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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.
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.
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.
You are either a Prime Citizen or a Suspect.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
The Echo Show already has a camera.
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.
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)
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.
You support the pigs up until you start crying about the "deeeep staaaate."
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
The solution is simple. Stop posting every single mundane second of yourself online.
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/
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
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...
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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)
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.
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.
Requiem for the American Dream