Germany Tests Facial-Recognition Surveillance On 300 Citizens (dw.com) 86
An anonymous reader quotes DW:
Earlier this year, with no shortage of publicity, Berlin police found volunteers to participate in a test of a prototype facial-recognition system at Sudkreuz station. The system seeks to match images of people on CCTV cameras with pictures of the volunteers in a test database. Volunteers also wear transponders providing information about their whereabouts. Comparing the two sets of data will give a good indication of whether the technology is of any use.
Another DW article reports the six-month test is attracting criticism: Germany's interior minister is pleased with the initial results, but critics are wary of increased surveillance... The 300 testers who volunteered for the project carry a transponder that apparently only transmits data on ambient temperature, battery status and signal strength, according to the project staff member in the Sudkreuz station control room who explained the technology to [German Interior Minister Thomas] de Maiziere. But [activist Paul] Gerstenkorn contends the angle and acceleration of the testers are recorded as well... For German Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Vosshoff, the fact that active and not passive technology is being used is going too far. Unlike a passive chip, the transponder constantly transmits information that anyone can collect with the help of freeware available on the internet.
Vosshoff says the police have not "sufficiently" informed the testers, and called for the project to be temporarily halted...The interior minister has vehemently defended the project, saying the technology is not being used to catch petty criminals such as shoplifters, but terrorists and serious offenders. Four weeks into the test phase, De Maiziere has praised its "surprising accuracy" - specifically referring to people recognized by the software whose pictures are already stored in police databases. According to Germany's federal police force, pictures of all other passers-by captured by the surveillance cameras are "immediately deleted." After the six-month trial phase in Berlin, a decision will be made on whether automatic facial recognition will be implemented nationwide in Germany's train stations and other public spaces.
Another DW article reports the six-month test is attracting criticism: Germany's interior minister is pleased with the initial results, but critics are wary of increased surveillance... The 300 testers who volunteered for the project carry a transponder that apparently only transmits data on ambient temperature, battery status and signal strength, according to the project staff member in the Sudkreuz station control room who explained the technology to [German Interior Minister Thomas] de Maiziere. But [activist Paul] Gerstenkorn contends the angle and acceleration of the testers are recorded as well... For German Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Vosshoff, the fact that active and not passive technology is being used is going too far. Unlike a passive chip, the transponder constantly transmits information that anyone can collect with the help of freeware available on the internet.
Vosshoff says the police have not "sufficiently" informed the testers, and called for the project to be temporarily halted...The interior minister has vehemently defended the project, saying the technology is not being used to catch petty criminals such as shoplifters, but terrorists and serious offenders. Four weeks into the test phase, De Maiziere has praised its "surprising accuracy" - specifically referring to people recognized by the software whose pictures are already stored in police databases. According to Germany's federal police force, pictures of all other passers-by captured by the surveillance cameras are "immediately deleted." After the six-month trial phase in Berlin, a decision will be made on whether automatic facial recognition will be implemented nationwide in Germany's train stations and other public spaces.
Maybe these 300 people... (Score:1)
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But you're a nazi.
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I, google have the entire chatlog of your existence on the internet, and in two occasions in 2009 and 2012, you misgendered someone, which makes you a nazi.
And in account to that, i am isolating you from every service and calling the special social justice enforcers to send you to our reeducation camp.
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Re: Maybe these 300 people... (Score:2)
Yes. Thousands fled through the inner-German border and the state was finally brought to an end through a mostly peacful revolution.
Oh, that wasn't the German surveillance state you where talking about? Well, it was the most recent.
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In effect, yes. 300 people that significantly contribute to the erosion of freedom.
In actual reality, I think they are just stupid and naive.
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The tracking device is only for the testing, to have correspond information. The aim is to figure out where you are through ubiquitous cameras. Sure, the current generation will hate it, but humans get used to things and with enough repetition come to accept almost anything as normal. The next generation will not be bothered so much. And the one after that? "Well, it's always been this way."
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What's that got to do with what I said? Start your own thread.
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Sounds great (Score:2)
The most likely purpose... (Score:4, Interesting)
...will be to identify and track political activists and democratic protesters. I bet we'll see a substantial uptick in arrests and harrassment after political rallies and protests once this is rolled out.
We already know who are the real criminals (Score:1)
Regardless of what their laws say:
Our leaders.
Just throw up their pictures and decide it's free hunting season and the situation can be dealt with.
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Indeed. There is zero chance this will not be heavily abused. It will contribute significantly to the creation of the 3rd surveillance state on German ground though. You would think that they have learned their lesson after the second one, but no, obviously the same evil scum as before has managed again to get into power and is being cheered on by the population.
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Hitler was voted into office, neatly negating your argument. (Yes, he had only about 35% of the votes, but that gave him strongest faction.)
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[Hitler] had only about 35% of the votes
That is not so bad. French president Macron scored much lower in France's first round of presidential election.
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Indeed. And given the fractured state of the party-landscape back then, 35% was excellent. And so the catastrophe began...
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David Hasselhoff will be forever exempt. (Score:2)
We all know the first directive will be Don't Hassel the Hoff. ;)
Zu Befehl!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Obergruppenfuhrer Merkel wasn't happy with the way tattoos on the forearm worked out last time so now it's facial recognition.
Answer (Score:1)
Speak up. Teach the rest of us. Make clear it'll create a world in which you don't want to live or raise children.
Speak up. Have your friends and family speak up. Speak up again. Teach your neighbours why it's important and have them speak up also. Keep on speaking up. Any way you can.
This actually goes for all our technology, but moreso with tech that makes puppets out of us, as this does.
Gestapo panopticon (Score:2)
The machine is always watching.
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"After all, they can't track us with our cellphones all the time,..."
Indeed, and the newest ones have or will have face recognition built-in, so they _know_ it's you and not only somebody knowing your pass-code and they are recording 'only' _metadata_, that's newspeak for 'every step you make'.
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"The question is not whether the technology works."
That's _exactly_ the question they are trying to answer, hence the transponders. So they can know that a volunteer _was_ there even if he wasn't recognized by the camera and they can check _why_.(Funny hat, big glasses, heavy makeup...)
Ditto the other way 'round if they were recognized but weren't actually there.
Small scale experiment. (Score:2)
These algorithms that recognize faces, fingerprints or other "difficult" things are usually just doing binary comparisons: how likely is the subject the one from database-picture 1? 2? 3? There is a number from 0-1 that represents the likelihood of a match.
So when forced to make a decision, you take the one with the highest number, provided that numbers is larger than say 0.5 or 0.8 or whatever threshold you choose. These things work just fine with 100 or 300 subjects in the database, but once you actually
Re: Small scale experiment. (Score:2)
Yes. I wish had points. I can't stand slashdot interface on a mobile. The only way to read your comment was to lower the filter to +1.
It's as if developers have never heard of collapsible elements
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"That's when the reliability goes down enormously. False positives: I see subject X while that person is not in the database at all, or I see subject X when it's actually subject Y who is in the database as well."
That's why they have another database with the metadata of the cellphones of everybody. If it goes long enough, they will be able to recognize terrorists without any phone in their pockets, because the system will get better and better.
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National flag (Score:3)
ofcourse not (Score:1)
it's not getting out of hand, it IS out of hand, and they blame europe but europe is to blame for trying to carry too much in