Bruce Schneier: Banning Facial Recognition Isn't Enough (nytimes.com) 90
Bruce Schneier, writing at New York Times: Communities across the United States are starting to ban facial recognition technologies. In May of last year, San Francisco banned facial recognition; the neighboring city of Oakland soon followed, as did Somerville and Brookline in Massachusetts (a statewide ban may follow). In December, San Diego suspended a facial recognition program in advance of a new statewide law, which declared it illegal, coming into effect. Forty major music festivals pledged not to use the technology, and activists are calling for a nationwide ban. Many Democratic presidential candidates support at least a partial ban on the technology. These efforts are well intentioned, but facial recognition bans are the wrong way to fight against modern surveillance. Focusing on one particular identification method misconstrues the nature of the surveillance society we're in the process of building. Ubiquitous mass surveillance is increasingly the norm. In countries like China, a surveillance infrastructure is being built by the government for social control. In countries like the United States, it's being built by corporations in order to influence our buying behavior, and is incidentally used by the government.
In all cases, modern mass surveillance has three broad components: identification, correlation and discrimination. Let's take them in turn. Facial recognition is a technology that can be used to identify people without their knowledge or consent. It relies on the prevalence of cameras, which are becoming both more powerful and smaller, and machine learning technologies that can match the output of these cameras with images from a database of existing photos. But that's just one identification technology among many. People can be identified at a distance by their heart beat or by their gait, using a laser-based system. Cameras are so good that they can read fingerprints and iris patterns from meters away. And even without any of these technologies, we can always be identified because our smartphones broadcast unique numbers called MAC addresses. Other things identify us as well: our phone numbers, our credit card numbers, the license plates on our cars. China, for example, uses multiple identification technologies to support its surveillance state.
In all cases, modern mass surveillance has three broad components: identification, correlation and discrimination. Let's take them in turn. Facial recognition is a technology that can be used to identify people without their knowledge or consent. It relies on the prevalence of cameras, which are becoming both more powerful and smaller, and machine learning technologies that can match the output of these cameras with images from a database of existing photos. But that's just one identification technology among many. People can be identified at a distance by their heart beat or by their gait, using a laser-based system. Cameras are so good that they can read fingerprints and iris patterns from meters away. And even without any of these technologies, we can always be identified because our smartphones broadcast unique numbers called MAC addresses. Other things identify us as well: our phone numbers, our credit card numbers, the license plates on our cars. China, for example, uses multiple identification technologies to support its surveillance state.
A Brilliant Summary (Score:4, Funny)
I also noticed the irony at the bottom of the article:
Like other media companies, The Times collects data on its visitors when they read stories like this one.
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Yeah, but they only know "today a bunch of nerds with ad-blockers and very little JS visited from slashdot."
In any case, it is a traditional aspect of guest editorials that they're published based on the fame and selling power of the author, they don't represent the opinions of the publisher.
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Yeah, but they only know "today a bunch of nerds with ad-blockers and very little JS visited from slashdot."
SSSSHHHH! Be quiet. Don't spoil a good thing or they will try to stop it.
Higher general principle of privacy? (Score:2)
What does "No comment history available" signify? Some sort of rejection of moderation? I think the comment probably deserves a "short witty ironic insight" mod (longer than the comment itself), but I can't check against the full story since I basically stopped reading the NY Times after they followed the WaPo lead in paywalling anonymous readers.
My actual reaction to the story is "Of course, but how to justify it?" I think the operative general principle of that justification should be that your personal i
Bad summary (Score:3)
Re: Bad summary (Score:2)
That's a good point, I'm sorry I don't have mod points because you deserve them (plus I don't have anything to add :))
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...and in the EU we get a cookie request to ask if they can use cookie to store information, because we have GDPR which prevents them storing information without explicit consent
This would do more good than banning face recognition, having to ask explicit consent for each and every system every time would kill it dead ...
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RTFA and you'll see you're completely wrong. No, wait: read the summary, and you'll realize you're completely wrong.
How does an eink facemask hide your gait or heart rate? Does it cover your iris? Does your eink facemask somehow interfere with your phone's attempts to talk to everything?
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Not using smart phones at all is the absurdity.
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In what way is not using a "smart" phone absurd, exactly? I'm 100% serious.
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In what way is not using a "smart" phone absurd, exactly? I'm 100% serious.
I'm not the OP of this comment, but I feel like its not reasonable in this day and age to expect someone to simply not use a smartphone. The tradeoffs are simply too high. We could all live without a lot of things. We could live without a TV, or running water, or a car for example. But those don't pass the reasonable test.
What is reasonable, is the expectation that we should be able to use these services without a bunch of companies and our own government using our data against us.
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And I disagree. I run a 40 employee business, attend university full time, and live in two different cities. Without a "smart" phone.
Who "needs" a "smart" phone?
Who needs a smart phone (Score:2)
I do. With it I can order cheap and convenient transportation whenever I need, order food, shop, lookup train- and air-schedules, stay in touch with numerous people across the globe, take photographs as well as record videos and sounds, read a book, listen to music, watch a movie, et cætera.
Much of these can be done with a computer, but even the smallest laptop is usually too big to just slip into one's pocket.
Now, it is a recent invention — and most people alive today
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If they widely start to use such technology, and you managed to evade them, you'll be suspicious for doing so.
They'll ask themselves what's wrong with you to take so many steps to withdraw yourself from that system.
It's the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mentality that comes with such surveillance systems. It creates the passive assumption that everyone who doesn't play along
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That sounds more than a little bit paranoid. I don't think there's going to be a government roundup of non-phone users any time soon. I already get strange looks when people suggest that I pull up an "app" or something, but that doesn't matter.
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I don't want to imagine how it would have been if they had the possibilities given by the electronics of today.
Anyway, that "they'll had it coming" and the "it won't affect me" attitude is really myopic.
It's so dumb that I'm almost inclined to think that you'll have it coming. But since I know that it will likely affect everyone else, I'm still again
Smart Phone IS mandatory for employment (Score:3)
Who "needs" a "smart" phone?
Every single engineer at my company. You need a smart phone and need to consent to installing corporate software which allows them to remotely access your phone and remote wipe it at whim. I don't LIKE it, but I am well compensated, so I tolerate it, knowing it has never been misused in 10+ and even if they remotely wiped my phone, all my data is backed up on the cloud...so the worst they could do is give me a shitty day or 2. My data is not priceless...just expensive!...we all have a price.
Also, my co
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We adopted them because they filled a need.
Either way, since iOS 8, and Android 5, devices have used random MAC addresses when searchin
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Woa-woa... Against us? Where is this alienation coming from? Neither the corporations, nor the government are our enemies...
But, hey, let's clarify the terms... Is a police officer chasing someone in his cruiser using the vehicle against us? Is a company advertising their new product — which they hope, you'd love if only you knew about it — using the magazine against us?
Whether your answer is "yes" or "no", there is no
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Because some people have jobs that require them to access the internet in the field, and don't have the luxury of being able to haul around a laptop and keep it charged.
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I have a "smart" phone that I have to use in school.
Does not align with this:
I run a 40 employee business, attend university full time, and live in two different cities. Without a "smart" phone.
That is all.
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This is a discussion about privacy, and my point is that there's literally no point in having a discussion about people wanting privacy, yet giving it away 100% freely every second of their lives. It makes no sense. I maintain my privacy much, much better than most people do, despite having to interact with more peo
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I just wonder if your privacy is actually as protected (maintained) as you think it is.
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In what way is not using a "smart" phone absurd, exactly? I'm 100% serious.
Visualize yourself carrying around all the things, such as a pile of books, that today's phones can hold.
Re: If you use a "smart" phone... (Score:1)
Next up: Heavy drinkers demanding prohibition of alcoholism.
#1: Analogies are clearly not your thing.
#2: Shut the fuck up.
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What needs to be banned is TRACKING.. not facial (Score:5, Insightful)
You are being tracked everywhere, constantly... Facial recognition is just the one the average Joe understands.
No one questions why there are toll tag readers on tons of roads that are not toll roads. They were originally put in place to understand traffic patterns. Put two readers a known distance apart and you can judge if traffic is flowing properly. But then the state realized they could use this to track specific locations that an individual had traveled for use in prosecution.
Facial recognition is a tiny part of it... you're being tracked by your bluetooth MAC, WiFi MAC, LTE IMEI, on your cell phone, watch, and your car! You're being tracked by your license plate, your toll tag, and even your registration sticker. Your credit cards are being tracked both from the mag reader and contactless NFC. It is basically impossible not to be tracked and leave your house. But even then your browser is being fingerprinted based on all kinds of data (browser type, IP address, installed plugins, cookies, etc.).
What needs to be banned is TRACKING. Not facial recognition.
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And there's the crux of the problem. We can't have this discussion if some people are going to dishonestly say that it's "impossible" to live without being tracked. It is 100% possible, and it's not difficult. It may be slightly less convenient but it's nowhere near impossible.
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It is basically impossible not to be tracked and leave your house
And there's the crux of the problem. We can't have this discussion if some people are going to dishonestly say that it's "impossible" to live without being tracked. It is 100% possible, and it's not difficult. It may be slightly less convenient but it's nowhere near impossible.
But is it reasonable? The answer is no. It's not. We should have the expectation of privacy by default.
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Not if you purchased a tracking device and walk around with it in your pocket all day, you don't.
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We should have the expectation of privacy by default.
Not if you purchased a tracking device and walk around with it in your pocket all day, you don't.
Freedoms granted to citizens isn't a concept you quite understand is it?
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Well, you have the right to life, too, but nothing's stopping you from killing yourself. I would argue that people should have a right to privacy, but not if you deliberately, purposely give it away. That literally makes no sense.
So yeah. I think we're done here. My question's been answered. Ya might want to head to the public library and read up a bit on history.
Re: What needs to be banned is TRACKING.. not faci (Score:2)
You have a good point, but I guess the counter argument is that people aren't generally aware of how much tracking goes on. There's a certain level of deception by omission going on.
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Freedoms granted can be traded away for money. You have the freedom not to work (unlike socialist/communist countries), but most people choose to trade away that freedom for some amount of money.
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But, as the above post implies, who makes a practical internet-connected phone that doesn't track? It of course is certainly possible to live without a smart phone in today's society, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's convenient or practical for everyone and anyone.
Which of course, is the point...
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No, not for everybody, but I literally know of zero people who NEED a "smart" phone, and I have yet to have anybody give me an example of a person NEEDING a "smart" phone.
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Perhaps you didn't follow the point.... this wasn't about NEEDING, is in what is actually POSSIBLE. It was about what was PRACTICAL.
And if you don't know anyone for whom not owning a smart phone would impose at least impracticality, I'd be surprised... since you clearly live in a country with internet connectivity.
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People don't require something that is always listening to them, but they often *do* require a phone that has useful internet connectivity, which is to say that it runs a modern browser, renders web pages in a usefully formatted way, and they can use it to keep in touch with friends, family, or work via internet based messaging.
It is a side effect of having a turing machine in our pockets with wireless access that these things can also be used to track people.
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Ok, we're getting there. WHY does somebody NEED a modern web browser in their pocket? I'm not getting it.
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Then why did you argue with it when it was raised [slashdot.org]? Did you not actually read the context of the post you replied to because you were so eager to make your own point to take a moment to think about what you were arguing against?
I have not once suggested in this thread that it was somehow actually "impossible" to live without a cell phone, and it's perfectly fine to call people out on that, but the post above to which *YOU* responded makes the point that in today's society, it's not always practical or r
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Because "tracking you" is *NOT* it's only use case for a smart phone. People use smartphones to keep in touch with friends, family, and work at their convenience.
It is, as I said, a side effect of the fact that such a device is an internet-connected turing machine, that it can also be used to track you.
How you cannot see the difference between a device that can incidentally, by virtue of its operation, be used by someone to track you and a device whose sole purpose is to track you is quite frankly bey
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That would be reasonable if it was made very clear that you were going to be tracked. It's not though. When was the last time your mobile operator reminded you that it was tracking your movements?
This is why we have GDPR. Tracking must be opt in and made very explicit to obtain permission, and they can't deny service if you refuse.
The loophole is that they can't avoid logging which cell you are on, or so they claim.
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The loophole is that they can't avoid logging which cell you are on, or so they claim.
Well, it is pretty important they know where to route a call to your number. Sending your phone call to a tower in Alaska doesn't make much sense when your phone is connected to one in Dallas TX.
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It has got nothing what so ever to do with our privacy, in fact the establishment considers our right to privacy non-existant and lets not pretend otherwise. This change in heart is all about trying to keep secret the corruption of those at the top. Think about Epstein or Weinstein or Clinton or Biden, how would they move about to conduct their egoistic psychopath games if they were being tracked everywhere they go. Think about all those corrupt beauracrats, corporate executives, all tracked all of the time
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If I ever got a mod point...
Anyway, I already responded to your general theme in my "higher general principle" comment above.
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The problem is that people want to ban stuff they can't put back in the box anymore. Bruce Schneier, although a brilliant person, quite hasn't seemed to understand that there is no such thing as a good, benevolent government. If you ban stuff, the government gets immunity, us 'regulars' get punished for a side effect of the law (just like DMCA, GDPR and every other 'ban' on stuff on the Internet) and the criminals get away with it because the government can backchannel on whatever criminal avenue for their
Re: Why aren't MACs randomized? (Score:1)
Internet connections should answer back to random endpoints?
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Internet connections should answer back to random endpoints?
Most smart devices do randomize the MAC. However, most of the trackers have figured out how to fingerprint a device and match up the new MAC with the old.
Categorically ban entire classes of solution (Score:4)
In addition to banning all the identification technologies, outlaw the databases of biometric data, including for state and police use. Even if someone uses something that could track gaits or heartbeats it will be worthless for identification without a biometric fingerprint to match against.
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That restores the practical limitation we had up to about a decade ago and it was a good thing. They scared everyone into giving them drastically increased powers with 9/11.
Still however, I'm not just talking about government, I'm talking about banning private entities from keeping these databases as well.
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Tell it to my neighbours (Score:2)
C O P Y R I G H T !! (Score:2)
Banning PR is unlikely to be enough. How about granting a copyright interest to any information that is personally identifiable? After all, appearing on a video, a webpage click or driving down a street is a creative act.
Then whoever has retained record of these acts cannot just use them as she wants and needs permission from either the author or courts.
To avoid the "buried in the UAP" problem, require that release of these copyrights be in a separate contract with max one year term.
Monks watching video need to be banned too (Score:2)
Babylon 5 exists in a universe where face recognition technology was banned. In an episode where they had to find a suspect in many hours of recorded video footage, they brought in an army of monks to review the footage and identify the suspect. Clearly the surveillance state abusing it's power.
it's the scale, stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no problem paying the state for a license plate that identifies my car. I realize that driving is hazardous and must be regulated, and that includes being able to identify individual vehicles if they break the rules, are involved in an accident, etc.
What I didn't sign up for is having my movements tracked. Schneier isn't talking about anonymity in general, he's talking about the misuse of data aggregation. That's what turns a license plate into a tracking device.
Facial Recognition Hysteria (Score:2)
Why ban facial recognition entirely instead of regulating its use? There are a lot of positive uses for the technology.
I would love it if the public transit system here scanned passengers when they boarded and notified the authorities when a known offender or someone with an arrest warrant was spotted. There is a lot of crime on the Chicago Transit Authority system (up 105% in 5 years) and most offenders are never prosecuted. This would be an easy way to protect the other riders from the criminal elemen
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It's all well and good until somebody criminalizes your religion or sexuality or skin color or political views. The Chinese are using ubiquitous facial recognition tech to discriminate against ethnic minorities and political undesirables already. Yes, it's possible to do all this without the technology, but the easier it is to do something the more likely someone will do it.
Policing in a free society is ineffective *on purpose* - we could also catch more criminals if we had random checkpoints with officers
Start with a right to privacy. (Score:1)
In the US, at least, constitutional amendment that humans have a fundamental right to privacy and not to be tracked, nor traced. A right to the complete knowledge regarding the data generated and or collected about them by any public or private entity. A right to have such information permanently deleted.
Note: Didn't say "People" - Unfortunately Corporations are "People" - I don't need to grant them the ability to hide behind any more walls than they currently do. I also didn't say "Citizens." Visitors
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...... humans have a fundamental right to privacy and not to be tracked, nor traced...
How? The "right to know where I am right now" is a relatively recent concept, and will disappear within our lifetime. It's critical to note tracking individuals is older than history - there has never been a social group or society where being unknowable (within the group/family/village/herd, etc.) was possible, or even desirable. Millions of years have hard-wired people to fear the unknown, including the stranger. The only thing that has changed since the dawn of time are the depth of collected data,
Calling libertarians (Score:2)
Re:Calling libertarians (Score:5, Interesting)
It is 1920, and I go to the drugstore for some toothache medicine. I know the pharmacist, as I know everyone else in town. I call him by name, and he recognizes me and has my order ready. I fully expect and accept this.
Why I don't expect or accept, is when he goes and tells the grocer and the butcher that I'm buying toothache medicine. My interaction with him was between he and I. The word for his big mouth is "gossip", and it is considered to be rude, as social faux pas.
Corporations have the freedom to know that I interact with them. They don't have the right to go telling my business all over town.
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IANAL(ibertarian), but being that one of the fundamental lynchpins of libertarian arguments for corporate rights is that corporate rights derive from the rights of the individuals that make them up. so any right you preserve for a corporation is a right you preserve for individuals. So this transforms the solution space or the question slightly. Want is more important people's right to 1) keep their public information private 2) keep track of peoples public data.
And in practice this is incredibly nuanced an
That ship has sailed... (Score:2)
Privacy is dead in the traditional sense.
When people clamor for it they get privacy from individuals. Not privacy from government or corporates.
As an example, in Australia, it used to be easy to find out who owned a block of land. And the electoral role was public. There also used to be a phone book with pretty much everyone listed. (What would you do if you lost your mobile phone and needed to borrow a stranger's phone to call someone???)
What we need is social norms to make information less dangerous.
Privacy isn't coming back... (Score:2)
... until we get the right to own our own operating systems, software that run on both PC and other devices like phones. You can't have privacy when every app game, and even the OS is "internet connected". It's pure fucking delusion at this point.
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Who cares? (Score:2)
Who the fuck cares about facial recognition when everybody is on facebook with their phone sending their location every 2 seconds? People don't care about surveillance, or there would be no social media. Facebook, google and amazon are more powerful than the Stasi, they gather much more private information at a scale the Stasi never ever dreamed of. And you are still using that crap despite all of that.
Stop complaining about surveillance, it's voluntary servitude.
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I think people don't care because they haven't really thought though the possible negative effects. The combination of near universal surveillance and AI, can give large organizations tremendous leverage. Governments could quickly and quietly eliminate dissidents and all those associated with them. Finding hostages to enforce behavior becomes easy. The holder of the information has tremendous blackmail potential - something as trivial as a candidates porn viewing habits could swing an election.
People's p
Identification, correlation and discrimination? (Score:1)
Identification? Is the person a citizen? Not sharing ID, not using fake ID? Is using fake ID?
Correlation? A criminal might have a long list of fake, created, shared and stolen sets of ID?
Paying into a bank account in a set pattern to avoid bank reporting laws?
Discrimination? A person who is surround by criminals on social media? Who never paid back a loan in the past?
A person demanding a large loan with no history of paying back loans?
Be realistic (Score:1)