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

ronjor · May 22, 2019

Amazon Now Has A Web Form For People Report Abuses Of Its Facial Recognition Tech

Davey Alba BuzzFeed News Reporter May 22, 2019, at 11:46 a.m. ET
"This yet again underscores the urgent need for Amazon to get out of the surveillance business. They simply do not know what they are doing," said civil liberties attorney Matt Cagle.
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guest · May 22, 2019

Facial recognition is making its way to cruise ships
May 21, 2019
https://qz.com/1623799/facial-recognition-is-coming-to-cruise-ships/

Like some airlines, Royal Caribbean has started to roll out facial recognition and other technologies to streamline its boarding process.
The company’s SVP of digital, Jay Schneider, tells Quartz that the typical wait time to board is 10 minutes with a mobile boarding pass; less if the passenger opts into facial recognition by uploading a “security selfie.”

In this specific case, vacationers want to get on their cruise ship faster, and Royal Caribbean wants the same thing. The customer is providing some data for a limited-time use, and gets a convenience in return.
Businesses are focusing their use of facial recognition on convenience rather than entirely new experiences [...] Facial recognition to board a ship only makes the process faster.

[...] our immediate future is more likely to be a privatized panoply of surveillance, like the one that exists today on the internet. Royal Caribbean says it deletes customer data after each trip, but no US policy mandates that companies adopt that stance.
Royal Caribbean says it deletes customer data after each trip, but no US policy mandates that companies adopt that stance. It’s likewise possible that such photos could be used for less benign operations on the ship, like identifying people in security footage.
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To that end, Royal Caribbean is also working with US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to test its facial recognition program for re-entry to the US.
“The reason they’re doing it that we like is that it dramatically streamlines the process of getting off of a ship, or eventually off of an airplane. They like it obviously for different security reasons. But it does actually help from a guest perspective to get off the ship faster.”
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hawki · May 22, 2019

"How China Uses High-Tech Surveillance to Subdue Millions

KASHGAR, China — A God’s-eye view of Kashgar, an ancient city in western China, flashed onto a wall-size screen, with colorful icons marking police stations, checkpoints and the locations of recent security incidents. At the click of a mouse, a technician explained, the police can pull up live video from any surveillance camera or take a closer look at anyone passing through one of the thousands of checkpoints in the city.

To demonstrate, she showed how the system could retrieve the photo, home address and official identification number of a woman who had been stopped at a checkpoint on a major highway. The system sifted through billions of records, then displayed details of her education, family ties, links to an earlier case and recent visits to a hotel and an internet cafe.

The simulation, presented at an industry fair in China, offered a rare look at a system that now peers into nearly every corner of Xinjiang...

This is the vision of high-tech surveillance — precise, all-seeing, infallible — that China’s leaders are investing billions of dollars in every year, making Xinjiang an incubator for increasingly intrusive policing systems that could spread across the country and beyond..."

[Long Read]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveillance-xinjiang.html

guest · May 23, 2019

Facial Recognition Has Already Reached Its Breaking Point
May 22, 2019
https://www.wired.com/story/facial-recognition-regulation/

"The Fourth Amendment will not save us from the privacy threat posed by facial recognition," said Andrew Ferguson, a professor at the University of the District of Columbia David A.
A series of recent incidents and revelations have shown just how widely the technology has been adopted, and how problematic its shortcomings could become without oversight and increased transparency into who uses the technology and how those systems work.

"We and others in the field have predicted for a long time that there would be misidentifications. We predicted there would be abuse. We predicted there would be state surveillance [...] And all those things are coming true. Anyone who says this technology is nascent has not done their homework."
Still, with facial recognition's ubiquity becoming increasingly apparent, privacy advocates see 2019 as a potential turning point.

"Hopefully we reach a critical point where we start really working on those problems in earnest. Perhaps that moment is now."
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hawki · May 23, 2019

hawki said: ↑

FYI:

House Oversight Hearing on Facial Recognition Technology

Today, May 22 | 10am ET

The House Oversight and Reform Committee holds a hearing to examine the use of facial recognition technology by the government and commercial entities and its impact on civil rights and liberties.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?460959-1/house-oversight-hearing-facial-recognition-technology

Recorded playback will also be available later in the day and evening.
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"We listened to more than 3 hours of US Congress testimony on facial recognition so you didn't have to go through it

Long story short: Models are ineffective, racist, dumb..."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/22/congress_facial_recognition/

ronjor · May 28, 2019

Colorado students photographed for facial recognition study

May 28, 2019 Updated: May 28, 2019 11:37 a.m.
DENVER (AP) — More than 1,700 people walking on a University of Colorado campus were unknowingly photographed as part of a facial recognition research project.
The Denver Post reported Monday that professor Terrance Boult set up a long-range surveillance camera in an office window at the Colorado Springs campus. It captured more than 16,000 images of passers-by during the spring semesters of 2012 and 2013.
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guest · May 31, 2019

New York school district's facial recognition system sparks privacy fears
May 31, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/31/facial-recognition-school-new-york-privacy-fears

A school district in western New York is launching a first-of-its-kind facial recognition system, generating new privacy concerns about the powerful but controversial technology.
The Lockport city school district is beginning implementation of the Aegis facial recognition system this week, officials said, with the technology expected to be fully up and running in time for the new school year in September.

The system is designed to detect the faces of people barred from Lockport schools, sex offenders, suspended students and staff members, and others deemed to be a threat, and alert officials if they are found on school grounds. The system can also detect guns, the district says.

“From a school safety point of view, it’s just a colossal waste of money. [...] you’d have to hope they didn’t put on a ski mask or something on the way in,” Shultz told the Guardian. Even then, an alert would be unlikely to stop an attack in time, he said.
“It’s an unprecedented invasion of privacy on our students,” Shultz said, adding that students’ movements through hallways and interactions with classmates could be tracked. “That’s an insane thing to make a precondition of getting a high school education.”
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guest · Jun 1, 2019

Toronto police using facial recognition as Canadian government ponders rules
May 28, 2019
https://www.biometricupdate.com/201...ognition-as-canadian-government-ponders-rules

Toronto police used facial recognition technology to attempt to identify people in 2,591 searches since March of last year, according to a report by Chief Mark Saunders which revealed the force’s use of the technology, the Toronto Star reports.

Facial recognition is limited in Canada by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which requires consent for the collection, use, or transmission of personal information, but does not specifically deal with AI or facial recognition.
“I think we really need to look at putting limits on facial recognition technology and lay the ground rules before it gets widely implemented,” Angus says.

Saunders’ report notes that the police began a year-long pilot project in September, 2014, and conducted a Privacy Impact Assessment in 2017.
“The fact that there has been very little — virtually no — public conversation about the fact that this is happening, despite the fact that they’ve been looking into it for at least the past five years … raises questions for me,” the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Project Director Brenda McPhail told the Star.
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hawki · Jun 3, 2019

"Facial recognition used to monitor high-risk hospital patients

Facial-recognition technology has been deployed by Japanese scientists to monitor patients in hospital who are prone to high-risk behaviour and detect when they have carried out a dangerous action, such as accidentally removing their breathing tube....

'Using images we had taken of a patient’s face and eyes, we were able to train computer systems to recognize high-risk arm movement', said Dr Akane Sato, who led the research.

'We were surprised about the high degree of accuracy that we achieved, which shows that this new technology has the potential to be a useful tool for improving patient safety and is the first step for a smart ICU [intensive care unit] which is planned in our hospital.'..."

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/ar...-used-to-monitor-high-risk-hospital-patients/

guest · Jun 4, 2019

Watchdog says FBI has access to about 640M photographs
June 4, 2019
https://apnews.com/6f45d569c3084c5ca823ced145de8f82

A government watchdog says the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs — including from driver’s licenses, passports and mugshots — that can be searched using facial recognition technology.
The figure reflects how the technology is becoming an increasingly powerful law enforcement tool, but is also stirring fears about the potential for authorities to intrude on the lives of Americans.

Kimberly Del Greco, a deputy assistant director at the FBI, said the bureau has strict policies for using facial recognition. She said it is used only when there is an active FBI investigation or an assessment, which can precede a formal investigation.

“Lawmakers must put the brakes on law enforcement use of this technology until Congress decides what, if any, use cases are permissible,” said Neema Singh Guliani, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union.
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Krusty · Jun 4, 2019

Facial recognition quietly switched on at Queensland stadiums, sparking privacy concerns

Stadiums Queensland has admitted to trialling facial recognition software on sports fans and concertgoers, prompting questions by the state's Privacy Commissioner about its quiet implementation.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06...y-switched-on-at-queensland-stadiums/11178334

The move means patrons are being monitored in real time, with their biometric data potentially being stored and shared with other agencies such as state and federal police.

While Stadiums Queensland (SQ) venues display privacy warnings about the use of CCTV, there is no signage suggesting facial recognition technology is in operation.

It makes Queensland the third state behind New South Wales and Victoria to trial the mass surveillance technology at its major stadiums.
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ronjor · Jun 6, 2019

Microsoft discreetly wiped its massive facial recognition database
MS Celeb contained more than 10 million images.
Rachel England, @rachel_england 06 June 2019

The database was originally published in 2016, described by Microsoft as the largest publicly available facial recognition data set in the world, and used to train facial recognition systems by global tech firms and military researchers. The people whose photos appear in the set were not asked for consent, but as the individuals were considered celebrities (hence the set's name), the images were pulled from the internet under a Creative Commons license.
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guest · Jun 7, 2019

City of Perth rolls out new facial recognition CCTV cameras, but is it surveillance by stealth?
June 8, 2019
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06...-new-facial-recognition-cctv-cameras/11147780

The technology was recently rolled out on the west and east coasts with little, if any, consultation with the public the government plans to watch.
Legal experts now say the public must be engaged in a debate about whether they want this powerful technology and how it could affect them in their day-to-day lives.
Extent of facial recognition technology use unclear
Mr High said the cameras would be monitored at its surveillance centre and activated by the council's community safety officers and a WA Police officer.

She said the City of Perth's CCTV cameras were used for investigations, prosecutions, enforcing laws and monitoring safety issues identified by either police or the authority.
If the trial is successful, the technology could be rolled out to all 480 CCTV cameras in the City of Perth's network.
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guest · Jun 10, 2019

Vuzix smart glasses get automatic facial recognition designed for law enforcement
June 10, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/10/v...ial-recognition-designed-for-law-enforcement/

This is one of those ‘I’m not surprised but I am slightly terrified’ moments in tech development: Enterprise smart glasses company Vuzix announced Monday that it has developed new “fully autonomous” face recognition software in partnership with software developer NNTC.

The new solution will work with Vuzix’s Blade smart glasses, which debuted at CES earlier this year and are positioned as both an enterprise and a consumer product. t’s called iFalcon Face Control Mobile, which is a mouthful, and it’s billed as an “AI-powered” solution that promises local matching against a database stored on-device on a wearable computer that pairs with headset.
It’s intended to be used with set databases, and is ideal for “law enforcement and security guards on patrol,” according to a press release detailing the news.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that this means it’s going to be relatively circumscribed and specific in its usage: Basically it works best when you know who you’re looking for, and that means suspects or known offenders, and potentially missing people.
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The Verge: Facial recognition smart glasses could make public surveillance discreet and ubiquitous

dogbite · Jun 11, 2019

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says photos of travelers into and out of the country were recently taken in a data breach

Source:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr...ken-in-a-data-breach/?&utm_term=.77caeb57d7cd

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Monday that photos of travelers had been compromised as part of a “malicious cyberattack,” raising concerns over how federal officials’ expanding surveillance efforts could imperil Americans’ privacy. Customs officials said in a statement Monday that the images, which included photos of people’s faces and license plates, had been compromised as part of an attack on a federal subcontractor. CBP makes extensive use of cameras and video recordings at airports and land border crossings, where images of vehicles are captured. Those images are used as part of a growing agency facial-recognition program designed to track the identity of people entering and exiting the U.S. CBP says airport operations were not affected by the breach, but declined to say how many people might have had their images stolen. CBP processes more than a million passengers and pedestrians crossing the U.S. border on an average day, including more than 690,000 incoming land travelers. A CBP statement said the agency learned of the breach on May 31 and that none of the image data had been identified “on the Dark Web or Internet.” But reporters at The Register, a British technology news site, reported late last month that a large haul of breached data from the firm Perceptics was being offered as a free download on the dark web. CBP would not say which subcontractor was involved. But a Microsoft Word document of CBP’s public statement, sent Monday to Washington Post reporters, included the name “Perceptics” in the title: “CBP Perceptics Public Statement.” Perceptics representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. CBP spokeswoman Jackie Wren said she was “unable to confirm” if Perceptics was the source of the breach. One U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to lack of authorization to discuss the breach, said it was being described inside CBP as a “major incident.” The official said Perceptics was attempting to use the data to refine its algorithms to match license plates with the faces of a car’s occupants, which the official said was outside of CBP’s sanctioned use. The official said data from travelers crossing the Canadian border were also included. The breach raised alarms in Congress, where lawmakers have questioned whether the government’s expanded surveillance measures could threaten constitutional rights and open millions of innocent people to identity theft. “If the government collects sensitive information about Americans, it is responsible for protecting it — and that’s just as true if it contracts with a private company,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement to The Post. “Anyone whose information was compromised should be notified by Customs, and the government needs to explain exactly how it intends to prevent this kind of breach from happening in the future.” Wyden said the theft of the data should alarm anyone who has advocated expanded surveillance powers for the government. “These vast troves of Americans’ personal information are a ripe target for attackers,” he said. Civil rights and privacy advocates also called the theft of the information a sign that the government’s growing database of identifying imagery had become an alluring target for hackers and cybercriminals. “This breach comes just as CBP seeks to expand its massive face recognition apparatus and collection of sensitive information from travelers, including license plate information and social media identifiers,” said Neema Singh Guliani, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. "This incident further underscores the need to put the brakes on these efforts and for Congress to investigate the agency’s data practices. The best way to avoid breaches of sensitive personal data is not to collect and retain it in the first place.” CBP said copies of “license plate images and traveler images collected by CBP” had been transferred to the subcontractor’s company network, violating the agency’s security and privacy rules. The subcontractor’s network was then attacked and breached. No CBP systems were compromised, the agency said. It’s unclear whether passport or facial-recognition photos were included in the breach. Perceptics and other companies offer automated license-plate-reading devices that federal officials can use to track a vehicle, or its owner, as it travels on public roads. Immigration agents have used such databases to track down people who may be in the country illegally. Police agencies have also used the data to look for potential criminal suspects. Perceptics, based in Tennessee, has championed its technology as a key part of keeping the border secure. "You want technology that generates data you can trust and delivers it when and where you need it most,” a marketing website says. The company also said recently that it had installed license-plate readers at 43 U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint lanes across Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, saying they offered border guards “superior images with the highest license plate read rate accuracy in North America.” The federal government, as well as the group of private contractors it works with, has access to a swelling database of people's cars and faces, which it says is necessary to enhance security and enforce border laws. The FBI has access to more than 640 million photos, including from passports and driver’s licenses, that it can scan with facial-recognition systems while conducting criminal investigations, a representative for the Government Accountability Office told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform at a hearing last week. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he intended to hold hearings next month on Homeland Security's use of biometric information. “Government use of biometric and personal identifiable information can be valuable tools only if utilized properly. Unfortunately, this is the second major privacy breach at DHS this year,” Thompson said, referring to a separate breach in which more than 2 million U.S. disaster survivors had their information revealed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "We must ensure we are not expanding the use of biometrics at the expense of the privacy of the American public. "
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ronjor · Jun 11, 2019

Amazon’s facial recognition boss wants the feds to hurry up with regulation

By Jason Del Rey@DelRey Jun 10, 2019
Otherwise, AWS CEO Andy Jassy said, “you’ll have 50 different laws in 50 different states.”
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Minimalist · Jun 19, 2019

Opinion lines form over facial recognition at airports

Facial recognition – the ability for a computer to break down a photo into a series of digital points and match this against a database – is a hot topic around the in the America, China, and even privacy-sensitive Europe. It’s an open question how much people are accept this technology — or if they will even be given a choice about it.

Apart from China, where facial recognition software is used by the government to keep taps on ethnic minorities in some regions or in the US, where some New York apartments are trying to replace keys with this technology, the question is still out there – will this make my life quicker and more convenient?
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https://blog.avira.com/opinion-lines-form-over-facial-recognition-at-airports/

guest · Jun 23, 2019

mood said: ↑

Delta’s fully biometric terminal is the first in the US
Use your face instead of your passport
September 27, 2018
https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/27/delta-fully-biometric-terminal-airport-facial-recognition-US/
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Facial Recognition Coming To Delta Gates At MSP
June 20, 2019
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/06/20/facial-recognition-delta-msp/

Delta Air Lines announced it will give passengers who fly out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport the option to use facial recognition to board their flight instead of a standard boarding pass.

The way it works is gate agents use facial scans for boarding passengers so that they don’t need to manually compare their faces and their passport photos. They can skip to using the facial technology.
Delta says the process saves about two seconds per passenger or about nine minutes for a plane with 270 people.

“I am a Delta flyer but I think it would be great for anyone. I know there’s a lot of worry and nervousness about identity theft but … it doesn’t concern me. Times are changing and we’ve got to change with it,” Jennifer Baysinger, of Otsego, said.
Salt Lake City is another location being added to Delta’s facial recognition upgrades.
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hawki · Jun 27, 2019

"A Major Police Body Cam Company Just Banned Facial Recognition

Its ethics board says the technology is not reliable enough to justify using.

Axon, the company that supplies 47 out of the 69 largest police agencies in the United States with body cameras and software, announced Thursday that it will ban the use of facial recognition systems on its devices."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/opinion/police-cam-facial-recognition.html

ronjor · Jun 27, 2019

A Second U.S. City Has Banned Facial Recognition

by Caroline Haskins Jun 27 2019
Somerville, which neighbors Cambridge, Massachusetts, just joined San Francisco in banning the use of facial recognition.
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guest · Jun 28, 2019

Watchdog slams 'chaotic' use of facial recognition tech by Brit cops
June 28, 2019
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquire...s-brit-cops-chaotic-use-of-facial-recognition

Blighty's biometrics commissioner Paul Wiles sounded the alarms about the "chaotic" way in which police forces have been using facial recognition.
In his annual report [PDF], Wiles also voiced concern over the lack of clear rules for government use of biometric databases, which poses "clear risks of abuse" and risks to civil liberties.

In the UK, the Metropolitan Police and South Wales Police have already trialled facial recognition at public events, including the Champions League Final at Cardiff's Millenniums Stadium and the Notting Hill Carnival in London. However, both forces have been challenged in court regarding the use of technology.
According to Wiles, police deployment of facial recognition ran ahead of the law. In the absence of a legal framework, it has been left to the police to determine whether the public benefit outweighs the "significant intrusion into an individual's privacy".
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Minimalist · Jul 2, 2019

I Opted Out of Facial Recognition at the Airport—It Wasn't Easy

The announcement came as we began to board. Last month, I was at Detroit’s Metro Airport for a connecting flight to Southeast Asia. I listened as a Delta Air Lines staff member informed passengers that the boarding process would use facial recognition instead of passport scanners.
As a privacy-conscious person, I was uncomfortable boarding this way. I also knew I could opt-out. Presumably, most of my fellow fliers did not: I didn't hear a single announcement alerting passengers how to avoid the face scanners.
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https://www.wired.com/story/opt-out-of-facial-recognition-at-the-airport/

guest · Jul 3, 2019

Met Police's facial recognition tech has 81% error rate, independent report says
July 3, 2019
https://news.sky.com/story/met-poli...1-error-rate-independent-report-says-11755941

Researchers found that the controversial system is 81% inaccurate - meaning that, in the vast majority of cases, it flagged up faces to police when they were not on a wanted list.

The report, exclusively revealed by Sky News and The Guardian, raises "significant concerns" about Scotland Yard's use of the technology, and calls for the facial recognition programme to be halted.
Professor Pete Fussey and Dr Daragh Murray evaluated the technology's accuracy at six of the 10 police trials.

The Met did make an effort to notify passers-by about their trials by putting out signs and tweeting about the event.
But the researchers observed "significant shortcomings" in this process - and said this created difficulty in gaining meaningful consent. [...] "Treating LFR camera avoidance as suspicious behaviour undermines the premise of informed consent.
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guest · Jul 5, 2019

Facial recognition in China 'spot on', say Metropolitan Police Federation
July 5, 2019
https://news.sky.com/story/facial-r...n-say-metropolitan-police-federation-11757577

Ken Marsh, who is chairman of the Metropolitan Police staff association, said he believed the "fantastic" technology could be used to catch criminals and terrorists.
He said: "Facial recognition, if it was pointed in certain areas in London on a 24-hour basis, could pick these individuals up… if we could have stopped that I'm all for this."

In response, David Davis MP said Mr Marsh had "swallowed Chinese propaganda".
He told Sky News: "Mr Marsh needs to check his facts before he tries to write policy. Independent analysis showed facial recognition was wrong four out of five times.

"This chilling endorsement of Chinese mass surveillance, from one of Britain's most prominent police representatives, serves as a pressing warning against police making policy decisions that affect public freedoms in this country," Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, told Sky News.
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guest · Jul 9, 2019

ICO neuters UK police use of facial recognition technology
July 9, 2019
https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legi...k-police-use-of-facial-recognition-technology

Live facial recognition (LFR) deployments by police forces across the UK have been dealt a blow after the UK data regulator confirmed its use falls under the umbrella of data protection.

The data regulator has advised police forces using facial recognition to carry out a full data protection impact assessment (DPIA), which must then be subsequently updated for each deployment. This is due to the sensitive nature of the processing, the volume of people affected, and the intrusion that can arise.

"We understand the purpose is to catch criminals," the Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said in a blog post. "But these trials also represent the widespread processing of biometric data of thousands of people as they go about their daily lives.

"But there remain significant privacy and data protection issues that must be addressed, and I remain deeply concerned about the rollout of this technology."
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ICO: Blog: Live facial recognition technology - data protection law applies

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