How a Mark Cuban-Backed Facial Recognition Firm Pushed To Get Driver License Photo Data (vice.com) 63
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Now, emails obtained through a public records request provide insight into how facial recognition companies attempt to strike deals with local law enforcement as well as gain access to sensitive data on local residents. The emails show how a firm backed by Shark Tank judge, Dallas Mavericks owner, and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban pushed a local police department to try and gain access to state driver's license photos to train its product. The emails also show the company asked the police department to vouch for it on a government grant application in exchange for receiving the technology for free.
"Chief, you seemed pretty keen on the use of facial recognition in stadiums. If you know of any place to start, please let me know," a 2016 email from Jacob Sniff, a co-founder of facial recognition startup Suspect Technologies, addressed to Michael Botieri, chief of the Plymouth Police Department in Massachusetts, reads. In the emails, Sniff repeatedly asked Botieri to deploy the technology in his district to help improve the product. Sniff mentioned plans for the technology to search through results for people of a particular gender or ethnicity, and deploy "emotion recognition."
"So you would aim to do this on all or most of the buildings you showed me in person? We would be fine on the privacy concerns for this?" Sniff wrote in a November 2017 email to the police department. "I do realize the technology could be perceived as controversial, though the stark reality is that it could save lives." "Ed, you mentioned that if we did the lobby idea in Boston, that they would go absolutely nuts and it would be a privacy disaster. Our discussion last week was that police departments are supposed to be welcoming and this would ultimately deter people from showing up," Sniff wrote in an April 2018 email chain including Ed Davis, former Boston Police Commissioner and who now runs a security consulting firm. [...] Sniff asked Chief Botieri to sign a letter helping Suspect Technologies receive a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), according to a January 2017 email. Sniff offered to give the police department the facial recognition technology for free in exchange for signing the letter.
"Chief, you seemed pretty keen on the use of facial recognition in stadiums. If you know of any place to start, please let me know," a 2016 email from Jacob Sniff, a co-founder of facial recognition startup Suspect Technologies, addressed to Michael Botieri, chief of the Plymouth Police Department in Massachusetts, reads. In the emails, Sniff repeatedly asked Botieri to deploy the technology in his district to help improve the product. Sniff mentioned plans for the technology to search through results for people of a particular gender or ethnicity, and deploy "emotion recognition."
"So you would aim to do this on all or most of the buildings you showed me in person? We would be fine on the privacy concerns for this?" Sniff wrote in a November 2017 email to the police department. "I do realize the technology could be perceived as controversial, though the stark reality is that it could save lives." "Ed, you mentioned that if we did the lobby idea in Boston, that they would go absolutely nuts and it would be a privacy disaster. Our discussion last week was that police departments are supposed to be welcoming and this would ultimately deter people from showing up," Sniff wrote in an April 2018 email chain including Ed Davis, former Boston Police Commissioner and who now runs a security consulting firm. [...] Sniff asked Chief Botieri to sign a letter helping Suspect Technologies receive a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), according to a January 2017 email. Sniff offered to give the police department the facial recognition technology for free in exchange for signing the letter.
OMG! (Score:2, Informative)
Say it isn't so! A company offered one of their devices to a potential customer to both try-out the technology and help the company improve the product! Holy cow, I've never heard of such a thing. [merriam-webster.com]
And then, to add insult to injury, the company asked a potential client to sign a letter expressing their interest in the product in hopes of securing a federal grant - I mean wow, that's just devilish! /sarcasm
All I see is a tech company chasing after someone to help develop a product and help secure funding. Oh w
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I just don't understand why anyone would think this is strange.
Yes, I get why people might be offended at the idea. After all, I have been the parent of children:
"Stop looking at me! He's looking at me!"
Re:OMG! (Score:5, Insightful)
it isn't difficult. Did the police department announce they were going to enter into such an agreement which potentially undermines the privacy of the people they serve and whom pay the police department's salaries? If no, then it is another backdoor attempt to screw the pop. just so some company can make money.
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I agree. Business as usual. They even address the fact it won't be popular immediately. We (people in general) will come around, though, as getting drivers' licenses will include the fine print that your picture can be shared for such things, and in a few years, it'll be just another thing.
Like cameras all over our cities... it was resisted at first, then it was just done, and people were ultimately like "meh... i'm not hiding anything in public... just stay out of my house." And of course now we're invitin
Re: OMG! (Score:1)
And normal enough not to deter people from committing crimes. And the crimes will be normal enough that the cops won't bother doing anything even with video evidence. And so the only thing that changes is that our privacy is being sold out, and we get nothing for it.
Re:OMG! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't the company offering the customer the ability to try out a product for free, it's that they're doing so to get access to the customer's database which isn't even their property. If I pay my plumber with a check against your bank account, you would be rightly pissed. If I pay my plumber, who has lots of nefarious friends, with a file of your private data (SSN, CCs, bank accounts), you would be just as (or more) pissed.
You mean to be sarcastic, but yes. That is an evil technology. I'm in favor of making it illegal to develop/deploy/monetize.
Quite the trade. (Score:2)
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."
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Cuba: RED DANGER! (Score:2)
“Could save lives” (Score:4, Insightful)
Many things could save lives, if put into practice, yet are still undesirable or even in conflict with our established legal rights or even basic human dignity.
Outlawing cellphones could save lives.
Outlawing peanut butter could save lives.
Requiring every person to wear an unremovable tracker all the time, day and night, could save lives.
Allowing police to enter any home at any time with no constraints could save lives.
Immediately executing people who commit even minor crimes could save lives.
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"Immediately executing people who commit even minor crimes could save lives"
That's like fucking for chastity.
In other news: (Score:4, Informative)
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My first thought on reading this was "well, that's narrowing down the number of people who should be checked out quite a lot.
Then I checked the interwebs for numbers...
Seems one person in six in the UK has a criminal record. So, no, it doesn't actually narrow the field any.
Oddly, I remember a recent article bemoaning the vast number of people with criminal records in the USA, and now I discover that places l
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Privacy Eroded (Score:5, Insightful)
Now your photos are going to be sold to a private company so they can do facial recognition. This is not what I signed up for when I got my current driver's license 14 years ago. And what are they going to use it for? Surveillance at a stadium. Who thinks it will stop there? All the thousands of CCTV camera all over the city? How about the video door bell or your camera on your computer? Soon everyone will be under surveillance all the time, 24/7. Is that the world we want to live in?
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Records from the California DMV used to be publicly available until someone did get stalked and killed.
Privacy matters.
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Big Brother is watching (Score:1)
While George Orwell may have had the year wrong, but his novel '1984', is a taste of what real world tech is starting to make possible in today's world. The reality is even more frightening.
More and more, tech companies are undermining person freedom in the U.S. and abroad. Privacy is turning into a thing of the past. Unless this is reined in, the dystopian future envisioned by George Orwell, is getting closer everyday. Here's a short list that comes to mind:
License plate scanners that record every car
No new database created. (Score:1)
How would that thought experiment go?
A person from the police can look at real time CCTV and select an event they find strange to then follow with tech on CCTV.
The police reported "suspicious" actions? Play the CCTV back to support police.
A description for police of a bad person doing a crime that allows CCTV to find a person on that given description.
No database
Who cares about Cuban... (Score:2)
Sorry (Score:2)
" If you know of any place to start, please let me know," a 2016 email from Jacob Sniff, ..."
Doesn't pass the smell test.