Portland, Maine Votes in Favor of Facial Recognition Ban (engadget.com) 38
Portland, Maine is the latest in the growing list of cities in the US to ban facial recognition technologies. From a report: According to Bangor Daily News, people voted in favor of of passing a new measure that strengthens Portland's existing ban on the use of facial recognition tech by law enforcement agencies and public officials. City councilors originally agreed on a ban back in August with the understanding that the voter referendum would replace their ordinance if it passes. Now that it has passed, it can't be touched for at least five years. Back in September, Portland, Oregon passed what could be the strictest municipal ban on facial recognition in the country -- one that prohibits even private businesses from deploying the technology in public spaces.
So how will they enforce it? (Score:4, Insightful)
And precisely how do they intend to enforce this law, beyond making all outdoor security cameras illegal?
"Facial recognition", like "license plate recognition", is just software running on a modern IP security camera. In five years, it's going to be a standard feature on every $100 camera imported from China.
The technology has already leapfrogged the law. What will happen is that private businesses and private citizens will quickly adopt facial recognition as an anti-crime tool. The police will happily accept the tips they receive without questioning the source. After all, if I tell the police, "I recognized that guy from the last time he broke into my car", how is anyone to know that my camera system warned me?
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DAMN COMMIES!
Re:So how will they enforce it? (Score:4, Informative)
Like many of such laws. If they are caught using it they get some sort of punishment.
Also if used to prove or disprove a case, that evidence will probably be thrown out, as it would be considered illegally collected data.
Like a lot of laws on the books, they only get enforced after someone has been shown to using/abusing them.
I can do a lot of illegal acts in which law enforcement may never catch me. However if I make a mistake and make my illegal act public. Then I could face enforcement penalties.
Re:So how will they enforce it? (Score:4, Interesting)
The information will be quietly used to start an investigation, without being reported as a cause for suspicion.Then other, more legally gathered evidence will be used. It will be very difficult to establish the gathered evidence as "fruit of a poisoned tree", which is normally used to discard illegally gathered evidence in US courts.
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That might be the case. However if you find that a business seems to be really good at tracking down people, who may only shop at the store very sparingly. It might mean that there may be some investigation against that business separate from the case they are in.
It is a lot of work to hide criminal activity, which is why I try to play it straight.
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The Transporter shows this. In the scene where he's in the bar getting his next job, he writes down everything so he knows what he's dealing with and specifically mentions driving the speed limit and having one rest stop.
At the end of the deal, where he's burning his notes, he says, "Transporting is a precise business."
To some extent this also applies to the opening scene (not the chase part). After he drop
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How many times do we see stories about people being stopped for speeding or not having their lights on at night, only to be found they have bricks of drugs in their vehicle?
And everyone with a fucking brain knew that virtually every incident likely represents a textbook example of parallel reconstruction.
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I can just see it now.
Cop #1: "Hmm, that guy who owns Joe's Used Tire Emporium has called in tips on six wanted felons over the past four months. Thanks to him we've caught two armed robbers, a child abuser, a rapist, and two burglars."
Cop #2: "You know ... he may be r
Re: So how will they enforce it? (Score:2)
I think that's ultimately what most people want, it can be a tip that leads to an investigation, that possibly leads to real evidence.
If a business wants to run anti-casing software on the sly, and after being robbed, is able to show police very quickly that uhh look, the person breaking in looks exactly like this "customer" that bought a Twinkie last week, and I just happen to remember all my customers faces... maybe the earlier footage is suspicious enough to start an investigation. I don't think anybod
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> What people really don't want is automated profiling, or situations where the computer says you did it and that by itself is presented as evidence
That they also don't want is automatic tracking for non-criminal use. Such ubiquitous 24x7 tracking of _everyone_ will inevitably be used for personal, political, or malicious r4easons. One of the most egregious examples is NSA personnel monitoring spouses and ex-lovers, in a practice known as LOVEINT.
https://www.reuters.com/artic [reuters.com]
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Like many of such laws. If they are caught using it they get some sort of punishment.
Ever heard of "parallel construction"?
Whatever was found by facial recognition software will, coincidentally, happened to be reviewed by a human being who would "recognize" the suspect and thus begin the investigation. Facial recognition will not appear in any of the documents submitted to court.
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I just walked out my front door and saw someone speeding down the road!! How do they plan on enforcing speed limits when you can't have a police officer on every block?
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Except that everyone can see that speeding car. It is obvious that it is speeding to the police and the public.
Now let's look at that camera over there. It's a standard varifocal PoE security camera with 8 MP resolution and a 1/1.8" sensor. It costs about $200. So ... is it connected to a computer running facial recognition software, or n
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> Except that everyone can see that speeding car. It is obvious that it is speeding to the police and the public.
Unless "everyone" was enforcing speed limits, this argument is utterly nonsensical. How about breaking and entering? Can everyone see that? Do people only get caught while actually doing it? Is the evidence always completely apparent? Or fraud? Lots of crimes aren't immediately apparent without investigation.
Re: So how will they enforce it? (Score:2)
Pick a different crime. The conviction rate for burglary is so low it barely registers. Nextdoor is full of security cam footage of blurry people wearing hoodies that never get identified. If tattoos were not so popular its likely nobody would ever get convicted of burglary.
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Unless you're arguing that burglary should be legal because of this, you're completely missing the point here.
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Also, I'd argue that the punishment rate for speeding is orders of magnitude lower.
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you tried to say conviction comes after investigation, but in the burglary case, it seriously doesn't. It should. I would like to see more. But it happens so many times per day now that the cops dont even try to investigate. Every night, at least 100 homes and cars will be burglarized in any city of moderate size. You're better off lying in wait and shooting the assholes yourself than relying on cops to catch the damn burglaries. There are even groups that come down from other areas like Detroit, and rent o
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What you're saying has no relation to what I said.
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So you're conflating crimes that cause actual harm, and leave behind evidence of that harm, with a "crime" that is undetectable by any outside observer and causes no harm to anyone.
Do you want to outlaw the misuse of facial recognition technology? Sign me up. But you're supporting th
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Get caught, get fined. There's always some disgruntled employee willing to stitch you up, easier to just obey the law.
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Which won't mean a thing to small businesses or homeowners where only one person knows about the software running on the cameras, and does not mention it to anyone else. Facial recognition isn't magic. It's just software that copies what the human brain does. If you think the police are going to give two flips about whether you spotted the guy with your own two eyes versus the camera you
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And precisely how do they intend to enforce this law, beyond making all outdoor security cameras illegal?
"Facial recognition", like "license plate recognition", is just software running on a modern IP security camera. In five years, it's going to be a standard feature on every $100 camera imported from China.
The technology has already leapfrogged the law. What will happen is that private businesses and private citizens will quickly adopt facial recognition as an anti-crime tool. The police will happily accept the tips they receive without questioning the source. After all, if I tell the police, "I recognized that guy from the last time he broke into my car", how is anyone to know that my camera system warned me?
The same way that the US political establishment has enforced a ban on drugs for the last century. Hell, the US can't even get around to shutting down and jailing the drug company executives behind the US opioid epidemic and the are based in the US, live in the US and their companies are traded in US stock exchanges. That being said, if they manage to bar law enforcement agencies and public officials and mega corporations from using this tech it's already worth it because they are by far the most likely to
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Right up to the point where Ring or Nest or some other company starts selling a camera with really good facial recognition built in, where you can grab the biometrics of the guy who stole the package off your porch, and broadcast them to every other person who owns the same model of camera so that they can now "
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Theft is black privilege. Don't be such a racist.
Oh, for Pete's sake, don't be such an uninformed rube. For most of US history theft has been a white privilege, US museums are filled to the rafters with proof of that. The problem was so pervasive that white people actually dug up the graves of non-white people and stole the corpses (talk about a morbid hobby!). The descendants of the deceased are still in court to this day trying to retrieve the bones of their ancestors from the clutches of deranged white American collectors.
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Those camera owners are going to love that feature. And suddenly public opinion is going to shift as people realize what an incredibly effective crime-fighting tool their cameras have become.
So what happens next?
Then the law will be repealed. However, I'm not holding my breath for Ring cameras to become a magic thief finding gizmo with a 100% accuracy rate, especially because thieves stealing Amazon shipments will quickly figure out that there is this nifty 40.000 year old invention called a 'mask' ... although, come to think of it, given their attitude towards masks, arrests should be mostly limited to Trump supporters.
Re: So how will they enforce it? (Score:2)
That oxy licensed drug dealer mess was something wasnt it? Not only did pharma become drug dealers but so did rite aid and Walgreens. Remember about 10yrs ago where they were opening a new store every month? Sometimes a Walgreens would open right across from another Walgreens. Do you know why? They were limited by store as to how much oxy they could order. Suddenly we had 15 pharmacies for every Starbucks, and we have too many damn Starbucks. They have blood on their hands too. They knew first hand just wha
Re: So how will they enforce it? (Score:2)
They also have no jurisdiction over federal agencies. So its unlikely that all the facial recognition cameras will vanish. You might even find local agencies shifting ownership to federal agencies and entering into agreements to share information with each other.
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This, exactly.
And you REALLY do not want to have your file originate from a federal agency. There are jobs, loans, apartment rentals, professional licenses and other assorted groups that do not want to touch you with a 3.05 meter pole if a background check reveals an open federal investigation. Even if it is just for lighting a dumpster on fire.
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And precisely how do they intend to enforce this law, beyond making all outdoor security cameras illegal?
Yo dawg! We'll put a facial recognition camera on the back of your facial recognition camera so we can facially recognize facial recognizers while they facially recognize your face.
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"And precisely how do they intend to enforce this law, beyond making all outdoor security cameras illegal?"
Yes, for police officers and public offices and so on. You can still see the bum stealing your Amazon parcels.
The real question (Score:1, Offtopic)
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::hyperbolic jerk-off motion::