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Google Pledges To Hold Off On Selling Facial Recognition Technology (engadget.com)
In a blog post today, Google detailed how its facial recognition technology will and won't be used. Citing a number of risks associated with the technology, the company vowed to refrain from selling facial recognition products until it can come up with policies that prevent abuse. Engadget reports: "Like many technologies with multiple uses, facial recognition merits careful consideration to ensure its use is aligned with our principles and values, and avoids abuse and harmful outcomes," Google said. "We continue to work with many organizations to identify and address these challenges, and unlike some other companies, Google Cloud has chosen not to offer general-purpose facial recognition APIs before working through important technology and policy questions." "This is a strong first step," the ACLU's Nicole Ozer said in a statement about Google's announcement. "Google today demonstrated that, unlike other companies doubling down on efforts to put dangerous face surveillance technology into the hands of law enforcement and ICE, it has a moral compass and is willing to take action to protect its customers and communities. Google also made clear that all companies must stop ignoring the grave harms these surveillance technologies pose to immigrants and people of color, and to our freedom to live our lives, visit a church, or participate in a protest without being tracked by the government."
Kinda ironic that Google cares about our privacy...
Why didn't you SAY SO! Oh, if I'd known GOOGLE was going to PLEDGE something... I'd have Gmailed myself an invitation to a Hangout to Wave-chat about it!
Hi Google, I assume you're looking at my face right now through my fucking video doorbell system you tentacled twat creatures! Damn you all, quit now OR BURN WITH THE HOST.
They are 100x worse than Microsoft ever was. They have to go.
Corporatism != Free Market
Verify. Then trust.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
that would be extremely foolish for a profit-minded public corporation to do. it will be 'rented' instead, for insane profits.
and the FISA court order will not allow them to even admit it.
No doubt that's commendable, however the current leader in the face recognition competition/arms race sells their product to pretty much anyone, including the government of Russia. I've seen how it works and it gives you the shivers.
You may find youtube videos about their tech quite fascinating and scary.
The cat is out of the bag. The only safe thing for the future of humanity is to let the people have access to panopticon technology so they can track their politicians with it, too. Otherwise just some secret cabal inside a billion dollar NSA building will have it, with "emergency" access that doesn't require logging, you know, for emergencies.
Assuming it really bothers to automatically log anything uncorruptibly for later review by security clearence'd elected members of Congress, that is.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
So friggin' what. They once pledged to "Do no evil". They broke that, they'll break this. They are not to be trusted.
A technology only has to exist. Then it's just a matter of time before those who want it get their hands on it.
Same with encryption and encryption backdoors. If a backdoor is implemented, even if only for governement and law enforcement use, the backdoor will be cracked and used by criminals. If governement admits this and demands an uncrackable encryption without backdoor just for itself, again criminals and terrorists will get their hands on it and use it for themselves, making the backdoor useless to law enforcement.
In the end, only governements and criminals will have unbreakable encryption, and the backdoored encryption will be used only by ordinary honest citizens, to be spied on by their governement and victimized by criminals.
Google are essentially an advertising agency and so their "values" are flexible for the right price. Public statements like this are designed as leverage to increase the asking price for abusive practices and to keep their abusive clients quiet.
You know, until they can get it working in a way that doesn't cause them to make the news.
to ensure its use is aligned with our principles and values
Which are those?
So, face recognition technology, with a number of alternatives in the wilds and, even though rather a complex subject by no means something exclusively google or something that any [insert major evils here] could not develop on its own.
But the most bizarre part is that not only [evil regimes] are to be avoided, but even own law enforcement agencies of the own country.
My gut feeling is that this lunacy bodes well with some mainstream theory (the kind of theory that wins, because any opposition to it is labeled/silenced/mobbed) out there somewhere and that's why it's even a thing.
Having RTFA, they didn't pledge not to. They said they aren't offering general purpose facial recognition at the moment. This is because they already offer facial recognition in their Nest Aware doorbell subscription. I think they know there are likely to be moral issues with facial recognition technologies, including false positives and bad actors depending on the applications they make it available for. Unfortunately, it just becomes a matter of finding a company with few morals.