or a troll, or both. I'm sure some right-wingers would support this, as well as some left-wingers. As I'm sure you are aware, the media and powers-that-be divide us into opposing sides of Left and Right. They may be useful as general descriptors, but do not mean much on the individual level. I am left-leaning myself, but like you I do not support this type of state overreach.

    When people stop fighting and arguing, and instead talk and listen, they often find they have more in common than they thought. Most of us don't fit neatly into these Left and Right boxes that have been constructed for us. I'm always glad when I can agree with someone who is on the "opposite" side of the political spectrum. Because we should all be Americans first, and then try to work out our differences.

    --
    "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  60. Re:What "outcry"? by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Extremists on the left side of the spectrum are hardly any better than any other kind of extremism. Their way to fascism may be a bit longer, but should they ever win, they will get there. They way to build a fascist state directly (as the right-wingers want to) is a bit more moronic, a bit faster, but in the end the same.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  61. Uhh by easyTree · · Score: 1

    The problem isn't facial recognition, or Amazon; it's the police and self-appointed (yes, 'wider society' appoints them, blah blah) groups with a monopoly on coercive force. Oh yeah, and the mindset which would lead someone to join this type of group.

  62. And, the shark has been jumped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every tech company goes through the same arc.

    They start out with the best intentions of providing the most awesome products and/or services that they can; of truly caring for their users. Then, after realizing how easy it is to make shit-tons of money, they sell their souls to the highest bidder. Then, after they lose out to the latest fad company, they setup shop in India and push Big Data, AI, or whatever the buzzword tech of ten years ago was.

    Except for Facebook. They are the one tech company that never pretended to give a fuck about their users. I guess in that way, they are the most honest of all the tech companies.

    That really should be the new Silicon Valley slogan. "We'll fuck you up the ass so hard, you'll love us for it."