Facial Recognition Creeps Up on a JetBlue Passenger (zdnet.com) 246
An anonymous reader shares a report: A boarding technology for travelers using JetBlue is causing controversy due to a social media thread on the airline's use of facial recognition. Last week, traveler MacKenzie Fegan described her experience with the biometric technology in a social media post that got the attention of JetBlue's official account. She began: "I just boarded an international @JetBlue flight. Instead of scanning my boarding pass or handing over my passport, I looked into a camera before being allowed down the jet bridge. Did facial recognition replace boarding passes, unbeknownst to me? Did I consent to this?" JetBlue was ready to offer Twitterized sympathy: "You're able to opt out of this procedure, MacKenzie. Sorry if this made you feel uncomfortable."
But once you start thinking about these things, your thoughts become darker. Fegan wanted to know how JetBlue knew what she looked like. JetBlue explained: "The information is provided by the United States Department of Homeland Security from existing holdings." Fegan wondered by what right a private company suddenly had her bioemtric data. JetBlue insisted it doesn't have access to the data. It's "securely transmitted to the Customs and Border Protection database." Fegan wanted to know how this could have possibly happened so quickly. Could it be that in just a few seconds her biometric data was whipped "securely" around government departments so that she would be allowed on the plane? JetBlue referred her to an article on the subject, which was a touch on the happy-PR side. Fegan was moved, but not positively, by the phrase "there is no pre-registration required."
But once you start thinking about these things, your thoughts become darker. Fegan wanted to know how JetBlue knew what she looked like. JetBlue explained: "The information is provided by the United States Department of Homeland Security from existing holdings." Fegan wondered by what right a private company suddenly had her bioemtric data. JetBlue insisted it doesn't have access to the data. It's "securely transmitted to the Customs and Border Protection database." Fegan wanted to know how this could have possibly happened so quickly. Could it be that in just a few seconds her biometric data was whipped "securely" around government departments so that she would be allowed on the plane? JetBlue referred her to an article on the subject, which was a touch on the happy-PR side. Fegan was moved, but not positively, by the phrase "there is no pre-registration required."
How is this camera any different? (Score:4, Insightful)
You had a camera take picture for your passport.
You had a camera watching you as you drove to the airport. You Cana camera watch you enter the airport. You had a camera watch you go through security, and a camera watch with not a small amount of pity as you tried to eat the airport pizza.
So why is this one other camera a problem? What about this one additional camera has you so creeped out compared to scores of others seeing you everywhere in public?
The fact that it could ID you is easily understood from the passport photo. After all the boarding pass is one last step in a more rigorous process you had to use to even get into the boarding area itself, so it doesn't have to be that secure - heck it's more secure than a boarding pass that you could have dropped by mistake and had someone else use. You aren't going to drop your face, so it is actually a tiny bit better while giving up nothing you didn't already give up long ago.
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not this particular incident that bothers me, it's the implications of it all.
1) It means that the government is storing biometric data on everyone going through airports. This is probably not ephemeral and will be saved forever.
2) It means that Jet Blue and the US Government are in, some way, sharing biometric data about its users.
etc.
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not this particular incident that bothers me, it's the implications of it all.
1) It means that the government is storing biometric data on everyone going through airports. This is probably not ephemeral and will be saved forever.
Uh, yeah. It's called a photo ID. They've been storing that information forever. You have to hand your ID to a TSA agent, who scans it in, before you can even get to the security checkpoint. There are also cameras that take pictures of every passenger who passes through the checkpoint. The 3D scan (unless you opted out) is also saved indefinitely for later review.
If you are flying, you are giving the government biometric data, and you cannot opt out. It's been that way for years now.
2) It means that Jet Blue and the US Government are in, some way, sharing biometric data about its users.
etc.
Again, not really new. This was for an international flight, and for those, you have to have a passport to board. The passport already contains biometric information on it, that's what the smart chip inside it is for. They already have the passenger manifest and a list of all passports, so it's entirely possible they didn't even need to look up anything from the government, they just made sure it found her face on the "expected passengers" list.
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It means that the government is storing biometric data on everyone
If by "biometric data" you mean "a photo" (which is the case for this story), they have been doing this for decades now. If you want to go through airport security you have to present photo ID or face extremely rigorous vetting (I had to do this once, forgot my drivers license). And of course as noted - it's optional. It's giving no-one anything they didn't already have.
It means that Jet Blue and the US Government are in, some way, sharin
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a big difference between "show my driver's license to an agent, who visually identifies me and will forget what I look like 5 seconds after I leave" versus "automated system that will store that data forever".
It's "just a photo" - that's tied to your identity. That automated systems can use to identify you. I make it sound scary because it honestly is. Imagine a world where "to protect the interests of the store", a system that you cannot opt out of, is used to identify "known thieves" in a store, and links back to national databases. Now imagine if you're falsely accused of a crime, and now you're tagged forever in this system and cannot shop anywhere. The setting is different (store vs airport), but, I could definitely foresee this being a future of this technology. It has moral and ethical concerns.
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:4, Insightful)
versus "automated system that will store that data forever".
News flash: your passport photo is stored forever. The fact that you boarded that flight is stored forever, whether or not a new picture is attached to that data.
That horse left the barn so long ago that he's glue on a 1993 postage stamp.
Imagine a world where "to protect the interests of the store", a system that you cannot opt out of, is used to identify "known thieves" in a store, and links back to national databases.
Ok. I'm imagining that. (I don't have to -- it already exists. It's called "loss prevention" for most stores.) I'm really scared.
Now imagine if you're falsely accused of a crime, and now you're tagged forever in this system and cannot shop anywhere.
Why not just imagine that you're falsely accused of a crime and executed on the spot? It's about as realistic. Yes, I can make up absurd stuff, too.
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Newsflash: Not everyone in the US has a passport and most people will likely NEVER NEED ONE.
If you are getting on an international flight you will need and have one. If you are getting on an international flight then the government already has your picture on file, and they keep that picture essentially FOREVER, because YOU gave it to them. It is stupid to whine about them getting your picture from JetBlue when you board an international flight because they already have it. That's the context you have forgotten.
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:4, Informative)
Starting next October, if you get on a domestic flight and you don't have a RealID-approved license, you already need one.
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Newsflash: Not everyone in the US has a passport and most people will likely NEVER NEED ONE.
I struggle to see your point or the relevance to the discussion. In the scenario we are discussing absolutely 100% of people require the document. Guess what I don't live in the USA so I don't need a drivers license from Illinois. Feel free to use me as a reference anytime anyone discusses changes to drivers licenses in Illinois.
You just showed the benefit (Score:2)
Imagine a world where "to protect the interests of the store", a system that you cannot opt out of, is used to identify "known thieves" in a store, and links back to national databases
Pretty sure this already exists.
Now imagine if you're falsely accused of a crime
Then I'd be pretty damn happy a system of cameras was in place to show I was in fact innocent! In fact the more the better.
now you're tagged forever in this system and cannot shop anywhere.
Actions have consequences. You say the danger is in th
The Future? (Score:2)
It's "just a photo" - that's tied to your identity. That automated systems can use to identify you. I make it sound scary because it honestly is. Imagine a world where "to protect the interests of the store", a system that you cannot opt out of, is used to identify "known thieves" in a store, and links back to national databases. Now imagine if you're falsely accused of a crime, and now you're tagged forever in this system and cannot shop anywhere. The setting is different (store vs airport), but, I could definitely foresee this being a future of this technology. It has moral and ethical concerns.
The future? This article from MacRumors, dated today, April 22nd, describes a situation similiar to you described currently occuring in an Apple Store:
Ousmane Bah, an 18-year-old from New York, is suing Apple for $1 billion for false arrest, reports Bloomberg.
According to Bah, Apple's in-store facial recognition software mistakenly linked him to a series of thefts from Apple Stores, leading to his arrest back in November.
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/04/22/student-facial-recognition-false-arrest- [macrumors.com]
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Now imagine if you're falsely accused of a crime, and now you're tagged forever in this system and cannot shop anywhere.
Non-sequitur. Why would being falsely accused tag you forever in a system? You're accused so you get to defend yourself in any western legal system.
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a matter of scale. A human being can reliably recognize maybe a few thousand faces. And probably only if there's some emotional connection to many of them (family, friends, admired or reviled celebrities, particularly good or bad tippers, etc.). That system scales to allowing a business to recognize the worst of recurring problem customers, and even that can be a challenge in a city of millions. As an average not-very-interesting person, you walk into an establishment you don't frequent, and nobody will know who you are.
Computers though have no such limitations, and are typically given access to massive and ever-growing databases. Once your data is in the database, you will be recognized, to within the accuracy of the algorithm, anywhere that employs the technology. (And if it's a central database doing the recognizing, then they can also readily collect a history of everywhere you've been seen).
Now, if we're talking known shoplifters being spotted before they make their first strike at a new store, or violent drunks being recognized as they walk in the door of a new bar, you can argue that's a good thing. But once you have such a system in place, its trivial to exploit it by feeding it bad data. A little discrete tinkering with the database and suddenly political opposition groups are having trouble getting access to meeting venues. Likely opposition voters suddenly can't use public transportation (at least beyond their normal routes where the bus driver likely knows better). A million ways to harass, intimidate, and generally inconvenience people you don't like by proxy, and no evidence to tie it to you - just an unexplained error in the database, at most recognized as the result of some hacking that could have been done by anyone.
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A little discrete tinkering with the database and suddenly political opposition groups are having trouble getting access to meeting venues.
And such a case would quickly hit the media, and would be blow out into a scandal, and the system would correct itself. I don't understand why everyone who comes up with these scenarios presumes some kind of non-regulating system. This isn't Brazil (the movie, not the country). The system itself is quite powerless to persecute you without some major changes to the legal systems that underpin your government.
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A little discrete tinkering with the database and suddenly political opposition groups are having trouble getting access to meeting venues.
And such a case would quickly hit the media, and would be blow out into a scandal, and the system would correct itself.
[techdirt.com] https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com]
I don't recall this being widely reported or ever being "corrected". The scenario only differs in how it was done. It's not fantasy.
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I'm not sure how the slippery-slope argument applies here
It was the crux of the article. Go read it.
It starts out: "There's nothing to worry about." Every time I hear those words, I start worrying. The rest of the article talks about how their use of how the data was handled "securely" often means that it isn't, about consent and a lack of choice, the widespread collection and personal nature of the data, the unchangeable nature of the data, and about the unintended and likely wide-ranging side effects of the technology.
Slippery-slope? (Score:2)
I'm not sure how the slippery-slope argument applies here.
It's not really a slippery-slope argument when we have an instance of something very similar occurring in the present. See my reply to the original poster:
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/04/22/student-facial-recognition-false-arrest-apple/ [macrumors.com]
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:5, Insightful)
You make it sound super duper scary when you change "photo" to "biometric data" but it's just a photo dude, chill.
The problem is what they are doing with the photo. It's not a human scrutinizing it, it's a computer that will phone home, keep the additional photo, run it through some learning algorithms, and in the end be far more powerful than the old way of having a human look at a boarding pass.
Concentrated power is a dangerous thing.
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the old way of having a human look at a boarding pass.
Humans haven't been "looking at a boarding pass" for a very long time. Each gate has a scanner that scans the QR code on the boarding pass, and the computer will "phone home" to record the fact that "Sir Holo" boarded "Flight 349" at "2:39PM". If it's an international flight, then that data will be matched up with the traveler data and sent off to the US government.
Humans only get involved in the boarding process when 1) someone sitting in the exit row tries to pre-board as disabled (I actually saw that h
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Depends on where you are; all traveling I have done in Europe every flight I have been on that requires a passport/ID, after barcoding the boarding pass the gate attendant checks that the name matches with the name on the passport/ID
This is a US departure gate, and I've not had to show my passport while boarding at a foreign airport for a very long time.
I don't know if you are talking about domestic flights in the US
Well, TFA is about a US citizen boarding a US flag carrier at a US airport. But no, it also applies to more modern airports around the world.
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Did they even have to send the photo, or did the camera have some firmware that would calculate the recognition points and look that up and compare it with what they have stored for expected passengers of the airplane.
Facial recognition comes down to the triangulation of a handful of numbers, which makes data lookup incredibly fast, and eliminates the need to send a high resolution photo.
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Did they even have to send the photo, or did the camera have some firmware that would calculate the recognition points and look that up and compare it with what they have stored for expected passengers of the airplane.
I was wondering the exact same thing, but I didn't want to complicate the issue with talk official hash and kinds of caching... I do think it likely you are right as to what is really going on. Still based on just the photo, don't think anyone with consumer facing cameras is using any 3D faci
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This is why it's important for all this stuff to be opt-in. One of the best aspects of the GDPR is no more "click here to opt out of all the bullshit", they have to explain exactly what they want and get you to affirmatively agree to it.
Re:How is this camera any different? (Score:4, Informative)
Um.. not really. SO Since I built some of this (on the back end)
1) Do you have a US Passport? Have you obtained a Visa to enter the US? Have you ever been in the military or entered a US military controlled space (like a base)? Have you ever been arrested/worked in law enforcement? -- If yes to any of those then your face is in one(or more) of 4 different government biometric databases.
2) SO to your #1: Not saying they for sure aren't collecting imagery from the airport for search BUT in-the-wild enrollment is nearly useless. They are scanning random faces checking against a watchlist but they are NOT "enrolling" with that data.. crappy enrollment data just makes the performance of the gallery worse.
3) The only sharing required for this article's situation is exactly: The picture taken at the gate is templated and that template is queried against the central biometric database (in this case US Passport) at which point a Match/NoMatch/Who Is This Face response is returned. The Gov't is giving exactly that boolean to JetBlue and JetBlue is giving exactly a sample for verification to the US Gov't. (Biometrics-As-A-Service... it's been a thing for a LONG time)
4) Chances are (from a purely logistical standpoint) this is a "Candidate Search" meaning they are checking your template against the specific list of passengers registered for that plane so it's not even "Who is this from our entire database" but "is this person one of this small list of expected people". WAY faster search and WAY easier to return a boolean Yes/No instead of a range of likelihood scores.
OMG JetBlue took my picture at the gate and stored it or gave it to the US government!? No they didn't. they didn't need to. The Gov't already had your picture (among many other things) and JetBlue had no need to keep it any longer than the time it took to complete the candidate search. It does them no good to do otherwise.
Hate biometrics all you want but dammit I wish people understood the technology better. Also, non-sequitur, you have no privacy and have no security. The sooner that is understood the less stressful life becomes.
Re: How is this camera any different? (Score:2)
"Biometric" sounds so sinister, call it what it really is - a surveillance tape, just like countless convenience stores do every day.
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I'm definitely not in favor of the government surveillance but how about this: the company captures your photo, asks you for your name (or checks your passport) and sends a query to the government-run system: "we have a person here that looks like {photo} and claims to have {name} - does that check out in your system?" and the system returns true/false.
Or even less intrusive: the company captures your
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1) It means that the government is storing biometric data on everyone going through airports. This is probably not ephemeral and will be saved forever.
This has been the case for well over 10 years. Or did you miss the introduction of biometric passports 15 years ago?
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Because, unlike my passport, I know that nobody else had my passport and is using it for international travel, forming official records of the country they visited, time and date and linking myself to whatever they do on the plane or elsewhere in my name.
She walked up to the plane, it "recognised" her face, let her board. That's not what facial-recognition-at-the-border is for. That's not what passports and passport control are for.
Someone who "looks a bit like me" could easily book themselves on a plane
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Because, unlike my passport, I know that nobody else had my passport and is using it for international travel,
You might know that but nobody else does. And if you haven't seen your passport today then it might have been stolen or borrowed and is being used for international travel. Sheesh.
She walked up to the plane, it "recognised" her face, let her board. That's not what facial-recognition-at-the-border is for.
That's what Jet Blue was using it for.
someone just needs to look a bit like you, and book a ticker in your name.
And, of course, show a passport at check-in and then another photo id at the TSA checkpoint. No, it's not "just needs to look a bit like you", it's look like you and have your id and passport in their possession.
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You had a camera take picture for your passport.
You had a camera watching you as you drove to the airport. You Cana camera watch you enter the airport. You had a camera watch you go through security, and a camera watch with not a small amount of pity as you tried to eat the airport pizza.
So why is this one other camera a problem? What about this one additional camera has you so creeped out compared to scores of others seeing you everywhere in public?
First, who said I'm ok with all those other cameras? But, let's not delve into rabbit holes. Staying on topic:
The fact that it could ID you is easily understood from the passport photo. After all the boarding pass is one last step in a more rigorous process you had to use to even get into the boarding area itself, so it doesn't have to be that secure - heck it's more secure than a boarding pass that you could have dropped by mistake and had someone else use. You aren't going to drop your face, so it is actually a tiny bit better while giving up nothing you didn't already give up long ago.
No, it's not more secure than a boarding pass. The boarding pass combined with passport confirm a) name, b) that you're supposed to be on the flight, and c) that it's really you.
Why is it not more secure? Well, based off of numerous studies of face recognition software, it appears there's a miss rate of more than 1%. Would you be comfortable with more than 1 out of every 100 people being incorrect
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The boarding pass combined with passport confirm a) name, b) that you're supposed to be on the flight, and c) that it's really you.
You are ignoring one detail: at the point you get on the plane all you show is a boarding pass. You could easily hand your boarding pass to someone else and they got on the plane instead of you. Like, if your brother-in-law is a known criminal fleeing prosecution who bought a ticket for a local trip, and you give him your boarding pass so he can board your international flight to someplace with no extradition treaty with the US.
This is better than just a boarding pass.
Well, based off of numerous studies of face recognition software, it appears there's a miss rate of more than 1%.
So there's a 1% chance it will let th
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No singe location data point is more than creepy, but add them all together and they map your entire life.
They know you're getting on the airplane, moron. It's a "singe location data point" that has been recorded for decades now. It's a little late to worry about some evil government agency knowing you're boarding an airplane at XYZ airport. They know when you check in, they know when you pass through TSA. They know when you get on board. The only reason they don't know you have gotten off is because you haven't gone through the foreign immigration process yet, and once you do they know you've gotten off.
This
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Why are you so obsessed with boarding passes that you think I might be suggesting that someone would use cameras to do boarding pass procedures at a supermarket?
Because the article that leads this discussion is about "Facial recognition creeps up on a JetBlue Passenger". Unless JetBlue passengers are boarding aircraft at the local grocery store, it didn't creep up on her there. In fact, it so much didn't creep up on her there, because anyone who has a pulse knows that those cameras in the stores aren't there just to watch the squirrels that sneak in overnight. Nothing changed in the stores to lead some poor ignorant woman to feel like she's being crept up on.
The C
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I'm not ignoring any details. I know that my id and boarding pass are both scanned/reviewed at the checkin point.
I check-in online. I show my passport when I check my bag. That's the last time a passport must be shown. That's the detail you are ignoring. Once I get past the TSA checkpoint I can easily swap a boarding pass with someone else. Using facial recognition to match a boarding passenger against an already stored photo is a simple means of making sure that the person showing the boarding pass is the right person -- without slowing the line down to have a human look at every passport.
When that id is scanned, it can be in their system and displayed at the gate when the boarding pass is scanned.
Another detail: it isn't. T
Re: How is this camera any different? (Score:2)
Why is it not more secure? Well, based off of numerous studies of face recognition software, it appears there's a miss rate of more than 1%.
Having the final passenger manifest means you don't have to pick an identity from the entire universe, it only needs to pick you from the few hundred passenger on the manifest - I suspect that minimizes 'misses'.
Also, anyone not in the database can be added as soon as they "look ibto the camera" and they aren't identified... the machine just beeps, then waits for the operator to feed in the verified from state-issued-ID identity of the face just captured, adding it to the database and making the system more
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What if you don't have a passport?
Most Americans don't have and likely will never need a passport.
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What if you don't have a passport?
Then you don't have to worry about facial recognition equipment scanning your face at an international boarding gate and the government getting access to a picture of you that they will keep forever maybe. Unless you are trying to sneak out of the country illegally, in which case it's a good thing that they're going to catch you before you cost the airline money carting your ass to some foreign place you can't enter because you don't have a passport to get beyond their immigration checkpoint and the airline
Re: How is this camera any different? (Score:2)
It's not the camera, it's the database, and who gets access to it and how access to it is policed, if at all,
While it is technically possible for Homeland Security to offer a secure biometric id service, the practice as a whole is insecure because nothing prevents the airline or its employees from using the camera data and authenication service to amass its own verified biometric database, or to sell that data to possibly malicious parties.
There's all kinds of bad things that could result from this, but as
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A human comparing your face to your passport/ID cannot be done without your knowledge and at least grudging consent.
In this particular case, it was done openly, but the passenger obviously understood that since DHS is so very cooperative, it could easily be done without knowledge or consent for purposes well beyond identification for international travel.
Re: How is this camera any different? (Score:2)
Seriously? We gave up on traveling on planes anonymously decades ago, only now is it an issue?
It's very hard to board a commercial flight without providing state-issues ID, why is automating it a problem?
Facial recognition 1976-style (Score:2)
(100 quatloos for whoever recognizes the movie reference without searching)
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Szell! Szell! Der weisse engel! (100 quatloos for whoever recognizes the movie reference without searching)
Best dental scene ever.
Technology does not move backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Facial recognition tech exists. Therefore it will be used. It's getting better and cheaper, therefore it will be used more and more. That's the reality. It is inevitable.
You can't hold it back. Trying is a waste of time and diverts attention from measures that might help.
You need to reform/police the institutions that you imagine might abuse the tech.
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Facial recognition tech exists. Therefore it will be used. It's getting better and cheaper, therefore it will be used more and more. That's the reality. It is inevitable.
You can't hold it back. Trying is a waste of time and diverts attention from measures that might help.
You need to reform/police the institutions that you imagine might abuse the tech.
And it is just as likely to exhonerate you as convict you. I wave to all the security cams I see, and make certain they get a good look at my face.
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You need to reform/police the institutions that you imagine might abuse the tech.
If one thing is 100% certain it's that the "imagination" of people knows no bounds. No logical bounds, no common sense bounds, and in some cases in this very comments section that imagination isn't even bounded by a sense of reality.
If you want to reform anything you better come with a) evidence, and b) a detailed description of the process which allowed the abuse to happen. Otherwise ... "I imagine my face is somewhere in the government so the department of animal welfare is going to get PETA to come and k
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1. They have better alternatives, like air support.
2. Facial recognition technology is harmless and extremely useful. You won't succeed in holding it back. You are wasting time and effort on a fantasy and ignoring the real problem.
The real problem is that specific institutions have too much power and too little accountability. If you can't keep them from abusing their power with facial recognition tech, you can't keep them from abusing their power without facial recognition tech. And they'll just use it
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I understand. But their objections are futile. People want to maintain the abusive institutions because [reasons] and because they think that only others will suffer. And here comes facial recognition technology to make it easier for those abusive institutions to abuse everyone. And "oh no!".
Fix the institutions.
If you ban the tech, they will use it in secret anyway.
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Still not analogous. You will fail and waste years doing it.
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"Police abuse" is not technology. It's not an invention or a skill.
Knowledge doesn’t get unlearned.
But police can be fired or imprisoned. Police forces can be eliminated. Government can be cut. Rights can be defended. If you can't trust them with facial recognition tech, you can't trust them with any power at all.
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Police abuse exists.
....
It's getting better and cheaper,
Seattle police are operating under a DoJ consent decree due to civil rights violations. I don't know how to quantify 'cheap'. But having individual members of that department under the surveillance of the DoJ (FBI) means they can't just transfer to another cities' department. They are still being watched and potential new employers might not want that sort of attention. So careers are being limited, even if the cop in question is innocent.
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For the other guy who is also using facial recognition technology but isn't telling you
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You're able to opt out of this procedure, ... (Score:3)
> "You're able to opt out of this procedure, MacKenzie. Sorry if this made you feel uncomfortable"
Two lies right there. The first one is subtle: you can opt out but it will take extra efforts and most people won't bother. It's always easier to just go along with whatever the surveillance state wants. If you question or challenge anything then you are a problem and will probably end up on all kinds of lists, ironically with more surveillance not less.
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What would opting out accomplish? The camera is still on, they probably still do the lookup - but then they do the manual verification anyway?
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It's still possible. I was flying out of O'Hare some months ago. I always like to watch the procedures TSA uses, both for my own edification and to see which line is moving faster. A few passengers ahead of me was a fat lady wearing a burqa. As they motioned her towards the scanner, "she" threw up her arms, started waving frantically and stepping backwards. I was too far away to hear the conversation, but it only took a few seconds for the TSA agents to relent and direct "her" through the metal detector.
I
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You still can.
They just have to call someone to do a manual pat down and they'll do just that if you ask.
Solution looking for a problem. (Score:2)
This is a solution looking for a problem. People getting onto airplanes is not 'a thing'. It very rarely happens.
Regardless, the invasion of privacy for a non-problem is problematic.
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My face is pretty much everywhere. I don't think I can hide it from the government.
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People getting onto airplanes is not 'a thing'. It very rarely happens.
Never been to an airport, I guess.
Wrong question. (Score:5, Interesting)
"by what right a private company suddenly had her bioemtric (sic) data. "
Wrong question. More to the point, "by what right a private company suddenly had permission to use her bioemtric (sic) data, without her express permission."
And of course, the answer will always be either 'you agreed to, right here, somewhere', or 'it's the government, and they have the right because you...'
Rights and permissions are not entirely the same thing.
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Wrong question. More to the point, "by what right a private company suddenly had permission to use her bioemtric (sic) data, without her express permission."
The private company isn't using her bio-metric data, they are transmitting it to Homeland security who are using it and then giving a yay or nay response. Please think before you post. Or do you want to take your argument to the next logical place: "How dare the private company suddenly give a person's name to look up a no-fly list!"
She was imprudent (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't this MacKenzie Fegan know that she will lose social credit points for showing disrespect for necessary security measures, and diminishing and degrading harmony?
Would she rather have her face available for necessary and virtuous safety measures, or not be able to travel because of her rebellious nature?
Hey, we did it to ourselves! (Score:2)
Is it time to (Score:2)
Start radically changing your appearance when you go out in public each time?
Scarring makeup (ala Heath Ledger's Joker) is easy to get and easy to apply. Dye your hair, wear a bandana, hat, sunglasses, coloured contacts, fake (or real, if you have the time for it) beards?
Just throwing this idea out there, if you are going to be tracked and monitored everywhere you go, might as well change things up...
It's her EM waves they mapped (Score:3)
Unlike biometric data, this was using bioemtric data, which is the EM waves your aura gives off when you flouresce under kirlian photometry.
In the brave new world, no Taureans will be permitted to fly.
Whatever (Score:2)
Could it be that in just a few seconds her biometric data was whipped "securely" around government departments so that she would be allowed on the plane?
1. When did your passport picture morph into 'biometric data'?
2. Why did she think it only took 'a few seconds'? I'm guessing the government has had her passport photo for a while now. And unless she purchased her ticket just a few seconds before she entered the plane, they would have had LOTS of time to send a request for and receive her photo.
This person seems to be trying to make this system sound way scarier and intrusive than it really is.
What's the issue? (Score:2)
Seriously? She apparently thought nothing of it when she looked in the camera, it was only later when she got upset. First she wondered how the airline knew what she looked like, and learned it's the govt that has her face captured. Then she was upset because it was so fast - to be fair, the airline could easily have taken the passenger manifest, uploaded it to govt servers, to 'preselect' images to compare passengers with. There is no reason to query a 300 million image database to find one of the several
She did give permission... (Score:3)
There's several factors here - one is probably her passport, which is linked to a database with biometric markers that can be checked against. The other is probably when she bought her tickets - there was likely a note in the EULA/purchase contract which she ignored. Opting out of this isn't going to erase your information from a government database - it's just going to take you longer to get through the line to get onto your plane.
I don't like it either, but I have to admit it has proven convenient.
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Re:Misinformation is the antidote (Score:4, Funny)
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Names in the US do not have "meanings", they are just names.....so, MacKenzie, is just a name, it has no meaning such as you describe.
Much like Shaniqua, it means nothing other than as an identifier for a person with no underlying meaning.
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Some of the names seem like they're chosen by looking in the medicine cabinet.
I keep waiting to hear about a Tylenol or a Mylanta making it big in high school basketball.
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I'm sure they don't know this, but Mercedes is actually a woman's name; the car was named after an early Daimler engineer's daughter who was named Mercedes.
And, well, Armani is actually a real last name.
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IIRC it was an investor, not an engineer
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:3)
MacKenzie does have a meaning. It's Son of Coinneach. As such it's a ridiculous name to give to a girl. It's not remotely like the random collection of letters that some Americans like to use as names for their children.
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:2)
This is called by philosophers the "etymological fallacy". Yes the name *came from* that phrase, but nobody actually uses it that way.
Words mean exactly what most people currently understand them to mean, not what they originally meant. "Nice" originally meant "silly", and "fizzle" meant "to fart".
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:4, Insightful)
This is called by philosophers the "etymological fallacy". Yes the name *came from* that phrase, but nobody actually uses it that way.
You're quick to discount people as "nobody". Gaelic is actively spoken across Scotland, particularly in the northwest.
Actual real live people living in a predominantly English-speaking nation use the words to mean exactly that, that the person is the son of another. Many Gaelic speakers are multilingual, so seeing a female with a given name of MacANYTHING is strange. The "Mac" prefix means "son of". As a surname, that's hereditary so whatever, but as their given name, that name mostly reveals ignorance. Hopefully women with the name never need to visit Scotland.
Of course, it isn't just that, and I've heard worse.
"Don" is a regionally popular name for girls in the US, even though it is a decidedly male title. The female form is Donna. I literally laughed at someone the moment they said they named their baby girl "Don". It took me a moment to realize they were serious. It's akin to the title "Lord" or "Sir" or an honorable form of "Mister". If you want to give a daughter a name that's a title for a masculine nobleman or royal male to about a third of the world that's their business, but I sure hope girls with the name never need to travel to Europe or South America. Introducing themselves in any Latin-based culture is sure to get a chuckle. A woman walking into a business meeting and announcing her name is "Don" is going to get a few chuckles even from the most stoic listeners, with people asking for the rest of her name, "Don What?"
There are of course many more, but your're right, who cares about the child's future, they'll never travel the globe, and nobody uses the words that way anyway.
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As an old "Don", I've never ever heard of a female named Don, including in my travels to ~50 countries. Here's a good reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This reminds me of something I've read once: there used to be a time when the expression "I had a gay time smoking a fag" meant a completely different thing from what it means today.
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MacKenzie does have a meaning. It's Son of Coinneach. As such it's a ridiculous name to give to a girl. It's not remotely like the random collection of letters that some Americans like to use as names for their children.
In Pukawu speak, it means Perogie Breath. I like Pukawu speak much better.
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:2)
Pukawu speakers eat Polish dumplings? Who knew?
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:3)
Yes it does. It means what it means no matter what country you live in.
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Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:3)
It doesn't mean comely and Shaniqua doesn't mean anything at all. Whatever the culture, a name that means "son of...." like MacKenzie or Madison is an idiotic choice as a girl's name.
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No one in the US naming a child, would have a clue those names are supposed to mean something like you mention.
Here a name is a name...so, there's nothing idiotic about choosing one of these names for a female, because here, it has NO meaning of masculine or feminine, or son of....how would anyone in the US know this?
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:2)
Yeah if only there was some kind of global network where you could look such things up.
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:2)
Who the fuck are you to decide what I can and can't say, and although I'm not autistic fuck you for using a disability as an insult.
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:2)
It can be a severely disabling condition. It's not just Asperger's.
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This has always baffled me. Naming your daughter "son of Kenzie". Do people even stop for a second to think what they're about to name their child?
It stopped meaning that about 800 years ago when commoners in the Highlands started to use formal Clan names as family names. Before that, only nobles had family names.
Re: What sort of fuckwit (Score:2)
It hasn't stopped meaning that, much like the much more ancient biblical names still mean the same.
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It stopped meaning that about 800 years ago
Gaelic and related languages are still spoken all over Scotland, to a lesser degree through the UK, and by people scattered around the globe. The "Mac" prefix is still actively used and means "son of", even if the words aren't used that way in your language.
A woman with a given name of "MacKenzie" may be fine living in Los Angeles, but if she travels across Europe, or particularly to Scotland, she'll get plenty of guffaws and double-takes.
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I'm not sure what Utah has to do with it, I've heard girls with various spellings of it in various places of the country. Just because some girls have the name in Utah where you live doesn't mean it isn't used elsewhere.
I think it is a terrible name for a girl, but I've heard worse, like girls named "Don".
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And why would they send the entire picture. Calculate the recognition points (distance between eyes, position of nose, chin, forehead, etc. It's really only a handful of points) in firmware and send the numbers in a database index friendly manner. Even the 300bps modem is useful at that point.
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What would you want us to do? Wade into an airport, guns a blazing, and shoot passengers submitting to the procedure? Shoot Jet-Blue planes out of the air?
Or, how about we just opt-out of the program and not fly with Jet-Blue? Most of the crowd I know go with the latter option.
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Two points: ..." Yes. A gym I belong to has my photo on file. When I scan my bar code, within a second or so, my picture is presented so the front desk attendants can see if it's really me. They have had this technology in place for several decades. And it works with no discernible additional delay at any club in the USA.
... whipped 'securely' around government departments ... " Or the airline submitted a list of booked passengers in advance. And CBP download
1. "Could it be that in just a few seconds
B. "
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Why don't you move to a communist country and tell us all how wonderful it is.
What would the difference be, fellow serf?
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Worse propaganda.