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The Unblinking Eye 349

Posted by michael from the telescreen dept.
McAdder writes: "The LA Times is running an article about how Tampa police scanned the faces of BowlGoers as they passed through the turnstyles, and compared the images to images of people with criminal history. I wonder if they'd frisk me if I wore one of those Nixon masks ;>" It seems the story first appeared in the St. Petersburg Times.
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The Unblinking Eye More

The Unblinking Eye

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  • That's right. Unless your name is Archibald Buttle, you've got nothing to worry about.

  • No, I want software of this type suggesting to the cops that they haul in criminal suspects.

    Odds are good that you bear at least a passing resemblance to a criminal suspect somewhere. You haven't lived until you've been stopped by a cop who's "sure" you are wanted for something.

  • hat is all very nice. but you have conveniently ignored my question. therefore i will ask it again, and i will continue to ask it until you answer .. what rights do you surrender by walking through a metal detector?? other than the right to carry a gun into an airport or government office and murder several people, people with children and families, people who are only "guilty" of the crime of having a job with the government. gee, instead of walking straight in, i take a half-second detour through a rectangle and say hi to the guard. it's 1984, i tell you!

    Last time I went through a metal detector at a government building (for a meeting w/ their IT staff), I ended up turning out both pockets into a little basket and having my zipper scanned by a hand geld detector. I was not able to take my small pen knife in with me (a really handy item that used to be carried by nearly every male over age 8 in the US).

    Other than the inconvieniance and hassle, I had two thoughts: "If they'd quit screwing everyone over and wasting tax money, they wouldn't have to be so afraid of retribution" and "Do I need a pass if I want to go to the bathroom?".

    So, it's a little more involved than walking through a rectangle and saying hi to the guard.

    In the mean while If I had wanted to take a weapon in, I would have chosen an ABS plastic dagger. Just as lethal, but not all that useful for stripping insulation or slicing an apple.

  • However, security has been increased as a result of PROVEN terrorist activities, as it should be.

    Which act of domestic terrorism inspired the draconian security checks at the airport? Which one has caused them to add new restrictions and precautions every single year?

  • Fundamentally, this equipment doesn't change anything. It does make it a lot easier for the police to scan a large crowd for "familiar faces", but that's not really any different than having a bunch of officers with binoculars do the same thing "by hand".

    By making it easier and cheaper, it will be done a lot more often than with cops w/ binoculars, and will lead to more mistaken identity arrests.

    I have heard of several cases of mistaken identity causing trouble (and in some cases terror) for citizens and their families, I have never heard of even a simple apology after the error is realized.

  • Here in the UK, this sort of face scanning software has been used for some time.

    Yep, the first trial in the UK was in Stratford in East London [apc.org] (where I used to live). Sure, it was a crime-ridden area, but I still wasn't happy about it.

    Its just a question of trusting the authoriteies. If they abuse this power, unlikely, you can just vote them out.

    There's the problem. I don't trust the authorities, and neither should you. While I'm not as extreme as the conspiracy theorists, I certainly don't feel any authority I have yet encountered has done anything to earn my trust. Mostly that's due to incompetence rather than malice, but the fact remains that they're untrustworthy. The other point, that you don't seem to have considered, is how you expect to find out that they're abusing their power -- if you don't know, you'll never know they need voting out. I'm certain that systems like these are installed with the best of intentions, but I'd be extremely surprised if those running it didn't abuse it in one way or another.

  • >The news media made quite a stir a while back
    >about the alarmingly high percentage of NFL
    >players with criminal records.

    Now just how high is the percentage? How do we know that it's higher than the general population?

    My bullshit detector is going off here. This reminds me of the supposed Kennedy Family Curse (TM) that makes that family predisposed to death by tragic means. The problem with the "curse" is that when you actually count up who dies of what, there's nothing abnormal about the numbers. Our perception of the situation is affected by how things are reported. Two brothers murdered by firearms, one guy killed on a ski slope, one in an airplane crash. I can bet you that a bunch of Kennedys have died in their sleep, but nobody can remember those. 4 tragic deaths in a family of probably hundreds of people is not unusual. Similarly, you mentioned three crimes, commited by three people. How many NFL players are there? I don't follow football, but it seems like there are a lot. Hundreds? Thousands? I would feel safer around a bunch of NFL football players than I would at a seminar for day traders. At least I know that the NFL guys aren't going to shoot me for my money.

  • Take this scenario: The software confuses you with some violent criminal. The police think you're dangerous and knock you senseless and lock you up.

    That is no more likely to happen with this system than without it. I'm intimately acquainted with this scenario, my father spent some time at gunpoint over just such a misunderstanding.

    In the 1950s, with no digital technology involved.

    If there had been, he wouldn't have ended up having the problem, because he didn't look that much like the guy in question.

    I reject the notion that this technology will increase false positives. I think it will do the opposite.

    -
  • Not everything that makes a policeman's job easier is automatically a violation of our civil rights.

    When they got semi-automatics instead of revolvers, that wasn't a violation of our rights.

    When they got cars instead of horses, that wasn't a violation of our rights.

    Hell, when they got polyester/cotton blend uniforms instead of straight cotton, that wasn't a violation of our rights.

    I'm all for paranoia against the man, but we only damage the cause when we get knee-jerk stupid about it.

    It would be perfectly legal for them to sit there and look at you as you pass. It would be perfectly legal for them to do so over a camera.

    It would be perfectly legal for them to hire people for minimum wage, have them memorize pictures of wanted criminals, and then have them sit there and call a cop if they think they see one.

    That's all this software does, and it does it cheaper than people.

    This power can't be abused any more than the power to stand there and look at faces, and it's *LESS* intimidating (and thus causes less of an economic hit from people who are creeped out by cops deciding to stay home.)

    If it causes a few violent assholes to stop going to football games, well, I can't seem to shed a tear over that.

    -
  • > He was protesting segregation, "Jim Crow" laws

    Segregation that was enforced by the gov't. Jim Crow *laws*.
  • Protesting the gov't is not the same as overthrowing the gov't. He most certainly was protesting the gov't. It was the gov't that wrote and enforced the laws. His cause was greater than discrimination of the gov't, but he was absolutely protesting the gov't.

    Here's a hint: March on *Washington*.
  • Sorry for not posting the link earlier. I thought this was pretty widely known, and it certainly should be. Here's a book that covers the topic pretty well. The web page even quotes the letter that an FBI agent sent to King: The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. by David J. Garrow [wwnorton.com].
  • Tell that to Martin Luther King, Jr. He worked to protest the government in power and was trying to unseat them by peaceful and lawful means. However, those in power liked being in power and didn't care for his activities.
    MLK was not protesting the gov't, and definitely not trying to unseat it. He was protesting segregation, "Jim Crow" laws, and other forms of racial discrimination.
  • According todays LA Times.
    Lots of misses and false matches.
  • The head-in-the-sand crowd has decided that going after people who commit serious crimes nearly 8 times more than the rest of the population [usdoj.gov] is somehow politically incorrect. Under the totally idiotic name of "racial profiling", police have been chastised for actually keeping tabs on people who commit crimes and focusing greater attention on them (traffic stops, etc) than the population at large.

    Is it any suprise that the police, denied the opportunity to perform law enforcement through simple logic, are stepping up to the bat with whatever they think might work? The next time your sense of liberal outrage is activated when you hear "racial profiling" on the news, remember what it really means that the cops are losing their ability to do what cops do the low tech way, through common sense and are instead having to barcode all of us.
  • This is absolutly what it is. This type of system is not equivalent to police officers looking around and seeing if they notice anyone whose poster is up at the post office. Rather, it is akin to stopping 100% of the people entering the stadium, asking for identification, and then checking to see if they have any outstanding warrents.

    Such a blanket, warrentless, and unprovoked intrusion would not stand up to judicial scrutiny if it was conducted the old fasioned way. I don't see how it suddenly becomes okay just because it can be done without the subjects knowledge. By this logic, it's OK search everybodies house as long as you don't waste any of the victim's time in doing so.
  • It's not the fact that they're doing something like this, it's the fact that they decided that telling the attendees that it was happening that bothers me. TELL ME UP FRONT that you're filming me, and for what reason. Even then, it might make me rethink attending. Why do they need to take MY picture, and run a criminal history check on it? The very thought of it would make me feel suspected of committing a crime. Personally, I'd like to see a full, public audit done by a respectable firm to make sure ALL pictures taken by the police are destroyed; hardcopy burned, drives zapped, etc. Even better a signed Affidavit of Probable Cause by the officer taking the picture, and the entire incident video-taped, with my full knowledge of when, where and how it's being done. The best solution from a freedom and Constitutional perspective would be a warrant for survelliance for each individual that is photographed and run through the mill. This system sounds as if it was put into place because the NFL and the government belived that the patrons were criminals, and could be there to commit crimes. This was not set up to be a security measure, but a law-enforcement measure.

    The above is MY opinion. I make no claim that it is fact, other than I believe it is fact. The following quote is not mine, but Benjamin Franklins, and I fully agree with it.

    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

    As stated in the article, you can't expect to walk around in public, much less a major event such as the Super Bowl, and not have your picture taken. However, you should not have to worry about the cops taking pictures of you and "seeing if you look like a criminal."

    --
  • I would be pretty certain at an event such as that, that the area would be under surveillance. I would expect it. However, surveillance does not mean that they take my picture, then try to determine if I look like a criminal. Basically, it's putting me in a criminal line-up, without my knowledge. The article stated that this was done in secret, with the attendees not knowing about it until after the fact. The fact that it was kept secret makes me suspect that it had very little to do with surveillance or stopping crime, and more to do with gathering data on people, law-abiding or not.

    Ask yourself this, "Do I want to be scrutinized wherever I go to see if I bear any resemblance to a criminal? Do I want to be an unwilling, unknowing participant in a criminal lineup at each public affair I attend? Does having an unwarranted, lacking even probable cause, FBI/police/$LawEnforcementEntity wiretap/surveillance tracking my actions at any or all places outside my door make me uncomfortable? I know I am not a criminal, so have no fear that I'll be identified as such, so I think it's OK for the FBI/police/$LawEnforcementEntity to treat me like a criminal?"

    Be honest with yourself, and remember that what happened at the Super Bowl is just another step in a process that has been going on for a long time, and will keep going on for a long time. What seems fairly minor now, and possibly even a good idea to some now, is another step towards the future George Orwell painted so terrifyingly all those many years ago.

    --
  • That being said, your overall point about "choice" in American politics is legitimate: we got to choose between the son of a former president and the son of a former senator

    ...and a former basketball player(Bradley), a Veitnam Vet (McCain), a former Republican (Pat), a short religious quack (Gary Baur), a magazine publisher (Forbes), a former head of the Red Cross (Elizabeth Dole) and an environmentalist on an ego trip (Nader). Am I forgetting anybody....oh yeah, Alan Keys, another Rebublican hopefull.

    Thats TEN choices, not two. Maybe more if I missed a few more GOP canidates.

    And thats not even counting the 250+ independant party canidates nationwide.

    perhaps justifying Nader's observation that there were no real differences between the two.

    How. Bush hasn't even been in office for two weeks, but you say with a straight face that a Gore administration would be no different?
  • Let's see how long it takes before someone proposes legislation making it illegal to wear a mask in public.
  • First let me qualify this with this statement: I am not your stereotypical slashdotter. I will read my copy of SI before Linux Mag. I watch a lot more ESPN than Sci-fi/Comedy Central/Cartoon Network. And I absolutely love football, nothing better in the world.

    That said, I agree with your point that the NFL shouldn't be villified. And I will be the first to point out NFL players who have done great things for society for every player you can mention with legal trouble. What I won't do is defend those players who have had run-ins with the law.

    Ray Lewis did something wrong, when they find two dead peoples' blood in your vehicle, generally you did something very wrong. Your average 20-something black man who was in that situation would currently be serving time. Rick Reilly (last page of SI) had a very good story regarding this in the last issue.

    If you've seen any of the Chmura trial, it's really sickening. I'm guessing that the jury is going to find him guilty, because his defense lawyer is probably one of the most offensive people I've seen. What Chmura did was wrong. You don't have sex with your 17 year old babysitter in your buddies bathroom, whether your enticed, drunk, high, or just stupid.

    Sure, NFL players aren't the only ones to commit these kind of crimes, but that's not an excuse. Sure you don't want to hear about it, because these guys are heros to you. But... I think it serves a purpose. Sure you'll get the morons who say "those guys are all criminals" because the spot on the news they saw, but I don't give a rats ass about them. What I hope, is these players will start holding themselves to a higher standard. A standard that they should hold themselves to, because they are special people to quite a few folks.

    Ever since OJ we've been able to doubt our heros, and the only way to get that trust back is to change. What Green Bay did with Chmura was great. Zero-Tolerance is what we need. Ray Lewis shouldn't play ball, definately not while he's on probation. I garuntee he wouldn't be playing for Green Bay. If more clubs took that policy football would be better off.
  • I used to live in Tampa, and one night me and some friends went ut to a techno club, only to have the club be raided as a 'fire inspection'. They kicked everyone out, and started randomly searching people. On the way out the door we had to pause and look at a video camera that some cop was using to tape us, then walk a gauntlet of rather rude and beligerant cops yelling at us 'young druggies'. Oh, how I loved the tampa PD after that one.
  • I watch a lot more ESPN than Sci-fi/Comedy Central/Cartoon Network. And I absolutely love football, nothing better in the world

    Hey, you're on the wrong slash-based site [ssportss.net]. And we even posted this story before /. did (but well after plastic [plastic.com]).

    --
  • I would really love to see the software that is capable of determining that I am breaking into a car rather than, say, wiping birdshit off the windshield before entering it. This makes the facial recognition thing look like ELIZA for the TRS-80 by comparison.

    The program probably can't distinguish between those two things, which is why it simply alerts a _human operator_. I'll be worried when the computer determines someone is breaking into a car, fires a stun gun at him, collects his body, puts it in prison, and releases it 6 months later without human interaction.

  • This is like saying "I can murder you, if you're standing in my house."

    Oh, geez. Yeah, that's right; taking somebody's picture on your property is roughly equivalent to murdering them. That makes perfect sense. I guess if you believe that the government should forcibly prevent private property owners from owning surveillance equipment to protect their own property, that's your own business. We must agree to disagree.
  • Here's how to counter facial recognition (or most any other biometric tech, for that matter)...
    • GET CLONED.
    Then make it well known that there are more than one of you running around. (Most helpful if this is done right at the time of your birth, so have someone plan ahead.) This way, all of you are approximately the same age -- that'll make it harder for The Man to get you Down.

    The problem is that this assumes at least one of the yous is destined for a life of crime -- that, or you all are... each providing an alibi for the other.


    Ah, but isn't this science stuff fun?

  • Maybe they were looking for black people who actually got to vote. You know just so it doesn't happen again.
  • It's the same difference between one website watching their access logs, and doubleclick using technology to tie access logs together around the 'net. It gives the particular organization unprecedented power to track you in ways that are hard to stay away from, no matter if the trackers are doing thing ethically/legally/unethically/illegally.
    --
  • That happened in the twin cities less than a week ago. Club bust(due to lack of permits), and we all got to go, but withour IDs photocopied first.
  • <i>Now if they started using it to track where people went, then I'd have a problem!"</i><br><br>

    You mean like cookies on the internet? Give them time.
  • Okay, could we be any more biased. Do you realize how many players there are in the NFL? Do you know how many of them have criminal records? Then how about we stop generalizing.

    The percentage of NFL players currently in legal trouble is not that far removed from that stats from society as a whole. It SEEMS like more NFL players are in trouble cause every time one of them gets in trouble it is front page news.

    If every time a random person got in legal trouble they ran an article in the paper it would take several fleets of trucks to carry around the newspaper. Just cause the NFL players problems are more visible doesn't make them more wrong or more abundant.

    Ray Lewis specifically, well, he messed up. Unfortunately so did the police. He DID NOT murder anyone. He wasn't even an accomplice to murder. The police TRIED to make an example of him and see how well it worked.

    As for Mark Chmura, the 17-year-old most likely teased him into bed so she could change her mind afterwords and get rich. He shouldn't have done it, but it's not all his fault. He's not the only one to ever fall into that trap. Non-NFL players do it too.

    In any group like this its the odd balls who generate the stereotypes cause they are more memorable. All NFL players are not criminals. Not even most of them. Not even 5% of them. But yeah, a few are. So are a few other people in America so stop vilifying the NFL.

    Justin Dubs
  • How many of the /.ers reading this are planning on writing their (Congressbeing|MP|*) and taking a stand against this sort of crap?

    Put up or shut up.

    <Humor>
    Of course, if we could find a very dedicated set of twins, we could have a great deal of fun: one twin does something horrible, and the other twin tries to get busted by this system...
    </Humor>
  • If it's probable that we can't stop the technology from being used, perhaps we should insist on transparency - if they're going to be using the system to keep track of us, then WE (the citizens) should be able to use the system too - to tag & track "rogue" law enforcers (the people "in charge" who don't seem to be treating us too well...)
  • This clearly has to be for anti-terrorist purposes, especially given a high-profile event like the Superbowl--so they catch a check-bouncer or a carjacker--big deal. Ever since Black Sunday and on through Clancy's Sum of all Fears, I've been amazed that we've made it this long without some kind of terrorist act at a major sporting event.

    At the risk of being a little paranoid or reading too much into the story, it wouldn't surprise me if this isn't something being encouraged by the feds (and perhaps a not-so-subtle reminder to terrorist groups) as America flexing it's anti-terrorist muscles.

    Does anyone know if they use this on a large scale in U.S. Customs, or in airports? I'm sure the much bigger risk is in foreign terrorists slipping across the border undetected, but this could close off one avenue (except for the guy who's not in the system to begin with).
  • Now just how high is the percentage? How do we know that it's higher than the general population? My bullshit detector is going off here....
    I'm sure that you realize that I'm not the first person to suggest that criminal conduct among NFL players is a problem. A good article on the subject appeared on APBOnline.com [apbonline.com] on January 25th, 2000. Let me quote the first paragraph:
    When the Tennessee Titans and St. Louis Rams take the field for Super Bowl XXXIV on Sunday, a wide receiver convicted of drug charges will line up against a convicted girlfriend-beating cornerback.

    There will also be a convicted thief playing running back, a prostitute's john in the defensive backfield, a drunken driver on the field and a man convicted of negligent homicide patrolling at linebacker.

    Note: This article ran in 2000, not 2001--it ran several days before Ray Lewis and his two friends "were involved" in killing two men.

    The article then goes on to raise a provocative point: according to how they interpret the numbers, the fact that 21% of the players in last year's Super Bowl had criminal records meant that they had fewer cons than society as a whole. The article goes on to refer to compare "arrest rates" from several studies with the percentage of convicts on NFL teams--and draws the completely fallacious conclusion that NFL teams have fewer hoods than most 'hoods.

    The article is wrong. The writer is comparing arrest rates with the percentage of players with criminal records. That's a false comparison--the arrest rate compares the total number of arrests with the population. If you have a small group of people getting arrested all the time, you'll see a high arrest rate.

    (Example: a town of 500 people with 4 jerks. Each gets arrested for being drunk and disorderly every Friday and Saturday night of the year (taking two weekends off to go get arrested someplace else, just to keep the math simple). That's 400 arrests in the town, and 500 people--an 80% arrest rate. But the percentage of criminals in the town (assuming no other criminal activity) is actually less than 1%.)

    The writer cites studies that compare the rate of criminal activity among NFL players with the rate of criminal activity in the community as a whole. Again, it is a poor comparison, for two reasons. First, any NFL player is well-to-do, by any standard--the league minimum salary is better than $80,000 per year. Second, it is no secret that the rules for the rich and famous are different than they are for the rest of us. There's no better example than Ray Lewis: two men publicly "diss" three men. All five meet up outside. The two men are murdered, and all kinds of evidence (including their blood) ends up in the limousine of the three attackers. Yet nobody is convicted of the crime--the most notable of the killers pleads to negligence, and the other two walk.

    11 percent of the players in the 2000 Super Bowl had criminal records. According to Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play In the NFL [amazon.com] 21% of NFL players in the 1996-97 season had been indicted or convicted of a felony. That's not the arrest rate, mind you--that's the percentage of players with felony rap sheets.

  • how about this. i have been stoped at every single metal detector i have been through in the last 3 years, be it my steel toe boots or wallet chain. despite this i have never attempted to shoot anyone. I really am bother when security guards have to run that stupid little wand all over til they find the toes of my boots or some change i forgot about, or even sometimes i just have lots of zippers. and on top of that all you needed to do until recently to get a gun on a plane was get a fake FBI badge and lie to the security guards and they would let you through. this doesnt make me paranoid, it makes my Annoyed.

    and with a pres like this [cnn.com] i am getting more scared everyday.

  • You do *not* own your image. You have no legal expectation of privacy in public, meaning anything you do can be photographed and used by, for example, a photographer who wants to put a picture of you sittin on a park bench at just the perfect angle and weather to make it look artistic, in his new book. There is nothing illegal about that.

    You can, however, sue him for various reasons if he does this, which is why he'll probably ask you to sign a no-fee miodeling contract that prevents him from being sued for any reason. Possible reasons for suing him include emotional distress for having your picture appear in a book containing other images which are offensive, etc., but not just publishing the photo. Also, the photo cannot be used in an ad, suggesting that you endorse the product. It also cannot be published along with your phone number or address without your permission, because since you are not a public person this is an unwarranted invasion of your privacy and it also causes emotional distress.

    However, you have no legal righht over your image. You're just wrong on that issue. If you disagree, I suggest you consult any introductory text about photography that has a section about legal issues. It will confirm what I have said.

    So, why was the video of the clothed young girls illegal? Because it focused on the genital areas, it was child pornography. Case law in the U.S. has clearly established that clothed images of children can still be considered child pornography, if the intent of the photographer was lascivious, as demonstrated by focusing on the genitals or posing the models in suggestive ways.People have been arrested and successfully convicted of producing child pornography for all of the following: taking video or stills of minors at the beach, focusing on genital areas and suggestive poses; taking clothed images of minors modeling who have been instructed by the photographer to pose in suggestive ways; taking pictures of minors wearing suggestive adult lingerie; taking candid images and video of high school cheerleaders focusing on genital areas; taking candid video of minors in changing rooms, even if they only strip to underwear; concealing cameras in locations to view up the skirts of minors.

    So, the photos in question were illegal because they were child pornography in the U.S., not because of any property rights the girls had over their images. If the videos had not focused on the genitals, but had just been videos of little girls playing at the beach, they would have been perfectly legal to distribute and sell because they would not have been child pornography. That's all, folks...

  • Since my submission got in to late I thought I'd pass on the links I mentioned and some pull quotes from my site. http://www.PrivacyDigest.com/

    St. Petersburg Times - Tampabay: Cameras scanned fans for criminals [sptimes.com]. Super Bowl fans had their privacy invaded by the technology, critics say. Law officials cite security.

    Is the new surveillance system the latest twist on Big Brother? Face-matching surveillance already is well established at more than 70 casinos. But the system's biggest opportunities lie in more benign functions: Identifying customers at ATMs or participants in welfare programs, and screening people who want to enter secure workplace areas.

    At Raymond James Stadium, surveillance system cameras were focused only on people entering at turnstiles. No cameras were used inside to pan the fans inside. But cameras did sweep the crowds at the NFL Experience, indicating the growing reach of database systems to try and match faces even in large groups.

    At UCLA, professor Borgman questioned the technical ability of a system to identify individual faces so quickly.

    "If these surveillance systems spread, there may be a considerable margin of error in determining the identity of people who get snagged," she said. "And that is a big price to pay for your civil rights."

    VIISAGE Press Release - GRAPHCO TECHNOLOGIES, INC. Provides Surveillance for Raymond James Stadium to Identify Known Suspects, Deter Crime [viisage.com]. On January 28th, Criminals No Longer Another Face in the Tampa Stadium Crowd

    The FaceTrac(TM) core facial recognition technology provides the ability to locate faces, to build 'face print' templates and to recognize matches to images stored in a database. When integrated with G-TEC's law enforcement database, FaceTrac(TM) allows rapid search, comparison and identification of suspect facial photos within the database. FaceTrac(TM) may be used for surveillance with multiple locations networked to a high capacity site, for analysis and system-search results. G-TEC installed FaceTrac(TM) at the Raymond James Stadium as a single site system, integrated with a custom designed database and search result notifications for tracking faces in a crowd and monitoring access to secure areas.

    "Washington Post" - Police Video Cameras Taped Football Fans [washingtonpost.com]. Super Bowl Surveillance Stirs Debate

    The system used for the Super Bowl project, first reported yesterday by the St. Petersburg Times, was lent by companies seeking to market the technology to law enforcement agencies. Tampa police accepted the free use of the system as an experiment and worked with local and national police agencies to manage it during the week of the game, said Durkin.

    Dave Watkins, managing director of Graphco Technologies Inc., said the event gave the company a chance to learn how the software would perform, which camera angles were most effective and how the lenses of the 20 video cameras should be focused in a public place.

    "Newsbytes" - At Tampa's Turnstiles, Crowd Wasn't Faceless [newsbytes.com].

    The American Civil Liberties Union("ACLU") opposes the involuntary capture of biometric details, such as face-recognition data, DNA and retina scans. The organization, in its list of "Privacy Principles," considers the fingerprinting of convicted criminals a worthy exception.

    "We are quickly moving to the point where law enforcement and the private sector will be able to identify us no matter where we go, no matter how anonymous we think we are," said Barry Steinhardt, the ACLU's associate director. "Not only is it going to rob us of our anonymity, but it's going to be used as a tool of law enforcement to round up 'the usual suspects' and to hassle people on the streets."

    The practice is almost certainly legal, but it is in an emerging area of the law that has not been fully tested in court, said Harvard Law School professor Bill Stuntz.

    "The Register (UK)" - Feds use biometrics against Super Bowl fans [theregister.co.uk].

    Super Bowl 2001 fans were secretly treated to a mass, biometric scan in which video cameras tied to a temporary law-enforcement command centre digitised their faces and compared them against photographic lists of known malefactors.

    Everyone entering Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida last Sunday was subjected to the surveillance system cameras, set up at the entrance turnstiles. No notice or disclosure was ever given, and no one, therefore, had an opportunity to decline to enter the stadium if they should have objected to this unprecedented treatment.

    [ ... ]

    "The Company's face-recognition technology is unique because of its capabilities of both rapid and accurate real-time acquisition as well as its scalability to databases containing millions of faces. Therefore, the software can instantly calculate an individual's eigenface from either live video or a still digital image, and then search a database of millions in only a few seconds in order to find similar or matching images."

    'Similar or matching.' This clearly acknowledges the possibility that innocent civilians going about their peaceable business may be stopped, hassled, even arrested, merely for resembling someone naughty. This raises sticky issues regarding the presumption of innocence many of us were encouraged to believe in during our grammar-school civics lessons. Is there a violation of this principle when a person is required to produce evidence that they are not, in fact, the evil bastard whom they unfortunately resemble?

    "LA Times" - Secret Cameras Scanned Crowd at Super Bowl for Criminals [latimes.com]. Surveillance: Faces were cross-checked by new technology in bid to catch terrorists, other suspects. Privacy concerns are raised.

    Unknown to the 100,000 people who passed through the turnstiles at Sunday's Super Bowl, hidden cameras scanned each of their faces and compared the portraits with photos of terrorists and known criminals of every stripe.

    In a command post at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., the digitized images of fans and workers were cross-checked against files of local police, the "FBI" and state agencies at the rate of a million images a minute.

    The cameras identified 19 people with criminal histories, none of them of a "significant" nature, Tampa authorities said. But the undisclosed first test of the technology at a major U.S. sporting event raised arguments about privacy versus security and questions about the future of such spying and its uses.

    "Oh my God, it's yet another nail in the coffin of personal liberty," said Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technical officer of "Counterpane" Internet Security Inc., a security monitoring company.

    "It's another manifestation of a surveillance society, which says we're going to watch you all the time just in case you might do something wrong," said Schneier, whose book "Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World" warned of the increasing encroachment on civil liberties in high-tech society.

    [ ... ]

    Other applications are expected to include ATM machines and public events such as the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

  • And yet his point is that innocent people were subjected to the scan. If someone had a warrant on them, then a strip search is no big deal. But to strip search 100,000 people looking for a possible terrorist is a big deal. Being scanned is less intrusive. This makes it better or more vile?

    You must be kidding. Being scanned is not just "less intrusive than a strip search". It is completely non-intrusive. There is no comparison between being stripped or even frisked and having you image recorded in a public place. In fact, stadiums routinely film spectators at sporting events, so anyone with a phobia of cameras has no business being there in the first place.

    No one has given a convincing argument that having your image observed, analysed or watched remotely in a public place where you have no reasonable expectation of privacy is a violation of any of your rights. Most of the paranoids on /. depend on either the assumption that this tech will automatically be used in other, worse ways (funny, when the government tries to oppose tech on its worst case usage, we mock them here, now don't we?) or that a computer positive will result in brainless autonomons hurling you to the ground and beating you right there, without any human cross check, or they simply make baseless comparisons to truely violating expereinces and hope the rest of us are dumb enough to buy it.

    Stay at home and order all your food from the internet if you want to be that paranoid, but this ain't Big Brother by a long shot.

    Kahuna Burger

  • Not sure why this was moderated as `troll`? I guess a few florida voters clicked on the wrong value, eh?

    Its interesting but true that its hard to get the police to take a crime any more seriously when its been recorded. A friend had a bike stolen, from right under a camera (this is in the uk), went to the police, and had to argue for ages to get them to look at the tape.

    So....what are they there for, then?
  • >Use your heads. A little less paranoia would go a long way.

    Wrong. Once the possibilities exist, they will be used. Connect automatic face recognition with the array of surveillance cameras installed in many cities, and you get complete control. Who was where exactly when.

    In your funny little example, substitute the quote "BOSS: Is this a picture of you entering Super Bowl XXXV?" with "BOSS: Is this a picture of you entering a gay bar?". Suddenly the "Get the fuck out of my office" seems quite possible.
    Sure, even now someone my be hired to photograph you, but with face recognition there is _always_ someone watching you. And one photo is much less impressive than "You have been there 40 times in the last two months".

    Currently you have freedom. Freedom to do things your boss may not like, freedom to do things your friends may not like. Automatic face recognition takes another bit of this freedom away.

    "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    -- Benjamin Franklin

  • I'd love to have mod points for this one.
  • It has no need to be perfect, or even functional. All they have to do is get info about where a criminal will be at a certain time, and then claim that this device recognized them. Everyone claps politely, goes back to business.

    What do you have then? A dummy device that vastly extends police powers to stop, arrest, search, detain, and question anyone they like, all because a computer supposedly told them to do so.

    The cops aren't at all stupid, and have come up with yet another way to hasten our descent into a police state. Hurrah. &ltsigh&gt.
  • Here in the UK, this sort of face scanning software has been used for some time

    OK, so your system "works." Crime is down, which is good.
    But how does it feel to have Big Brother constantly watching over you?
    I sure as hell wouldn't like that, especially since I'm no criminal.

    ---
    Check in...OK! Check out...OK!
  • Faces are not fingerprints, people! Is a similarity of face probable cause to stop someone?

    Gee, you're absolutely correct. Police should be required to get a fingerprint or DNA sample of a suspect, and compare it to their database, before they stop him. No, wait ... that probably wouldn't work too well.

    The 'racial profiling' thing doesn't have anything to do with this. It's a problem because it involves harassing people without any evidence. On the other hand, having a face that looks just like a criminal is evidence enough to warrant stopping someone.

    I'm sure that the positive matches are run by a human, to check that they really do look very similar. Therefore, the number of false identifications should really be no higher than it is without this technology. Don't just assume that, because it has the potential to be powerful, that it will necessarily be evil.

  • Too bad that was just the NFL players. Xiadix

  • Cops are not bad people, usually. A job that gives power like that, it does tend to attract losers, but on the whole cops are decent people.

    Not that they'll treat you decently much of the time. I admit that. I have my own stories, like many people. And I am still a cop supporter.

    I know cops. They rapidly get desensitized to all the awful things they see. It's a defense mechanism. If they didn't get that way, they'd go crazy with worry and stress. That goes for the bad guys and the average Joe Citizens they meet on the job. Stick to the rules. No discussion. No analysis. Do the job. Survive. From a citizen's point of view, it sucks. But look at it from their side -- it's the only way they can stay effective in their job AND stay sane.

    Cops also have a very strong clique mentality. Ever been on a ridealong, or hung out with cops? It's a whole 'nother world. Suddenly, you are on the INSIDE of this giant, powerful machine. Even as a hanger-on, on your ride-along, you start to look at "civilians" a little differently. Like they are a little lower on the food chain. It's undeniably COOL when you get to wear the ballistic armor with "POLICE" on it as you walk around with your cop friend, looking for some scumbag, and people passing you on the street say, "excuse me, Officer." Weird feeling. I can see how one would get to like it.

    Power is intoxicating, and then when your whole day is spent dealing with the worst society has to offer, it is hard to spare any enthusiasm for the good people you meet on the job. Civilians are the things you interact with to perform your job. Some are bad people. Others are just... less bad.

    My best advice for dealing with cops is just COMPLY. When a cop interacts with you, there is some transaction he wants to get done -- getting information, ticketing you, arresting you, whatever. Your actions won't change his goals, except maybe for whining your way out of a speeding ticket. So be polite. Be cooperative. Let the cop get his transaction done, and he will leave you alone. There are courts to sort things out afterwards. That isn't the cop's job.

  • Even if the Waco folks started the fire (which is REALLY debatable) everything up to that point was a debacle, compliments of the Feds.

    All they had to do was pick up Koresh when he was by himself running errands in town. Which he did frequently. Everyone in the community knew him. Thought he was strange, but not violent. But the Feds decided to, well, make a federal case out of it and send out the thugs.

    There were little kids in that compound, and for weeks the Feds played all sorts of awful noises for psych warfare purposes -- the noise of animals in pain and other such stuff. They cut off the electricity and water. And eventually they started using tanks to knock the building down. If they were really interested in a peaceful solution, they could have tried a lot of different things.

    It didn't have to end that way. It could have been handled differently. And just because someone is an unsavory religious freak doesn't mean it's OK to abuse their rights.

    Citizens should always keep a sharp, critical eye on the actions of their government. Better for us to be a little too critical of the government's actions than a little too lenient, because once things start going to hell, it takes a LONG time for the pendulum to swing back the other way.

    man, I'm destroying my karma tonight! :)

  • I've never had luck arguing against the "what do you have to hide" guys by giving examples of escalation. Invariably, they say, "I still wouldn't care if the state videotaped me and my blowup doll, I'm no criminal, it's worth it to be safe, what do you have to hide, blah blah blah."

    I don't know if those people genuinely FEEL that way, or if they are simply intellectually lazy, and don't feel like thinking the situation (or their own true feelings) through.

    It's always easier to sit on your ass and say you don't care, even if a little bit of you does. People lie to themselves and to others all the time. If we can find a way to overcome this apathy, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, fear is the best antidote, and by the time these type of people are scared it's way too late to do anything about the situation.

  • Ever since OJ we've been able to doubt our heros... Who the heck here considers OJ a hero? I'm 29, and at this ripe old age OJ is still "that football player in The Naked Gun" and "the footbal guy from the car rental commercials." If Shaq knifed someone, I could at least understand why it was the top story every day for over a year. I bet I'm an old fart for the Slashdot crowd... the OJ trial hype was probably TOTALLY incomprehensible for anyone younger than me (it was just "mostly incomprehensible" to me). Are there a lot of teenagers here who always looked up to OJ? I'd be surprised.
  • if that face scanning software would mistaken me for every other asian male.....cause, you know, we all look alike, right?
  • Little slice are subject to numerous checks and balances

    Like the DMCA was?

  • They are going to install them in the bathroom stalls at said stadium to catch the guy who pees all over the seat of the stall, or hits the floor instead of the urinal.

    *Shrug* WTF do I know?

    E.
    www.randomdrivel.com [randomdrivel.com] -- All that is NOT fit to link to
  • This link [newscientist.com] to an old story on New Scientist is somewhat relevant, on the basis of tracking people. It looks like people can patent ideas they read about in fiction. We might want to get there first.

    Here is a snippet from that article

    Are writers entitled to profit from their novel ideas? Evidently not, if you take the example of US Patent 5 878 155, issued on 2 March to a certain Thomas Heeter of Houston, Texas. It covers a scheme for writing invisible symbols on people that can be used to verify their identity when they use credit or debit cards.

    The idea is a bit odd, and the patent's citation of an episode of the X-Files TV series in which aliens etched bar codes on the teeth of human abductees is even odder. But what really caught my eye was that Heeter's patent comes very close to an idea I suggested--not at all seriously--in a science-fiction story titled The Number of the Beast that was published in 1994.

    I thought my story should trump his patent. It was published in June 1994, more than two years before Heeter filed his application on 5 September 1996. Publication of an idea more than a year before a patent filing makes it "prior art", which voids applications under the American patent system. However, when I called the US Patent and Trademark Office, I found that this only works for nonfiction. Science fiction is a different matter. A patent examiner said the patent must describe some way of building the invention. Patents on wrist radios are being issued today although comic-strip hero Dick Tracy wore one over 40 years ago, because the technology wasn't available earlier.

    I would be more annoyed if my idea had been serious. But that twist of patent law still isn't fair. Fictional inventions take real skill and some prove truly prescient. Besides, patent royalties would be a welcome supplement to the paltry pay that goes with science-fiction writing.

  • That's all this software does, and it does it cheaper than people.*

    Yes, it may be 'cheaper'. But you fundamentally changing the way the system works. In one instance you have people (cops or their designates) who are asked to monitor a public space and look for Bad Guys(TM). In the other case you have an automated system, programmed to act to its best ability, to 'assume' that a person is a member of the Bad Guy Group(TM).

    What happens in the latter case is you remove objectivity, you remove the idea that a person is 'entitled to due process, compassion, assumption of innocence (etc etc) that only *people* can administer. When a program has the ability to make an accusation, without it being tempered by the above, or the *responsibility* that comes with being able to make this accusation we are treading into new territory.

    Scenario: Bad-Guy-o-Tron-2000(TM) spots a member of the Bad Guy Group in seat A12. Police remove, detain, harass, bother, interact (whatever) with Person A12. When the police realize that they dont -in fact- have a Bad Guy(TM) what is this innocent citizen's recourse? What ability does this person have to assure it doesnt happen in future? What you have done is enable the Police to detain, remove, harass, bother, interact with someone on the basis of a computer's accusation. The police no longer have to have 'reasonable suspicion' (tempered by human judgment & responsibility (given based on the police's assumption of reward and consequence)).

    People have the 'human right' to *NOT* be harassed, to be presumed innocent. This type of system removes that 'right'.

    *And: Community principles should not be compromised based on cost. That's fucking ridiculous.
  • Ask anyone who has attended a protest what the police are like. I am a responsible, educated, citizen (if i do say so myself)- who happens to also have some *very* 'liberal' ideals.(some people consider them Communist - which I would accept). I generally abhor the the ruling classes (for many reasons) - so I am pretty biased.But I am also capable of some objectivity. When I attended a protest in my home town - the police turned the city into a war zone. The protesters proposed to 'shut down the conference' this *may* appear to be a 'violent' behaviour ( i would disagree, it is mostly a matter of generating attention & demanding the right to participate in democratic functions (when the ruling class would not care to 'offer it to you') but thats another story)...

    It is not a crime to protest. It is not a crime to be angry, 'contrary' and rude. During the 5 days that my city was hosting this event I *PERSONALLY* watched police violently harass, bother, follow, track, disrupt and assault other citizens. When the police have been 'empowered' to act in this way, with no recourse or responsibility in *MY* presence I understand the concerns of yourself and others.

    The POLICE are *NOT* 'your friends' as long as you dont act contrary to their handlers. If you somehow hold opinions that are contrary to those held by the ruling class you will quickly find that the police are quite capable, willing, and able to harass you. Face logging/identifying systems will only be used responsibly if *YOU* are not on the 'shit list'. Otherwise they can and will be used to harass you. Trust that.

    Now, do I think these systems are inherently evil? No. Its that our 'democracies' (Canada & US) have slowly been corrupted. There is no balance. When the 'authorities' use their positions to justify the 'fortification' of their ideals - and deploy tools which may aid them in maintaining the status-quo (whatever it may be) we fall out of balance. No 'side' should have the ability to act over the other (the 'ruling class' over the 'people'). I would simply propose that something be done to assure balance: If the 'authorities' use these devices people must consent to them. Meaning: If you refuse to be tracked - its your right... my proposal may not be 'workable' but I think everyone gets 'my point'.

    The idea is balance. In western democracy the judiciary is supposed to temper the control of the government and maintain balanced based on ideals (Charter of Rights and Freedoms & US Constitution). These ideals are not 'set in stone' by those documents - but the ideas must be upheld - and must have more authority and power.

    Im beginning to ramble...

  • BOSS: Is this a picture of you entering Super Bowl XXXV?
    YOU: (hanging head in shame) Yes.
    BOSS: Get the fuck out of my office.
    Your right - this kind of crazy shit will never affect your *job prospects* or *ability to work as a member of a productive business vernture* so why the fuck would anyone care... eheheheh silly us for thinking about liberty, freedom to determine our personal destiny and our futures heheheh eheheh. As long as it dont stop us from 'getting paid our due' why would we care.... heeheheh

  • If you would deny property owners the right to protect their property by imposing draconian limitations about what they can and cannot do on their own property

    This is not a property rights issue - they may request that people with warrents *not* attend there functions - they do not 'have the rights' to _assume_ responsible citizens would not care if they are being tracked.

    I personally feel this is terrific - maybe actions like these attached to a 'super-bowl' event will excite the Average Joe Yankee into waking up a bit about the direction of his country.

    We can safely bet Average Joe Yankee hasnt't heard of the DMCA, General Erosion of Privacy, DeCSS Case or the problems with IP/USPTO... you can bet that he *WILL* hear about this. What will be interesting to see is what spin Big Media(TM) puts on this issue, and how long it lingers. Will Average Joe Consumotron Yankee look up from his McBlouandals McMonkeyBurger long enough to ask himself what brought him there..? and why there are cameras tracking the 'comings' & 'goings' of everyone - and to what purpose..?

  • Your example about that tank detector just sounds like they messed up the training, so that failure is not a problem of neural nets in general. I think proper training and design could lead to good results
    But that's the problem - it's very difficult to tell if a neural network is correctly trained because there is always the possibility that every input you've trained it on (and tested it with) coincidentally had some feature in common other than the one you're actually looking for.

    The tank story is quite possibly an urban legend but it does illustrate the problem.

  • In response to other replies to my post: Fight against the technology being used for things that are a violation of your privacy, but don't fight against the systems current use. Sound fair?

    The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...
  • "I'd gladly give up a minor freedom if it would help catch criminals."

    Pray tell, precisely what freedom (minor or major) are you giving up by the use of this system?

  • To quote George Carlin on the topic of airport security: "The whole thing is fucking pointless... there are no bombs." He goes on to say that the primary motivation appears to be that they want to remind us all that they can fuck with us whenever they want-- as long as we'll put up with it.

    I know he's being funny, but it's funny because it's so truthful. And it brings up an important question, "How is it going to look if _I_ don't put up with it, but everyone else does?"
  • The camera technology gives me the feeling that we are 'Guilty until proven innocent'. Similar to peeing in a dixie cup for a drug test.

    ...not very American.

  • I think Britons, in general, are more trusting of police and our government than Americans. Maybe this is because our police force doesn't carry hand guns, or possibly because of a difference in our cultures.

    American culture is very paranoid. It's whole democracy is based on a paranoid premise. In the 1700's, a group of rebels decided they no longer trusted the British government, and so came about the American Revolution and the United States.

    I was born in England, but live in America and went to high school and university in America. What I have observed is that a lot of Americans are brought up with the story that Britain had a bad and wicked government that had to be overturned. This no doubt had verying levels of accuracy.

    Built on top of this is the Amendment allowing civilians to bear arms. This is based on the premise that government cannot be trusted, and so you should be able to stockpile weapons in case you need to throw another revolution. This is an ingrained thread of American culture. Always be prepared to overthrow the government.

    Unfortunately, this is where the paradox lies. The United States and Britain are representative democracies. We vote for people to represent us in government -- to make decisions on our behalf, to take care of the nitty gritty of governing while we plow the fields and write cracks for the latest video games.

    So, on one hand, American culture says to its politicans "Hey, we trust you to run our civilization", but on the other hand it says "Fuck up and you die". Not only that, but everything a politician does is highly scrutanized -- even aspects of his or her private life that has no bearance on his career.

    America has also followed a different course through modern history. Persecution of ethnics has occured to a greater degree in the States, students were shot for protesting during the Vietnam war, and Rodney King was beaten within an inch of his life by a bunch of LAPD thugs.

    British police and politicans certainly have had their moments, I'm sure, but Americans have reasons to be paranoid of their police and politicians. Some are valid and some are not, but they exist.

    We may speak simular languages, but we are different people.

  • Weylin Piegorsch, turn yourself in immediately to the next law prevention unit.
    At 20010202-07:48 authorities have noticed a deviation from your normal behavior.
    Namely, you took a different path between your apartement and your office as usual.

    By authority of the law prevention act (4, 321a, LPA-20010914), we are authorized to take appropriate measure unless you turn yourself in to the next law prevention unit.

    To protect and to serve, yours truly
    LPU Central

  • By the end of the comment, 'being hassled by police', I can see you haven't often had to actually deal with most of the cops in the US. I think I've run into two, maybe three cops with common sense, the rest just follow their rule books like automatons, oblivious to anything not spelled out in the books [personal example: woman is very VERY upset after a relatively minor, but potentially expensive fender bender {her car had quite a bit of damage, the other person's car was almost untouched}. Said woman is crying, proceeds to actually vomit from nerves. What does the cop do? "You are being cited for following too closely." No sympathy evident AT ALL!]. Sorry, I can't trust humans who don't act like they're human.

    [yes, I know I will be modded into oblivion soon, and possibly flamed, but I had to say it. This 'cops are your friends' bit has been proven dead wrong in practice to me all too often.]

    -={(Astynax)}=-
  • time to pick up some stocks in that cheap sunglass company!
  • Yes, a metal detector at the door would have stopped McVeigh from driving the truck into the garage.

    Damn straight it would have. Would've kept anyone from driving a vehicle made of metal into that garage, by gum.

    Unfortunately, he parked it on the street.

    Why not strip search everyone comming out of a store to protect us from theft? Or making everyone use chopsticks to eat on plane because a fork and knife can be used to kill. What about handcuffing everyone into their seats because some nut might break into the cockpit?

    So explain to me, then, why we even bother asking people not to carry handguns and grenades onto planes. I mean, by your rationale, it's just another stupid means of trying to tell people how they should act and stripping them of their right to do what they want. The obvious answer to society's ills is total and unequivocable trust in every single anonymous individual that ever crosses your path, right? Doing anything else would instantly strip them of their most basic rights, and just ends up being a mindless excercise to keep good people from living free.

    Welcome to life on Planet Earth. If you simply can't accept social pragmatism overriding some degree of your personal freedoms, I strongly advise that you take whatever steps are necessary to fully isolate yourself from society.

    First they ignore you.
    Then they laugh at you.

  • Do you want security or privacy? Shoud have thought of that before the elections, because the republicans are back in power and since this tech concerns two items that the republicans like (security/law enforcement and the economy) personal privacy will be dumped pretty damn quick. This tech will be perceived as a boon for the security/law-enforcement industry as well as [slighly] helping the economy. Imagine if these systems were put to good use; at airports, bording crossings, and various security check-points. The company(ies) putting out these systems would get rich, the law-enforcement industry would get a kick in the ass (after locating all sorts of minor criminals (ticket scalpting is as a bullsh*t charge as resisting arrest (what reasonable U.S. citizen wouldn't) and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution (again, who wouldn't)), and the company(ies) selling the tech would obviously contribute to the political party that helped them squash those irritating privacy right advocates. I'm hopeful that this event was just to test the systems. To see how well the systems handle a heavy load. I'm also hopeful that these systems can be self-regulated (the republicans in power certainly won't interfere). As long as the faces being scanned aren't stored in a database (they should be kept in memory and discarded if a match isn't made), there shouldn't be a problem. Yes, it is the old 'if you aren't a criminal, what the hell are you worried about' arguement. A little paranoia isn't bad, but the level that you (a non-criminal) are worried about a camera taking a quick shot is a bit over the edge. I can somewhat see this point of view, as I disliked being caught on video, but you have to get over it. Just as people get over fear of snakes by handling them, maybe you should get over being camera shy. My advice for that - a trip to Las Vegas, where you will be on video nearly full-time. From the hundreds of cameras on a casino floor to the camera atop the traffic lights, somebody is watching you, taping your every movement. The place made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end for the first month. Then I got used to it; hell I'm not a criminal, what do I have to worry about? Nothing. End of story. As soon as the algorith is tweaked to get the minimum false matches these systems will be all over the place. Until a Gattaca like DNA scanner is built, this is what we will have to put up with. Will this system be a pain to put up with? Initially, yes. Given a few years, no. As long as you keep your nose fairly clean, you have little to worry about (and a quick finger-print scan should take care of any false matches).
    ---
  • And then they put police on the street, and soon they'll be in our homes, watching our every move. Right?

    Forgive my sarcastic paranoia. Let's talk Civics 101 - there are some things a society has to give up (e.g. the ability to be able to perform any action without fear of consequence, complete anonymity) in order to have a society at all. The little slices you're talking about come no where close to 1984. We live (in the United States) in a democratic republic, which means that, by and large, the little slices are subject to numerous checks and balances. Get involved, and have a bit more faith in the system of which you are a significant part.

    (I mentioned 1984 - do I get free karma?)
  • any LAWYAs in the house? I would love to hear their opinions on this. How can we approve something like this, which picks faces out of a crowd according to a few indicators of similarity, when we question the constitutionality of police profiling, in which humans categorize large numbers of people for potential crimes?

    The sociological effects are enormous. People will refuse to go to places because their faces may pop up as criminal. Faces are not fingerprints, people! Is a similarity of face probable cause to stop someone?

    Even if the technology were accurate, it will create an underclass of people who darts around in old buildings, old cities; who are afraid of coming to the public centers of the cities because of something in their past.

    It is dangerous to corner a cat, to remove its freedom of motion. Do we want to corner all of the criminals of society in blind holes, hiding from cameras?

  • My last sentence was about a cornered cat. I am worried about criminals who are in a situation like that cat; they are still "free" but they are so restricted in their movement that they become defensive, organized, and dangerous.

    if there is a reliable video technology in every store, and if the databases and indexes of faces are used proactively as well as after a crime has been committed, I can imagine many groups of citizens that will be living in fear, forcibly isolated from the mainstream of American society and economy.

    To get a job in Puerto Rico, one must present a "certificado de buen conducto" or a certificate of good conduct, which you can only get if you have no arrest record in the state. Not conviction: arrest. This certificate divides the working population into those who have a certificate and can work under protection of the law, and those who do not- and can't find decent work, since all work they are offered is itinerant or under-the-table work.

    The technology will not identify criminals; it will train cameras on the faces of those who merit suspicion. Poor people and people of color are likely to be especially targeted.

  • after all, it's for the public good, right?
    No, it's for the children!!!

    --

  • Re:Where will it stop? (Score:3)

    by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @12:28PM (#463038)
    This type of automated surveillance system creates both quantitative and qualitative differences from the mere presence of police officers. On the quantitative side, it makes it feasable to place surveillance in literally all public spaces. This is something which is just not going to happen by hiring police officers. There is a difference between knowing that occasionally you might pass a policeman on the street who sees you and knowing that your every public move is being watched.

    This type of system also allows qualitative differences in the types of video surveillance it allows. Sure, right now it is billed as a system which only looks for felons. However, it is a trivial extension to have it watch everybody all the time. Every time you go out in public, the "eyes" will watch your every move. Imagine the benefit to a totalitarian government of having accurate lists of everyone who was within a certain radius of a demonstration or police shooting. Imagine the chilling effect on people knowing that there is no longer safty in numbers. Even if you have a large group of people, you will all be identified and dealt with individually later on.

    Right now, it's pretty easy to act in an "acceptable" manner in public and reduce your chances of being hassled by a cop to almost zero (at least for white people(meaning that minorities are often "profiled" as criminals, not that minorities are incapable of behaving in public). Behaving in public is part of living in a society. However, with this type of surveillance your behavior won't be judged by your fellow citizens. It will be judged by an invisible and anonymous computer system. Your every move will be tracked and compared to statistical norms. Any deviation from normal behavior will flag you as someone worth investigating.

    If you really think that such a system is impossible to abuse, I suggest that you think about it some more. If you really think blanket, invisible, omnipresent surveillance is LESS intimidating than the occasional officer on the beat, I have to wonder what you're smoking.

  • Re:Nothing wrong with it (Score:3)

    by ttyRazor ( 20815 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:42PM (#463039)
    No biometric technology is 100% accurate, and the potential for false positives are not non-existant, especially for something that's working in near-real time from data as complex as imaging of faces of people who aren't looking straight into the camera. It's entirely possible for someone, like say, yourself, to be detained when they register as someone they resemble, and that would suck.

  • How do you "lose your rights" by getting your damn picture taken when you enter a private building of your own volition?

    Sort of like when you lose your soul when your picture's taken.

    -elf

  • Now how to prank 'em (Score:3)

    by Tri0de ( 182282 ) <dpreynld@pacbell.net> on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:04PM (#463041) Journal
    Maybe make some easily removed masks of various wanted criminals. Walk past the cameras nice and slow. Discard mask. Repeat. Give the good officers a serious hard on to think that 8 of the 10 most wanted were in there...somewhere....
  • I'm usually against anything like this, but I can't really find anything wrong with this. The people who run the place have said OK, and it's not violating anybody's rights because they are only trying to find people with outstanding warrants and arrest them immediately. Now if they started using it to track where people went, then I'd have a problem!

    The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...

  • Re:Been done here for ages, and it works. (Score:3)

    by bwalling ( 195998 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:42PM (#463043) Homepage
    Do you think our democracy "worked" as you describe for the folks of darker complexion who were discouraged from voting in Florida by police checkpoints near the polls, or the ones who were unceremoniously dumped from the rolls because a database (built by a company closely allied with one and only one of our two major political parties) said they were felons?

    Terrible shit is happening all around you! Whatever shall you do? Both of these things are overmanipulated stories that are part of media sensationalism.

    UK, land of the infamous Terrorist Act that allows you to be held without bond and interrogated for, what is it, 7 days

    Umm, we here in the US have this stupid thing call Secret Evidence (tm). The FBI holds people for years without having to disclose the evidence they have against them. Ever hear of a guy named Mazen Al-Najjar? (Sorry I can't find any links to any articles that don't want $$ to show them). He was finally release on bail in December after being held for 3 years, without trial, because of some secret evidence the FBI had against him.

  • yeah? so? (Score:3)

    by t14m4t ( 205907 ) <weylin,piegorsch&gmail,com> on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:18PM (#463044) Homepage
    hmm. let me get this straight. so the big deal is that you are being seen when you are in public.

    so?

    ok, i can understand that there is a Big Brother concern in some people minds that they are being watched by camera, and that this may be stored for long term use. what I don't understand is what people are REALLY getting so concerned about. how is this significantly different than having a still picture of you taken (i.e., with a shutter-action camera) when you are on the street (as has been done for years)? What is so bad about it?

    do NOT invade my home.

    do NOT invade any other parts of my private life.

    But when I'm in public, I'm public. If I don't like it, well, tough shit, because I can't reasonably expect to not be seen when I'm at a football stadium.

    Weylin Piegorsch
    weylin@yahoo.com

  • I like Fascism. Fascism keep me safe and happy. (Score:3)

    by srichman ( 231122 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:48PM (#463045)
    Great quote from the article:

    Oakland Raiders Senior Assistant Bruce Allen agreed with the need.
    "Whatever they want to do to protect this country, I'm for. . . . So anything we can do to help, I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with that."

    Riiiight... "whatever they want to do to protect this country..." Let's just implant microchips in everyone and track their every move. Let's start with Oakland Raiders Senior Assistant Bruce Allen, cuz that quote just scared the hell out of me, and I'd like to know when he comes within 100 miles of me.

  • Re:Been done here for ages, and it works. (Score:3)

    by linuxpimp ( 236963 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:40PM (#463046) Homepage
    Do you think our democracy "worked" as you describe for the folks of darker complexion who were discouraged from voting in Florida by police checkpoints near the polls

    From what I've read, those claims were fairly baseless; the police checkpoint was a mile and a half away from the polls, and was a response to crime committed in the area. That being said, your overall point about "choice" in American politics is legitimate: we got to choose between the son of a former president and the son of a former senator, and for all intents and purposes it was a tie, perhaps justifying Nader's observation that there were no real differences between the two.

  • Conan O'Brien already addressed this (Score:3)

    by cletusthesjyokel ( 243326 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @07:10PM (#463047)
    In his opening monologue he made a joke to the effect of: yeah they didn't actually find any criminals until they pointed the cameras onto the field.

  • Re:Been done here for ages, and it works. (Score:3)

    by leviramsey ( 248057 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @11:30PM (#463048) Journal
    For what it's worth, Hoover was never elected. He was appointed in the 20's, and because he had dirt on all the Presidents (basically up until Gerald Ford) was kept around.

    And, as has been posted earlier, MLK was not trying to unseat the government. He was seeking greater political, economic, and social equality for blacks, not overthrow of the governemnt (or any political office, for that matter...)

  • No different from going out in public anyway (Score:3)

    by mbessey ( 304651 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:17PM (#463049) Homepage Journal
    As pointed out by the law professor quoted in the article, "People have no reasonable expectation that when out in public, they cannot be photographed."

    If you've got a criminal record, don't go somewhere where somebody might recognize you. Duh.

    Now if they started KEEPING all those photographs against a possible future need, that'd be a different thing altogether...

  • Re:Been done here for ages, and it works. (Score:4)

    by Col. Klink (retired) ( 11632 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:31PM (#463050)
    > If they abuse this power, unlikely, you can just vote them out.

    Tell that to Martin Luther King, Jr. He worked to protest the government in power and was trying to unseat them by peaceful and lawful means. However, those in power liked being in power and didn't care for his activities.

    First, they labeled him a Communist (not that a free society can ever "outlaw" something like that). Then they began the investigation. They bugged his phones. They discovered that he was having an affair. They sent him a letter urging him to commit suicide to avoid having this information leaked.

    J. Edgar Hoover was in charge of the FBI at the time. For the most part, Hoover's actions today are considered by the mainstream to be excessive. Nevertheless, the main FBI headquarters are named after him, so I don't know how much "mainstream" thinking pervades the FBI.

    This wasn't the work of a military junta running the country, these were just ordinary, elected Americans. Imagine if someone really unscrupulous were elected.

    The LAPD, until very recently, made a habit of keeping phone taps and files on celebrities. You never know when that might come in handy.

    Nixon used the IRS to harass his opponents. He felt compelled to resign after covering up a break-in of his (mainstream) political opponents headquarters.

    Either through clerical error or massive corruption, the Clinton White House had detailed FBI dosiers on prominent Republicans. And Clinton was never voted out of office. Even after his Attorney General burned to death a religious cult. The accusation alone that the cult leader was molesting children was enough to convince most Americans that Koresh got what he deserved.

    In a democracy, you do NOT give the ruling power the means to destroy any political opposition. While you've removed "crime" by 70%, you've virtually guaranteed that any political opponent can have his every move tracked.

    But at least your property is safe, I guess...

  • Re:Where will it stop? (Score:4)

    by Paul Johnson ( 33553 ) on Friday February 02, 2001 @03:00AM (#463051) Homepage
    The problem is that it becomes more and more invasive. The authorities can watch you in any public place. Originally this meant a policeman could look at someone, say "thats the guy on the wanted poster", and make an arrest. In the future it could mean that whenever you walk in a public place (including private property which the public has access to) then you are identified and your movements logged.

    Which is fine as long as the authorities don't object to anything you do. But maybe one day you want to oppose something. Maybe City Hall is planning a waste incinerator upwind from you, and you suspect that the relationship between the builders and the politicians is a mite closer than it ought to be.

    So you start being a nuisance. You write letters, you get articles in the local press, you organise demonstrations. At some point you become sufficiently annoying that someone decides to take some extra-legal action. A list of your comings and goings for the last few months might be very interesting. Have you been in any bars where drugs get traded, for instance? A few examples, taken out of context, could easily be used to get a search warrant to turn your house upside down. A search of computer data could be tacked on to the end of such a warrant, enabling them to take your computer. And so it goes on.

    The bottom line is: knowledge is power. If you let them have knowledge about you then you let them have power over you. The danger (and it is a very real danger) is that they will abuse this power.

    Paul.

  • Re:Where will it stop? (Score:4)

    by cje ( 33931 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:20PM (#463052) Homepage
    How do you "lose your rights" by getting your damn picture taken when you enter a private building of your own volition? If you wanted to set up a camera to take pictures of people on your property, shouldn't you have the right to do that? If so, then why doesn't that right extend to other property owners?

    If you would deny property owners the right to protect their property by imposing draconian limitations about what they can and cannot do on their own property, I submit that it is you that is infringing on essential liberties, and you that are advocating a dangerous, authoritarian police state.

  • The Transparent Society (Score:4)

    by jitterbug ( 38915 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @11:03PM (#463053)
    The truth is that security cameras and other surveillance technology is ubiquitous and the technology behind them is only going to improve and get as cheap as dirt. The question is, as a society are we going to do about it? Judging from how the discussion has gone so far, i can only shake my head. Lets move the discussion passed, the police surveillance is "good vs evil" stage.

    For those who believe that having the police check every ones face as they enter the gate at the Super Bowl is a good thing, are you naive? How do you know that your not? I'm sure they kept the camera's secret because It would creep people out to know that they were being scanned against known criminals, yet they did it anyway. How do you know that they are just looking out for your interests, what did they do they deserve this level of trust from you? This is a very powerful tool in the hands of the police that can be used for both good or ill. What's to prevent them from betraying this trust in the future?

    For those who are apposed to this kind of Technology, lets get past the 1984 analogies. Let me remind you that, You don't need technology to create a very chilling authoritarian state, and technology only played a minor role in the book. For better or worse the technology exists and fortunately the picture of the future for most of us is not a "boot stomping on a human face". In fact surveillance can act in reverse, making the police much less likely to beat someone if they believe that they themselves are being
    watched. Watching the watchers watch may one key to preventing the abuse of this technology.

    Someone who has put a great deal of thought on the matter is David Brin, and I'm quite surprised that is lucid thoughts on this matter has not yet come up in this thread. This short piece [wirednews.com] in Wired and this Discussion [lycos.com] are a good place places start. From what I can tell, many of you have not been exposed to these ideas yet. I put these in the "must read" category.

    Enjoy.

  • Question: (Score:4)

    by cybercuzco ( 100904 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:58PM (#463054) Homepage Journal
    Have you ever noticed that the Unblinking eye is alot like crossing the desert? -H. Simpson And now, the paddling of the buttocks....

  • Hey! Wait a minute.... (Score:4)

    by John Murdoch ( 102085 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:51PM (#463055) Homepage Journal
    At Raymond James Stadium, surveillance system cameras were focused only on people entering at turnstiles. No cameras were used inside to pan the fans inside.

    They spent who knows how many bucks to install cameras, high-speed data lines, a control center, and links to municipal, state, and federal databases of bad guys. And positively identified no known perps.

    Because they were looking in the wrong direction, perhaps?

    The middle linebacker of the Ravens, Ray Lewis, is presently on probation as a result of his plea bargain in two homicides a year ago. The news media made quite a stir a while back about the alarmingly high percentage of NFL players with criminal records. A former receiver for the Carolina Panthers, Rae Carruth, was just convicted of felonies for his involvement in the death of his wife; Mark Chmura, formerly of the Green Bay Packers, is presently on trial for sexually molesting his 17-year-old babysitter.

    Why are the cops looking at the fans?

  • Where will it stop? (Score:4)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:30PM (#463056) Homepage
    The problem with this is not the initial application, but how it progresses.

    We lose our rights by a thousand little slices. Fingerprinting was only for criminals, now we get fingerprinted for drivers licenses. Metal detectors were only for airports and high schools that had riots. Now, it's for any government building.

  • Re:Been done here for ages, and it works. (Score:4)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:36PM (#463057)
    You have to be incurably paranoid to have a problem

    But this is slashdot. 99% of the posters here are incurably paranoid; it's part of the enterance requirements.

    To those who are whining about it: would it be wrong for police to look at pictures of known criminals, and then keep a lookout for them? Of course not; that's essentially what they do all the time. So what's so wrong about having them use technology to do their job better and more effectively? It sometimes seems like slashdotters can't realize that law enforcement is a good thing. We should try to fix its problems rather than try to destroy it at every turn.

  • Ah, but the innocent have nothing to fear.. (Score:4)

    by RiffRafff ( 234408 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @07:02PM (#463058) Homepage
    ...that's what my mother would say. "I'd gladly give up a minor freedom if it would help catch criminals."

    Of course, she's never had her door broken down by cops with the wrong address in the middle of the night, without so much as a semblence of an apology, either.

    She's never had her car confiscated because a pot seed (from her nephew's friend) was found in her vehicle.

    She's never had her boat drilled full of holes because an invited guest's son was being watched by the Coast Guard.

    She's never been stopped and had all of her cash "impounded" because she matched a "profile."

    She's never been questioned because she bought an airline ticket with cash.

    Of course, she's a Republican, too, so your mileage may vary...



  • This technology doesn't work and can't work (Score:4)

    by localroger ( 258128 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:22PM (#463059) Homepage
    I happen to know some members of a card counting team. They are naturally not welcome in many casinos, including some known to use this photo scanning system.

    This technology was originally developed for use with mug shots, which are taken with calibrated camera position and lighting. Maybe they even work under those conditions. The idea is supposedly that they measure features like the distance between your eyes and ratio of that to mutual distance to your mouth which can't be altered by disguise. In fact, though, my friends continue to play relatively unmolested. They have been nailed by this tech a couple of times, but not nailed by it countless other times, even at places known to use it.

    I am also completely unconvinced that this system won't produce errors -- especially when used with photos taken in public space, with uncalibrated lighting and uncontrolled camera angles. There are just too many people in the world and the resolution of the photos is too poor that there won't be some schlep whose nose, eyes, and mouth will all be dimensionally similar enough to mine to cause us to raise each others' alarms.

    I figure this tech will last until the first bona fide innocent tourist is roughed up by cops who are convinced he is a big-time felon, then the Big Brother types will go back to dreaming of tracking us with implants.

    I wonder -- the article says they identified 17 wanted pholx in the crowd. Did they act on this "discovery?" If not, how do we know these 17 lawbreakers were ID'ed accurately? Answer: We don't. If they really thought this was such hot shit they would have demonstrated its utility by making a few arrests, and it would have certainly made this article. But they aren't quite as stupid as they sound. They know it isn't perfect, and I'm betting even the developers know it never will be.

  • Re:What is the difference .. (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01, 2001 @09:03PM (#463060)

    A little less paranoia would go a long way

    Let's see how far it would go...

    POTENTIAL BOSS: I see from your DoubleClick profile that you surf several porn sites. Geekporn.com? Isn't it bad enough that you surf porn, but geek porn? You disgusting pervert. And salon.com as well - a bunch of dangerous free-thinkers, if you ask me. We block them at the firewall.

    YOU: that wasn't me...it was my next door neighbor using my computer...

    BOSS: According to our police check, you have seven speeding tickets - automatically deducted by the drive-through EZ-pass system when it detected that you must have been speeding to go from entrance to exit so quickly. Scofflaw as well! And here's a picture taken from a traffic light that shows you jumping the light. My my.

    YOU: it was only a few miles an hour over the limit...

    BOSS: What about this? Police camera records show that you are often in an area of the city associated with deviant lifestyles.

    YOU: It's near a subway stop I use...I only pass through...honest!

    BOSS: They also show that you had lunch FIVE times last month with a married woman who is not your wife.

    YOU: She's a coworker...

    BOSS: I'm sure. Perhaps we could ask her husband what he thinks of that. Also...I see that your medical record shows that you had a prostate exam five years earlier than is recommended for men. Do you have some sort of problem that we should know about? Also, a genetic test showed a positive marker for early heart-disease. That's too bad - we like our workers healthy.

    YOU: I was merely being cautious, and that gene doesn't mean that I'll GET heart disease...

    BOSS: Whatever. Your credit-card buying records show that you subscribe to Playboy and also take karate lessons. The only thing worse than a pervert is a violent pervert.

    YOU: Karate's just a hobby...

    BOSS: Your credit report is bad as well - you paid 30 days late 3 times in 5 years. That's not the sort of person that we want representing our firm. I've gotten the picture of a lawbreaking, immoral pervert who probably belongs in jail. I'm sorry, you're an untouchable.

    YOU (silently): (maybe I should have been a little more paranoid!)

  • What is the difference .. (Score:5)

    by cje ( 33931 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:54PM (#463061) Homepage
    .. between having cameras taking pictures like this and having dozens of real live policemen standing at the entrance, looking at people "manually?" How, precisely does this constitute an "invasion of privacy" or a "sacrifice of liberty?" Jesus H. Christ, if I'm going to plunk down $2,000 for some ticket up in the shitty nosebleed seats, the very least I can ask for is some assurance that I'm not going to wind up between Hannibal Lecter and Heidi Fleiss. Well, Hannibal Lecter, at least.

    Oh, I suppose there is the possibility that "Big Brother" might take the pictures of you entering the Super Bowl and use them to control your life. Imagine how it might end up wrecking an otherwise-successful job interview:

    BOSS: Well, Ted, I must say that I am very impressed with your skills.

    YOU: Thank you, sir .. that is very kind of you to say.

    BOSS: We'll be in contact. I can't make any guarantees, but in all likelihood we'll be extending you a ridiculously lucrative offer within the next 24 hours. Furthermore ..

    The boss's assistant comes in and gives him a sheet of paper.

    BOSS: Wait just a damned minute, what is this?

    YOU: (shifting uncomfortably in chair)

    BOSS: Is this a picture of you entering Super Bowl XXXV?

    YOU: (hanging head in shame) Yes.

    BOSS: Get the fuck out of my office.
    Use your heads. A little less paranoia would go a long way.

  • Re:Where will it stop? (Score:5)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:58PM (#463062) Homepage
    and what rights do you lose by walking through a metal detector? the right to blow away a couple dozen employees of your hated "gub-mint?" settle down mcveigh-boy. metal detectors are a pain in the ass, but they are a necessary evil and are *not* any sort of loss of rights.
    Yes, a metal detector at the door would have stopped McVeigh from driving the truck into the garage.

    Increased security would have prevented the TWA 880 bombing...ooopps..it was a wiring fault.

    Why not strip search everyone comming out of a store to protect us from theft? Or making everyone use chopsticks to eat on plane because a fork and knife can be used to kill. What about handcuffing everyone into their seats because some nut might break into the cockpit?

    BTW forget the ID checks at airports. If my sister was able to get a fake ID at 16 to go drinking; I think that a terrorist could get one.

  • Re:Been done here for ages, and it works. (Score:5)

    by localroger ( 258128 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:33PM (#463063) Homepage
    Also, the computer can observe peoples behaviour and alert a human operator if one of them is doing something suspicious, such as breaking into a parked car.

    I would really love to see the software that is capable of determining that I am breaking into a car rather than, say, wiping birdshit off the windshield before entering it. This makes the facial recognition thing look like ELIZA for the TRS-80 by comparison.

    Its just a question of trusting the authoriteies. If they abuse this power, unlikely, you can just vote them out. That is what a democracy is for.

    You really should pay more attention to American politics. Do you think our democracy "worked" as you describe for the folks of darker complexion who were discouraged from voting in Florida by police checkpoints near the polls, or the ones who were unceremoniously dumped from the rolls because a database (built by a company closely allied with one and only one of our two major political parties) said they were felons?

    I suppose your city doesn't see it as a major problem if a few people get stopped by the cops and questioned for a few minutes because some computer in a basement fucked up. But if your genes had the bad taste to give you a similar facial profile to some Genuine Bad Dude (tm) so that you got stopped all the time your personal self, I bet your attitude would change quick. Especially in the UK, land of the infamous Terrorist Act that allows you to be held without bond and interrogated for, what is it, 7 days? Yep, I'm sure you wouldn't mind being dragooned every time you entered a new city where you weren't personally known because this shit had become universal, after all, it's for the public good, right?

  • Been done here for ages, and it works. (Score:5)

    by Urban Existentialist ( 307726 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:19PM (#463064) Homepage
    Here in the UK, this sort of face scanning software has been used for some time. In the city of Glasgow, which is about 1 million strong, the entire town centre is saturated with CCTV systems. They have computer systems that can scan the faces of people walking in the street and compare with a national database of wanted people. Also, the computer can observe peoples behaviour and alert a human operator if one of them is doing something suspicious, such as breaking into a parked car.

    Crime in Glasgow city centre has fallen by some 70% since this system was introduced, and the city has become a much safer place to socialise in.

    These types of systems are permeating the UK at an amazing rate, and they are really showing results. As long as they are controlled by the police, and used in a responsible manner according to the law, I really have no problem with it at all. You have to be incurably paranoid to have a problem, I think. Its just a question of trusting the authoriteies. If they abuse this power, unlikely, you can just vote them out. That is what a democracy is for.

    You know exactly what to do-
    Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-

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