Facial recognition is here to stay. And we should all probably accept it

guest · Sep 30, 2019

Tom Morello, Anti-Flag, Bonnaroo and More Join Campaign to Ban the Use of Facial Recognition Software at Events
September 23, 2019
https://www.billboard.com/articles/...ag-bonnaroo-fight-facial-recognition-software

Artists and live music events have joined non-profit Fight For Our Future’s campaign to stop the use of facial recognition software on fans. Headlining artists such as Tom Morello, Anti-Flag, Amanda Palmer, Atmosphere, Speedy Ortiz and Glitch Mob have added their voices to the campaign that says fans could be at risk.

“I don’t want Big Brother at my shows targeting fans for harassment, deportation, or arrest,” said Morello in a tweet. “That’s why I’m joining this campaign calling on @Ticketmaster and others not to use #facialrecognition at festivals and concerts.”
“Facial recognition surveillance is uniquely dangerous. It doesn’t keep fans or artists safe, it just subjects them to invasive, racially biased monitoring that will inevitably lead to fans getting harassed, falsely arrested, deported, or worse," Fight for the Future’s Evan Greer said.
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guest · Sep 30, 2019

Live Nation Says It Isn’t “Currently” Planning to Deploy Facial Recognition at Shows
September 19, 2019
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/09/19/live-nation-facial-recognition-response/

A campaign launched by Fight for the Future seeks to ban facial recognition at music festivals.

Tweets from the non-profit called out major music festivals like Coachella, South by Southwest, and Riot Fest. The campaign asked these festivals to ban the use of facial recognition technology. Live Nation ⁠— the parent company of Ticketmaster ⁠— recently partnered with facial recognition firm Blink Identity, a company that can accurately scan, ID, and store facial data even when a person is moving.
The partnership, which also includes a substantial investment by Live Nation, is supposed to explore how the tech could replace tickets for a “walk-in” experience.

When pressed if the company is currently using any facial recognition technology, the rep confirmed they are not.
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Minimalist · Sep 30, 2019

Don’t Freak Out: New Real-Time Facial Recognition Can Tell Everything About You

Facial recognition systems are the next big thing in tech, and while some struggle to embed it into the devices we use every day, a new startup plans to give the whole thing a completely new purpose.
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https://news.softpedia.com/news/don...on-can-tell-everything-about-you-527616.shtml

guest · Sep 30, 2019

Plan for massive facial recognition database sparks privacy concerns
September 28, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-recognition-database-sparks-privacy-concerns

If you’ve had a driver’s licence photo or passport photo taken in Australia in the past few years, it’s likely your face will end up in a massive new national network the federal government is trying to create.
Victoria and Tasmania have already begun to upload driver’s licence details to state databases that will eventually be linked to a future national one.

Almost all state and territory governments have updated their driver’s licence laws in anticipation of the database after an agreement at the Council of Australian Governments in October 2017, while people getting passports sign a form that states that their photographs will be used for biometric matching purposes.
What are the concerns?
Privacy advocates say the new legislation lacks proportionality – that the benefits do not outweigh the intrusion into people’s privacy.
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guest · Sep 30, 2019

New app claims it can identify venture capitalists using facial recognition
Welcome to the dawn of peer-to-peer surveillance
September 30, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/30/...-recognition-venture-capitalists-surveillance

Investors weren’t interested in Tosh Velaga’s idea when he started pitching it this summer. Facial recognition software for retail stores to catch shoplifters made sense in theory, but people were skeptical it would work. So Velaga and his co-founder Igor Nefedov did what entrepreneurs do best: they pivoted.

“We were like, ‘what if we repurposed this for something stupid, like AI that could detect the faces of investors?’” Velaga remembers.
This month, the resulting project finally made it onto the Play Store. It’s called AngelFace, an Android app that lets users identify whether someone is a venture capitalist by capturing a quick photo of their face. According to Velaga, “You just hold your phone up to someone’s face for a second, tap a button and their profile will pop up.”

Today, AngelFace is focused on venture capitalists based in the Bay Area, though Velaga hasn’t ruled out the possibility of expanding to other cities. He’s marketing the app cautiously because, as he says, “it’s a slippery slope, this technology. We’re not even sure if it’s legal.”
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Minimalist · Oct 1, 2019

Preventing manipulation in automated face recognition

From unlocking smartphones to speeding up airport security checks: the use of automated face recognition for personal identification continues to grow. But this authentication method is vulnerable to morphing attacks: criminals can misuse it by melding two different facial images into one. A single passport featuring a photograph manipulated this way can then be used by two different people. Together with their partners, Fraunhofer research teams are developing a system that foils this type of attack using machine learning methods.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2019-10-automated-recognition.html

guest · Oct 2, 2019

mood said: ↑

Google’s ‘field research’ offered people $5 to scan their faces for the Pixel 4
It’s ensuring that the Pixel 4 will work on a wide range of faces
July 29, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/29/8934804/google-pixel-4-face-scanning-data-collection
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Contractors say they were told to lie while collecting Pixel 4 face scans
October 2, 2019
https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/02/pixel-4-face-scans/

This summer, we learned that Google had embarked on a wide scale project to collect facial recognition data, which the company said was necessary to build "fairness" into face unlocking for its Pixel 4 [...] A new report from the New York Daily News has more details on where Google sent people to collect that data, and what they were told to do by the company that hired them as contractors for the project.

While the statement Google gave to media this summer indicated that participants signed a consent form allowing for the use of their data, including everything from infrared response to how they picked up the phone from the table, temp workers the paper talked to said they were trained to be pushy, and even lie to people about what was going on.
Google told the News that it was investigating claims that "dubious" tactics were used, as the reporters cited several people who said they participated without any clear idea of what was going on or who the data was for.
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guest · Oct 3, 2019

Getting a new mobile number in China will involve a facial-recognition test
October 3, 2019
https://qz.com/1720832/china-introduces-facial-recognition-step-to-get-new-mobile-number/

From Dec. 1, people applying for new mobile and data services will have to have their faces scanned by telecom providers, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said (link in Chinese) in a Sept. 27 statement.
Most countries require some form of ID to sign up for mobile phone contracts—versus for prepaid services—but the facial-recognition requirement seems to be a first.

While the technology ministry said enhancing protection for ordinary phone users was one of the aims of the new order, that reason didn’t appear to convince Chinese internet users, who say it could contribute to more personal information leakage, and is just downright invasive.
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guest · Oct 3, 2019

France plans to use facial recognition to let citizens access government services
October 3, 2019
https://www.technologyreview.com/f/...n-to-let-citizens-access-government-services/

The news: France is planning to incorporate facial recognition technology into a mandatory digital identity for its citizens, Bloomberg reports. It’s part of plans to roll out an ID program, called Alicem, in November. The government claims the app will “make the state more efficient” by letting citizens access public services like taxes or social security online, using their secure digital identity.
How Alicem will work: Facial recognition will be the only way for citizens in France to create a legal digital ID, through a one-time enrollment that compares a user’s passport photos with a selfie video taken on the Alicem app.
A snag: France’s data regulator has said the program breaks European rules requiring consent for data collection, and it is being challenged in France’s top administrative court. There are concerns over how secure Alicem is, after a hacker took just an hour to break into it earlier this year.
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guest · Oct 4, 2019

Met police admits it lacks records of King's Cross face matches
October 4, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49921175

Last month, it acknowledged it had shared people's pictures with the managers of the city's King's Cross Estate development.
It had previously denied the alliance.

In a new report, the Met added that it had only shared seven images and did not believe there had been similar arrangements with other private bodies.
The aim, it added, had been to "prevent crime, to protect vulnerable members of the community or to support the safety strategy".

But it admitted that it had no record of whether the estate manager's surveillance camera system had ever made facial matches of those involved, nor whether any police action had been taken as a result.

"The findings of this report need to be caveated by noting the limitations of technology which was not designed to be audited in this way, and the limitations of corporate memory," it explained.
It also confirmed that the facial recognition system in use at the estate was that of the Japanese firm NEC - something the management firm, Argent, had repeatedly declined to divulge itself.
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deBoetie · Oct 4, 2019

mood said: ↑

Met police admits it lacks records of King's Cross face matches
October 4, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49921175
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It's very weird the claim is that these systems are essential to fight terrorism, keep kids safe, whatever - but then they can't be asked to use it and have no idea whether it would work.

There have been parallel issues with cases where evidential requirements have been trashed, associated with smartphone evidence. They have the capability to download everything off smartphones, yet, even in serious criminal cases, can't be bothered to examine the data, or claim that it's too hard to find what they're looking for. Oh, and they neglect to tell the defense who are essentially kept in the dark in some cases. Yet they want to collect it all, and then complain they have too much.

guest · Oct 5, 2019

'We are hurtling towards a surveillance state’: the rise of facial recognition technology
But as the cameras proliferate, who’s watching the watchers?
October 5, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...echnology-hurtling-towards-surveillance-state

Gordon installed a £3,000 camera system at the entrance to the bar and, using off-the-shelf software to carry out facial recognition analysis, began collating a private watchlist of people he had observed stealing, being aggressive or causing damage.
The company has since rolled out the service to at least 15 “household name retailers”, which can upload photographs of people suspected of shoplifting, or other crimes, to a centralised rogues’ gallery in the cloud.

“If it’s used proportionately and responsibly, it’s probably one of the safest technologies today.”

Unsurprisingly, not everyone sees things this way. In the past year, as the use of facial recognition technology by police and private companies has increased, the debate has intensified over the threat it could pose to personal privacy and marginalised groups.
In contrast with DNA and fingerprint data, which normally have to be destroyed within a certain time period if individuals are arrested or charged but not convicted, there are no specific rules in the UK on the retention of facial images.

Out in the wider world, anonymity is no longer guaranteed. Facial recognition gives police and companies the means of identifying and tracking people of interest, while others are free to go about their business. The real question is: who gets that privilege?
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guest · Oct 6, 2019

mood said: ↑

Google’s ‘field research’ offered people $5 to scan their faces for the Pixel 4
It’s ensuring that the Pixel 4 will work on a wide range of faces
July 29, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/29/8934804/google-pixel-4-face-scanning-data-collection
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Google has suspended its controversial ‘field research’ that allegedly scanned homeless people
October 4, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/4/20899612/google-suspend-pixel-4-facial-scan-atlanta-randstad

Less than two weeks ahead of the Pixel 4 flagship smartphone’s debut, Google is reportedly pulling the plug on a controversial “field research” program that offered subjects in US cities a $5 gift certificate in exchange for a scan of their face — after a New York Daily News report that one Google contracting agency was actively targeting homeless people in Atlanta and tricking unwitting college students into participating.

Originally, the company told us, the idea was to make sure the Pixel 4’s new Face Unlock feature would recognize a diverse array of faces, which could keep it from being biased against people of color — a legitimate concern for facial recognition tech.
According to The New York Times, Google claims it immediately suspended the program and opened an investigation after reading the Daily News’ story. It wouldn’t discuss details with the Times, but did say it’s true it hired contractors from Randstad for the research, the same contractor named in the Daily News’ expose, and Google reportedly called the alleged details “very disturbing.”
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guest · Oct 9, 2019

mood said: ↑

California Bill Would Halt Facial Recognition on Body Cams
September 11, 2019
https://www.wired.com/story/california-bill-halt-facial-recognition-body-cams/
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California's new police body cam law blocks the use of facial recognition
October 9, 2019
https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/08/facial-recognition-california/

In August, backers of California's Body Camera Accountability Act pointed out a test of facial recognition software that identified 26 state lawmakers as criminals.
[...] now Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB1215 into law, preventing law enforcement in the state from "installing, activating, or using any biometric surveillance system in connection with an officer camera or data collected by an officer camera" through 2023.

The bill's sponsor, Phil Ting said of facial recognition tech, "It's not ready for prime time, as it falsely matches innocent people with mugshots, including me."
ACLU technology and civil liberties attorney Matt Cagle said

"With this law, California has acted boldly to stem the expansion of a surveillance state that presents an unprecedented threat to our rights and liberties. [...]
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guest · Oct 10, 2019

UK Home Office knew its facial recognition was iffy and released it anyway
October 10, 2019
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquire...l-recognition-was-iffy-and-released-it-anyway

Living Vogons at the Home Office allowed a facial recognition system to enter service knowing it struggled with certain skin tones, according to a new report.

New Scientist claims that the Passport Checking Service, which is meant to speed up applications, struggles to identify features on particularly light or dark skin.
New documents released this week under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act suggest that Home Office officials knew there was a problem and decided to carry on with the rollout regardless.

"User research was carried out with a wide range of ethnic groups and did identify that people with very light or very dark skin found it difficult to provide an acceptable passport photograph," says the gunsmoke covered document, "However; the overall performance was judged sufficient to deploy."
Either way, it's another reminder that this is technology in its infancy, and as such, we need to learn to live with this particular genie, now he's out of the bottle.
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Minimalist · Oct 11, 2019

Amazon calls for government regulation of facial recognition tech

Amazon is endorsing the idea of government regulation of facial recognition technology, as part of a wide-ranging statement of its principles on a range of social and political issues.
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https://techxplore.com/news/2019-10-amazon-facial-recognition-tech.html

Krusty · Oct 14, 2019

Make-up techniques a potential weapon against unwanted facial recognition surveillance

~ Copyrighted Image Removed ~

Applying make-up to appear older, splashing your face with infrared light, combining multiple photographs to "morph" identities: these are all techniques people are using to subvert facial recognition (FR) systems, experts have warned.

As the Australian Government considers a bill to share people's facial data with agencies across the country, scientists in Europe are working to overcome so-called "obfuscation" and "impersonation" techniques that allow people to fly under the radar from unwanted surveillance.

Using make-up to appear old is among the simplest and easiest techniques, according to Sebastien Marcel from Switzerland's Idiap Research Institute.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...gainst-facial-recognition-technology/11586336

ronjor · Oct 16, 2019

Berkeley Becomes Fourth U.S. City to Ban Face Recognition in Unanimous Vote

Tom McKay 16 oct 2019
Two other cities in the state, Oakland and San Francisco, have already passed their own bans on government use of facial recognition tech, while Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill banning its use on police body cams for several years. Somerville, Massachusetts, also passed a similar law this summer.
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guest · Oct 17, 2019

Massachusetts: Tell Your Lawmakers to Press Pause on Government Face Surveillance
October 17, 2019
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/...kers-press-pause-government-face-surveillance

Massachusetts residents: tell your legislature to press pause on government use of face surveillance throughout the Commonwealth. Massachusetts bills S.1385 and H.1538 would place a moratorium on government use of the technology, and your lawmakers need to hear from you ahead of an Oct. 22 hearing on these bills.

EFF has advocated for governments to stop use of face surveillance in our communities immediately, particularly in light of what researchers at MIT’s Media Lab and others have found about its high error rates—particularly for women and people of color.
Even if it were possible to lessen these misidentification risks, however, government use of face recognition technology still poses grave threats to safety and privacy.
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guest · Oct 18, 2019

Border Agents Could Get Bodycams With Facial Recognition Technology
The agency is interested in wearable systems that can match faces to databases
October 17, 2019
https://www.thedailybeast.com/custo...cognition-for-bodycams-at-the-border?ref=home

Customs and Border Protection is considering outfitting Border Patrol with controversial facial recognition technology deployed through their body cameras, according to a new federal filing.

The agency has published a Request for Information from potential vendors on expanding its network of officer-worn body cameras, specifically to record interactions with the public—both U.S. and foreign citizens—in areas fixed cameras may not reach.
Within that request, the agency is soliciting information on biometric identity verification: the “ability to run facial recognition against a database of preexisting images” and the “ability to compare a source document (e.g., identification provided) against the real-time image of the person.”

Facial recognition used on footage taken by law enforcement has proven controversial in the past. California banned the use of facial recognition software on video from police body cameras on Oct. 8. [...]
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guest · Oct 22, 2019

Facial recognition technology falsely identifies famous athletes
October 21, 2019
https://www.aclum.org/en/news/facial-recognition-technology-falsely-identifies-famous-athletes/

In a test the ACLU of Massachusetts conducted using a widely available facial recognition technology called “Rekognition,” the software falsely matched 27 New England professional athletes to individuals in a mugshot database. The test shows high-profile athletes, including the Patriots’ Duron Harmon, were mistakenly matched with images in the arrest photo database.

The test is part of the ACLU’s Press Pause on Face Surveillance public education campaign.

“This technology is flawed,” said Harmon, the New England Patriots safety. “If it misidentified me, my teammates, and other professional athletes in an experiment, imagine the real-life impact of false matches. This technology should not be used by the government without protections. Massachusetts should press pause on face surveillance technology.”
Nearly one-in-six athletes were falsely identified. An independent computer science expert verified the results.

“Face surveillance is dangerous when it doesn’t work, and when it does. There are currently no rules or standards in place in our state to ensure the technology isn’t misused or abused. Massachusetts must pass a moratorium on government use of face surveillance technology until there are safeguards in place to keep people safe and free.”
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ACLU: Press Pause on Face Surveillance

guest · Oct 22, 2019

Public Voice Launches Petition for an International Moratorium on Using Facial Recognition for Mass Surveillance
October 22, 2019
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/10/public_voice_la.html

Coming out of the Privacy Commissioners' Conference in Albania, Public Voice is launching a petition for an international moratorium on using facial recognition software for mass surveillance.
You can sign on as an individual or an organization. I did. You should as well. No, I don't think that countries will magically adopt this moratorium. But it's important for us all to register our dissent.
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ronjor · Oct 24, 2019

40 Major Music Festivals Have Pledged Not to Use Facial Recognition Technology

by Lauren Kaori Gurley Oct 23 2019
Activists declare the first major victory against the spread of commercial facial recognition technology in the United States.
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guest · Oct 27, 2019

Football fans to have faces scanned by police at Cardiff and Swansea City derby
October 27, 2019
https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/27/foot...d-police-cardiff-swansea-city-derby-10990778/

Supporters attending the match, which kicks off at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium at 12pm, will be actively scanned by facial recognition cameras in order to identify ‘potential troublemakers’.

The technology works by flagging known offenders whose photos are already on police databases.
But angry fans have promised to wear ‘Halloween masks’ in protest at the surveillance technology.
It is the first use of the controversial facial scanners since a 2017 UEFA Champions’ League match, when more than 2,500 innocent fans were incorrectly flagged by the system and their photos sent to police.
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ronjor · Oct 27, 2019

Facebook alters video to make people invisible to facial recognition

Khari Johnson@kharijohnson October 25, 2019
Facebook AI Research says it’s created a machine learning system for de-identification of individuals in video. Startups like D-ID and a number of previous works have made de-identification technology for still images, but this is the first one that works on video. In initial tests, the method was able to thwart state-of-the-art facial recognition systems.
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