Facial Recognition Cameras Peering Into Some SF Nightspots 133
Fluffeh writes "On Friday, a company called SceneTap flipped the on switch enabling cameras installed in around 20 bars to monitor how full the venues are, the mix of men and women, their ages — and to make all this information available live via an iPhone or Android app. Privacy advocates are unimpressed, though, as the only hint that people are being monitored is via tiny stickers on the windows. Beyond academics and policy experts, some San Francisco bar owners that originally partnered with SceneTap have said that they're pulling out and will be taking down the company's cameras. An increasing number of bars still listed on the SceneTap's site are now saying that they're not working with the Chicago startup, including Mr. Smith's, Southpaw, John Colins, and Bar None."
needs moderation system (Score:5, Interesting)
waiting for activists to start police recognition (Score:5, Interesting)
With the reports of undercover officers instigating incidents at protests, I am waiting for the protesting activists to start a facial recognition database of police. In crowd hand held camera's and small toy remotes scanning and feeding images to a central system like this. Already at protests you see both sides scanning both ranks with cameras.
When you can snap a picture of someone with your iPhone and get a "police" or "not police" report - that will cause the *hit to hit the fan about all sorts of things.
How's this different than ID scanners? (Score:2, Interesting)
This seems just like a different manifestation of those ID scanners that some bars have installed, though less obvious to the patrons. Or perhaps they are linking the two systems so that they can tie the image captured by their cameras to the name, address, and date of birth from the scanned ID.
Glad I don't go to bars. :^)
Public webcams (Score:3, Interesting)
Around the world (eg central London) there are cameras covering some public spaces. I would like to see the output of those taxpayer funded cameras on the www. Privacy should be a non issue. Our culture will have to change because privacy in public places has (like copyright) been destroyed by technology.
If you want privacy, rent your own space, put it in a Faraday box and sweep it for bugs.
Otherwise all you do by not making those images public is deprive all but the powerful, the wealthy and the hackers of the information gathered by publicly funded cameras.