Facial recognition technology - good or not?

[razz]

When I read this article in the Christian Science Monitor https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2019/20190620?cmpid=ema:ddp:20190620&id=1091076 I was surprised at how advanced the technology had become.

Have to think about the need for a moratorium on its use. What do you think of it and its use?

Quotes:
Currently there are no federal laws governing how law enforcement may use facial recognition, nor is it clear how many of the country’s roughly 18,000 police departments are currently using it. But the technology is inexpensive and user-friendly: In April, The New York Times surveilled a park in midtown Manhattan for less than $100 and were able to successfully identify passersby...

Cities offer an ability to reinvent oneself, to break with the past to a certain extent, and the ability to do this might be crucial to some peoples’ mental well-being. In a paper published last year in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Stanford University psychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude argued that establishing a “modern privacy bill of rights” should be a public health priority.

“Privacy mediates some very important psychological processes,” he says. “When you look at mechanisms such as recovery after a setback for rejuvenation or catharsis … all have been shown to require privacy.”

Dr. Aboujaoude cited the positive public health implications of a European Union law that created in 2014 a “right to be forgotten” online.

[catherine]

I am starting to get a little alarmed how difficult it is to be truly anonymous in this culture, or to be able resist being seen everywhere, having our browsing history up for grabs, and having our preferences and proclivities tallied and used to direct our consumption.

I just read this article (https://time.com/5602363/george-orwell-1984-anniversary-surveillance-capitalism/)about Surveillance Capitalism.. very interesting read and totally believable:


For 19 years, private companies practicing an unprecedented economic logic that I call surveillance capitalism have hijacked the Internet and its digital technologies. Invented at Google beginning in 2000, this new economics covertly claims private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. Some data are used to improve services, but the rest are turned into computational products that predict your behavior. These predictions are traded in a new futures market, where surveillance capitalists sell certainty to businesses determined to know what we will do next. This logic was first applied to finding which ads online will attract our interest, but similar practices now reside in nearly every sector — insurance, retail, health, education, finance and more — where personal experience is secretly captured and computed for behavioral predictions. By now it is no exaggeration to say that the Internet is owned and operated by private surveillance capital.

In the competition for certainty, surveillance capitalists learned that the most predictive data come not just from monitoring but also from modifying and directing behavior. For example, by 2013, Facebook had learned how to engineer subliminal cues on its pages to shape users’ real-world actions and feelings. Later, these methods were combined with real-time emotional analyses, allowing marketers to cue behavior at the moment of maximum vulnerability. These inventions were celebrated for being both effective and undetectable. Cambridge Analytica later demonstrated that the same methods could be employed to shape political rather than commercial behavior.

The application of facial recognition to be able to identify criminals is a double-edged sword. A lot of information can be caught on cameras, and may help avoid arresting innocent people. But the framework of the argument is much bigger... We are entering a whole new world.

As I read that article on surveillance capitalism, it freaked me out a little. I don't like being an open book for anyone who wants to "know" me without my permission.

[Ultralight]

I am starting to get a little alarmed how difficult it is to be truly anonymous in this culture, or to be able resist being seen everywhere, having our browsing history up for grabs, and having our preferences and proclivities tallied and used to direct our consumption.

Obviously you have something to hide.

[happystuff]

Obviously you have something to hide.

Or simply wants some privacy or anonymity. Believe it or not, not everyone wants "15 minutes of fame".

Myself, I'm tired of being "targeted" by companies for things they may think that I want but that I really don't want. As many times as I have said to remove my number from their call list, I am constantly asked if I want solar panels or to save 15% on my electric bill.

[Ultralight]

Or simply wants some privacy or anonymity

Exactly what someone with something to hide would say. :confused:

[catherine]

Obviously you have something to hide.

Absolutely not. I just don't like the idea of Big Brother or Big Other peering at me, or the collective "we," behind some lens like Ed Harris on the Truman Show.

[iris lilies]

Absolutely not. I just don't like the idea of Big Brother or Big Other peering at me, or the collective "we," behind some lens like Ed Harris on the Truman Show.
I took that as a smartassed joke.

[catherine]

I took that as a smartassed joke.

UL's comment or my response?

[Ultralight]

Absolutely not. I just don't like the idea of Big Brother or Big Other peering at me, or the collective "we," behind some lens like Ed Harris on the Truman Show.

You will certainly end up in Room 101.

[razz]

My concern is that an image can be captured and planted on another's body in a situation where I have never been or encountered. Images are evidence. Social media can destroy a life as a result. It is not so much that I have nothing to hide as what can be created. It is a lot more complex issue than simple privacy concerns and if I have nothing to hide, I have no problem.

[Ultralight]

My concern is that an image can be captured and planted on another's body in a situation where I have never been or encountered.
There is no way a corporation or a government would ever let this happen.

[razz]

There is no way a corporation or a government would ever let this happen.

UL, I am assuming dry humour but if you truly believe this, I have this spot for a bridge across the middle of Lake Erie that needs investors.....

[bae]

My concern is that an image can be captured and planted on another's body in a situation where I have never been or encountered. Images are evidence.

I heard a presentation just last week on the rapid pace of development of fake imagery technologies.

I suspect within a year or so, images will no longer be evidence. It's so terribly easy to fake now, and it's getting rapidly easier.

[Ultralight]

UL, I am assuming dry humour but if you truly believe this, I have this spot for a bridge across the middle of Lake Erie that needs investors.....

You should probably go to Room 101 too.

[Ultralight]

Watch this and feel the anxiety.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w

[jp1]

We all, except ultralite, carry a tracking device in our pocket everywhere we go. I wonder what he’s trying to hide?

[Ultralight]

We all, except ultralite, carry a tracking device in our pocket everywhere we go. I wonder what he’s trying to hide?

I pay for things in cash too, almost exclusively.

[jp1]

I pay for things in cash too, almost exclusively.

Don’t worry. I’m sure the ubiquitous security cameras and license plate cameras are doing a good job of keeping track of even the most nefarious people such as yourself.

[Ultralight]

Don’t worry. I’m sure the ubiquitous security cameras and license plate cameras are doing a good job of keeping track of even the most nefarious people such as yourself.

Kinky!

[gimmethesimplelife]

I'm split down the middle on facial recognition technology. Recently at Dulles International, facial recognition technology caught a Central African Republic national travelling on a fake French passport - the traveler involved had his real ID from the CAR in one of his shoes. I'm down with facial recognition technology in this case - phony passports scare me, the whole concept of them I find very alarming, especially after that Malaysian Airlines flight that went down several years ago.

On the other hand, I don't trust American police overall not to abuse this technology - look at how the international spotlight is shining on Phoenix as I post this due to our recent police brutality brouhaha that was Thank God videoed. I don't trust local police departments with this technology, not one iota, but interestingly enough at the border and at airports I'm down with this being used as I can see there is a legit and practical, common sense reason to use it there. Rob

[gimmethesimplelife]

Don’t worry. I’m sure the ubiquitous security cameras and license plate cameras are doing a good job of keeping track of even the most nefarious people such as yourself.Yet another reason I'm glad I lead a car-free existence! I hadn't thought of this reason before and it's so obvious....I feel grateful but behind the curve on this one. Rob

[Ultralight]

Yet another reason I'm glad I lead a car-free existence! I hadn't thought of this reason before and it's so obvious....I feel grateful but behind the curve on this one. Rob

How do you live car-free in PHX?

[ApatheticNoMore]

it's plenty problematic. but this:


and having our preferences and proclivities tallied and used to direct our consumption.

i've always thought is truly a waste of time with me. You may as well hit on a nun for sex, you may as well push a cow burger on a PETA vegan. :~)

[gimmethesimplelife]

How do you live car-free in PHX?As you know, I live in the 85006, very close in to downtown. I am not far from the light rail and the bus lines on McDowell Road, 24th Street, and Thomas Road. I am within walking distance of a low priced Hispanic Grocery Store, and there is a good thrift shop with fair prices and frequent clearances eight blocks away from me, that delivers furniture or appliances in my area for $10. It's not easy, especially in the Summer to be car free in Phoenix, but I've pulled it off for many years and would not care to have a car at this point. It does help that I live so close in to downtown and major transit links, though. Rob

[Teacher Terry]

I bet Uber helps too.

[gimmethesimplelife]

I bet Uber helps too.Yes, you are very much right on this. I remember once I was able to snag a Christmas tree in great shape for $10 from the above mentioned thrift shop and Uber is how I got it home. Uber can be a wonderful help in living car free, yes indeed. Rob

[Teacher Terry]

Right now our 2 paid for cars only cost us 60/month for insurance and registration each. One tank a gas a month usually. If one dies we may just use Uber and have one car.

[LDAHL]

I heard a presentation just last week on the rapid pace of development of fake imagery technologies.

I suspect within a year or so, images will no longer be evidence. It's so terribly easy to fake now, and it's getting rapidly easier.

Don’t we already live in an era of “deep fakes”?

Could general mistrust of images mean an end to cell phone vigilantism? Or will we simply choose to believe what we want to believe?

[happystuff]

Don’t we already live in an era of “deep fakes”?

Could general mistrust of images mean an end to cell phone vigilantism? Or will we simply choose to believe what we want to believe?

This is happening! We do already live in the era of "fake news" and out-right lies from folks standing down on the corner of Main Street, USA all the way up to the White House! People are already choosing what and who to believe, and basing those beliefs on who-knows-what - cause actual facts don't seem to matter any more!

Very scary times.

[bae]

Don’t we already live in an era of “deep fakes”?


Today's news story:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/tech/deepnude-naked-women-ai/index.html

[LDAHL]

So if nothing can be taken at face value, do we not have a new level of plausible deniability available to us? “It wasn’t really me sniffing her hair or cavorting with Kardashians, it was deep fakery.”

And if the technology is that good, can we eliminate the scourge of the insufferable human actor?

[happystuff]

So if nothing can be taken at face value, do we not have a new level of plausible deniability available to us? “It wasn’t really me sniffing her hair or cavorting with Kardashians, it was deep fakery.”

And if the technology is that good, can we eliminate the scourge of the insufferable human actor?

I don't believe it to be a "new level of plausible deniability" - any and all levels of deniability (plausible or not) have been and continue to exist and be tried by someone somewhere at some point in time.

For myself, I will probably continue taking some things at face value and investigate into others. I really don't know what the answer is - or if there even is one.