Microsoft Calls on Congress To Regulate Face Recognition (axios.com)

Addressing a growing concern by privacy advocates and users alike over the usage of facial recognition by government bodies, Microsoft urged the US government on Friday to start thinking about what limits should be set on the use of such technologies. From a report: In a blog post, Microsoft also said it is consulting with outside groups to help set its own policies for how it will use and sell such technology. Face recognition can be used for a range of purposes, from reuniting missing kids to mass surveillance. Currently, there are few rules for those using or selling the technology. "The only effective way to manage the use of technology by a government is for the government proactively to manage this use itself," Microsoft president Brad Smith said in a blog post. "And if there are concerns about how a technology will be deployed more broadly across society, the only way to regulate this broad use is for the government to do so." For its own part, Smith said Microsoft is going to move slowly on commercial use of face recognition while it explores what its own policies should be.

Comments

Should require a warrant

[Oswald McWeany]

No facial information should be allowed to be stored by a government entity without a warrant. I would have thought that THAT is already covered by the constitution.

No private entity should be allowed to store facial recognition of an individual without that individual's explicit written consent- and should not be allowed to sell any data collected via means of facial recognition.

Re:Should require a warrant

[BronsCon]

can *also* do facial recognition OCR.

Well, I don't have to worry about that, then. You do, of course, because you're quite the character.

Re:Should require a warrant

[Presence Eternal]

I'll go out on a limb here and state that this is not the best congress to appeal to for protections of civil liberties. I suppose it's less bad than the Bush 2 era, but still.

Re:Should require a warrant

[Presence Eternal]

Facial optical character recognition? So, what, it turns your expression into emoji?

That actually sounds pretty cool.

Because they have no worthwhile software

[bluelip]

Microsoft is crying for regulation because they are so far behind.

How about regulation of all biometrics - period

[the_skywise]

fingerprint, voiceprint, face rec, retina scans ANYTHING of that nature from now into the future that can be used to personally ID you - none of that data should be stored or sold.

Re:How about regulation of all biometrics - period

[E-Rock]

If it's just being used to match, you could store a hash rather than the source data. If the hash of the credentials you supply match, you're in, but they can't lose the data because they don't have it. Same issues with storing passwords this way, but a hell of a lot better than storing the source data.

No troops quartered in phones, no spying

[WillAffleckUW]

This includes facial recognition.

Oh, pro tip, change clothes, hats, wigs, glasses, alter your stride, stand next to different people, remember that face dazzle paint does work, and remember how they measure faces (points on nose, eyebrows, chin, mouth, cheekbones). Anything that alters those defeats all known facial recognition, even orange spray tans (sparkle rainbow is better, tho).

Re:No troops quartered in phones, no spying

[drinkypoo]

What works a lot better than any of that crap is a collection of independently flashing, pulsing, and strobing high-brightness IR LEDs... because all of these cameras are designed to work in the dark, and therefore have no IR filter. Altering your gait doesn't affect your biometrics as much as you think it does; you've still got the same skeleton, after all.

All of the various means currently used to avoid detection will eventually be worked around, like painting rectangles on your face or wearing special clothing. We can't win an arms race with the law. The only way to solve this problem is to take back government, hee hee ha ha.

Re:No troops quartered in phones, no spying

[drinkypoo]

The law has laws to follow

...which they frequently ignore.

Criminals do whatever they want and will always improvise quicker, as they don't have rules and regulations to follow. They cracked iPhone X's face unlock the first day it was released.

...then the tech is sold to the police so they can use it against everyone.

Anyone can do face surveillance

[rapjr]

It's relatively easy to build your own facial surveillance tools using open source software and wouldn't cost much to deploy across a town or part of a city. Same thing for automated license plate readers. And walking gait biometric trackers. And heart rate biometric trackers using the small variations in face color caused by heart beats. And to add activity recognition trackers. And to add radio signal trackers. And it's easy to get people to install software that tracks their activities on phones and computers. These kinds of surveillance are not limited to just governments and big companies, _everyone_ with a few skills can do it. As soon as the CEO's and politicians start realizing this by finding their faces, and cars, and biometrics being tracked and their activities being broadcast to the world, then you'll start to see new laws. Not sure they'll do much good though, there is no obviously effective way to police this. How do you tell what the intent is behind a tiny camera and computer sitting in some random location? How do you even tell if it's a camera/computer/radio? It doesn't have to look like one. You could build your own car/face/biometric surveillance system using a few $100 of cheap cellphones. People are likely already doing this. Soon you'll be able to buy complete systems on eBay.