Senator Fears Clearview AI Facial Recognition Could Be Used On Protesters (cnet.com) 74
Sen. Edward Markey has raised concerns that police and law enforcement agencies have access to controversial facial recognition app Clearview AI in cities where people are protesting the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died two weeks ago while in the custody of Minneapolis police. CNET reports: Markey, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, said Tuesday the technology could be used to identify and arrest protestors. "As demonstrators across the country exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting racial injustice, it is important that law enforcement does not use technological tools to stifle free speech or endanger the public," Markey said in a letter to Clearview AI CEO and co-founder Hoan Ton-That. The threat of surveillance could also deter people from "speaking out against injustice for fear of being permanently included in law enforcement databases," he said.
Markey, who has previously hammered Clearview AI over its sales to foreign governments, use by domestic law enforcement and use in the COVID-19 pandemic, is now asking the company for a list of law enforcement agencies that have signed new contracts since May 25, 2020. It's also being asked if search traffic on its database has increased during the past two weeks; whether it considers a law enforcement agency's "history of unlawful or discriminatory policing practices" before selling the technology to them; what process it takes to give away free trials; and whether it will prohibit its technology from being used to identify peaceful protestors. Ton-That said he will respond to the letter from Markey. "Clearview AI's technology is intended only for after-the-crime investigations, and not as a surveillance tool relating to protests or under any other circumstances," he said in an emailed statement.
Markey, who has previously hammered Clearview AI over its sales to foreign governments, use by domestic law enforcement and use in the COVID-19 pandemic, is now asking the company for a list of law enforcement agencies that have signed new contracts since May 25, 2020. It's also being asked if search traffic on its database has increased during the past two weeks; whether it considers a law enforcement agency's "history of unlawful or discriminatory policing practices" before selling the technology to them; what process it takes to give away free trials; and whether it will prohibit its technology from being used to identify peaceful protestors. Ton-That said he will respond to the letter from Markey. "Clearview AI's technology is intended only for after-the-crime investigations, and not as a surveillance tool relating to protests or under any other circumstances," he said in an emailed statement.
Re: And the libertarian is where? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rand has already stated his views on facial recognition. NOT JUST to identify protestors, but all privacy raping aspects. Why would I, if I were a senator, stand with you for a photo op, after you criticize me all the time, except to say congratulations foe pulling your head out of your ass. Only I would probably say those exact words. Sadly this senator will just as quickly reinsert his head right back in his ass and sponsor more facial recognition in the names of Fighting Terrorism or For The Children.
Probably the best thing that could happen to this world, about now, is a complete collapse of technology. SneakerNet. No more up to the second notifications. Give people their sanity, their privacy, and their freedoms back.
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Re:And the libertarian is where? (Score:5, Informative)
Why? Why would such facial recognition being used to identify rioters trouble Libertarians?
What "hypocrisy"? Libertarians aren't against police enforcing the laws — on the contrary!
Democrats may be worrying about their voters, volunteers, and even campaign staff getting arrested, but the Libertarians don't have this problem...
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It was a clever, and apparently effective, troll.
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Read the title. It says "protesters", not "rioters". Are you still thinking these are the same thing?
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When I want to express my opinion, I need to fill out multiple forms weeks in advance, which petition may still be denied by the city government on bogus grounds [kolotv.com].
This makes any protest, however orderly and peaceful, without such an earlier-issued permit illegal. Ha-ha...
But, yes, "protesters" and "rioters" are synonyms during the last week or two — even though police are, actually, only interested in the latter [latimes.com].
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Leaning towards libertarianism can make it hard to get re-elected in today's Republican party. Politics today is about helping your team and hindering the other team. If you stand up as a principled Republican saying you want to protect the rights of the protesters, you'll piss of the tweater-in-chief and be labeled as soft on crime. This is the Party of Trump now, and you must do what Trump wants if you want to keep your government job. Princples are one of the first things to wither and die away once a
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And apparently Justin Amash does not exist. Or is described as an ex-Republican.
For an industry that allegedly deals in disseminating facts, journalism certainly misses out on some opportunities.
But like everyone else, they require government permission to operate their business -- and that goes double for broadcast journalism.
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The link is about private citizens minding their own business.
The senator is talking about using / not using Clearview AI to identify suspects.
If you can't see the difference between regular population and CRIME SUSPECTS, I'm afraid you're more interested in protecting criminals than in protecting the regular population.
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Protection of rights is less about you directly than forbidding the government from wielding the powers of a dictator at its whim.
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Protection of rights is less about you directly than forbidding the government from wielding the powers of a dictator at its whim.
There is a very easy way to try to falsify your statement. Should American police departments be also forbidden from using hand guns, since dictatorships use hand guns too?
The fact that you post this kind of idiotic claims is sad. The fact that you have the right to vote is scary.
I suspect other motives. (Score:3)
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Don't forget walking gate fingerprinting analysis.
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Er, gait
How about using it on the unidentifed riot police? (Score:2)
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Or the neo-Nazis.
That's the problem with politicians who are unprincipled, soulless bastards who practice situational ethics, the high valuation of a supposed principle when it supports one of your goals, and the devaluation of it when it gets in the way.
How about a lesson from constitutional design: don't grant government dictatorial powers to begin with, and a Panopticon is one of the worst.
Re: How about using it on the unidentifed riot pol (Score:2)
I could not agree more. Not only should Nineteen Eighty Four, and Animal Farm, be required reading in school, it should be required reading on multiple key years during education. Each time through should take a deeper look than the last. By the time the student gets to 9th grade government/civic classes, they should have read both books at least twice.
This also will make studying 20th century history easier, as you will spot the pieces of communism and fascism assemble to what they became.
What to do with the Information ? (Score:5, Insightful)
With the Patriot Act. identifying all people in attendence will be legal.
Antifa is a terrorist group and finding them in that crowd should be the focus.
Catching the looters & rioters will be a bonus for the law enforcement.
I suspect the ABC groups have much better systems to do this that Clearview.
The Congress can whine, but this is going to happen.
They aren't going to repeal all the mass survielence laws.
Re: What to do with the Information ? (Score:2)
"Antifa is a terrorist group and finding them in that crowd should be the focus."
It's about as much a group as Anonymous, so good luck catching that boogeyman. The punks causing trouble and picking fights with other assholes don't need any symbols, they're going to carry on starting fights with bigots and racists, but maybe you'll force the others to drop the retarded hammer and sickle displays. You'll be doing them a big PR favor in the end.
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Antifa is a terrorist group and finding them in that crowd should be the focus.
That's the really dangerous part here. Antifa isn't an organization, it's literally just a banner under which people can choose to act. No leaders, no membership lists... Meaning you could be accused of being a member and have no way to prove otherwise.
It makes exercising your democratic right to protest risky because all the cops need to do is send someone in a black shirt to stand near you and they can hit you with terrorism charges. It's the kind of thing dictators love. Reminds me of McCarthyism too, an
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That's the really dangerous part here. Antifa isn't an organization, it's literally just a banner under which people can choose to act. No leaders, no membership lists
Let me preface by saying that I agree with your point in general. However, the above also could be applied to ISIS (claim to be a member and they embrace you, as evidenced by several attacks in the previous decade).
It's not much of a stretch to classify some "Antifa" activities over the last four years as terrorism, but your point about "we'll get someone in a black shirt to stand next to you" is quite a good one. I don't think there are any good answers, here.
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ISIS has leadership, structure, there is communication and direction.
Yeah, probably (Score:4, Insightful)
It will probably be used whenever someone wants to recognize faces. If not Clearview, then some other facial recognition.
The facial recognition genie isn't going back in the bottle. The cat isn't going back in the bag. The secret is out and it's not going back to being secret.
If you're on camera doing something, and your face (or tattoos) are visible, and people want to know who did it, they'll probably find out it was you. If you burned down someone's home or business, I hope they do.
Everyone better work toward limiting their government's power and making sure the people in charge can't abuse what power they have left. Because it's going to get harder and harder to hide.
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Just make its use illegal and then any case that used it illegally will be destroyed by the "fruit of the poison tree" doctrine. There will still be parallel construction but you can minimize it if you write the law properly, e.g. if a department is found to have used facial recognition then everything even tangentially related to the whole department is tainted.
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So someone else will use facial recognition and post the info. Then the authorities found out from reading Twitter. I don't think identity can be suppressed. They know it's you. The jury can look at you and the picture and decide if it's you.
There’s no human right to be anonymous in images. And there's no privacy in public.
The right answer is to repeal more laws and make law enforcement follow rules and protect rights when they investigate the laws that are left.
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That doesn't help - it just means police can't use it as evidence against you. Doesn't mean they can't do tons of other things with potentially wo
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If you're on camera doing something, and your face (or tattoos) are visible, and people want to know who did it, they'll probably find out it was you. If you burned down someone's home or business, I hope they do.
and if it's not you and instead you've been identified improperly, it will be entirely on you to defend yourself against the system. Good luck!
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If you're on camera doing something, and your face (or tattoos) are visible, and people want to know who did it, they'll probably find out it was you. If you burned down someone's home or business, I hope they do.
and if it's not you and instead you've been identified improperly, it will be entirely on you to defend yourself against the system. Good luck!
How is this different from any other mistaken identity situation? If you pick a random person and a random incident -- which is the equivalent of a false positive from an image search, that person can probably easily establish that they weren't there or have no connection to anything that happened. The likelihood of two people who look very similar being on scene at an incident at a specific time is extremely low.
Regardless, the tech exists. It's going to end up being used. Being afraid of a mistake doe
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> The protesters are now demanding the abolition of police
Are you referring to the "defund police" slogan? Perhaps you should read up on it a bit more. My current understanding is that it largely refers to offloading such things as mental health issues, homelessness issues, and so on off of law enforcement and onto social services.
> ... disguising concrete bricks as ice cream.
Used as weapons? not so much.
Concrete poured into ice cream cups, yes. Disguised? Also not so much.
> Antifa members smu
Protesters or looters and rioters? (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't even need AI because there's so much video evidence due to camera phones that shoot in high quality and make it easy for people to recognize someone they know. There was one case out of Pittsburgh where someone called into a tip line that lead to an arrest of a man who smashed up a police car [cbslocal.com]. They also made an arrest in the case of the former police captain who was killed in St. Louis [cnn.com] because they released camera footage of the individuals who had gone into the pawn shop prior to the event. There was also a woman who was arrested for several crimes because she streamed video of herself doing it to her own social media accounts [dailycaller.com], so there are some really bright individuals that don't necessitate any use of sophisticated algorithms and massive datasets.
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"Why would they go after peaceful protesters when there are thousands of people either inciting or committing violence or looting stores? "
For the same reason they are going after peaceful protesters *now* when there there are people inciting or committing violence and looting stores.
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So why would they use photos of a crowd to try and arrest someone much later and only after the fact, particularly if there's no other evidence to suggest that they committed any kind of a crime since peace
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Why would they go after peaceful protesters when there are thousands of people either inciting or committing violence or looting stores?
Two reasons: low hanging fruit, and also if you scare off the peaceful protestors, there'll be fewer people protesting, hence fewer looters.
Meaningless assurance (Score:2)
"Clearview AI's technology is intended only for after-the-crime investigations, and not as a surveillance tool relating to protests or under any other circumstances,"
And Facebook and Twitter aren't "intended" for propagating racism and misogyny, and guns aren't "intended" criminal use. Why do people bother saying this shit? If you're not taking substantive steps to actively prevent your product or service from being used in a way you didn't "intend", then just STFU; or better yet, be honest and say "we're in it for the money".
Don't worry antifa wear face masks (Score:1)
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Use case (Score:2)
I support it! Especially so we can put these punks [atf.gov] behind bars.
Democrats as usual (Score:3, Informative)
So, a democrat is objecting that a technology designed to catch and identify criminals will be used to catch and identify looters and rioters (aka criminals committing felonies) in midst of an armed rebellion? Democrats as usual.
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A black manâ(TM)s death was blamed on Democrat cops in a Democrat city with a Democrat police chief and a Democrat mayor in a Democrat state with a Democrat governor.
Then Democrats got together and burned Democrat cities.
The Democrat mayors and police chiefs allowed black businesses and neighborhoods to burn.
Black people died in the riots.
WTF does that whole mess have to do with Trump or conservatives?
NOTHING.
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I guess since we have a couple bad cops, all should be treated as murderers.
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I guess since we have a couple bad cops, all should be treated as murderers.
Aren't all police officers already all treated as murderers based on the action of a very very few? Isn't that what the riots are about, or are the riots a special minority-only take-what-you-want stimulus package?
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Police should be held to a higher standard. Covering up crimes by officers destroys the trust of the public. I guess we're lucky to have independent video confirming the unnecessary killing of George Floyd.
Protesters have nothing to be worried about (Score:3, Insightful)
Protesters have nothing to be worried about. The right of the people to peaceably assemble is constitutionally protected. What's not protected is violence and looting, and I do hope ClearView is brought to bear on identifying those responsible.
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> will only be used by good guys on bad guys
Quite literally true in this case.
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May I remind people that constitutional rights are not per se there to protect you from being investigated for crime. They are there to forbid the powerful from misusing the power of investigation against political enemies.
So ignoring the latter misses the point. It's like saying if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear from government rummaging through your private papers at will, without a warrant, when that's exactly why that right was enumerated -- so the powerful couldn't pick out irrit
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There's no right to riot or loot (Score:1)
There's no right to riot or loot anywhere in the constitution. Fuck off.
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Protesters have nothing to be worried about.
Journalist have nothing to worry about either, right? Yet, here we are.
Are there any journalists remaining? (Score:1)
Are there any journalists remaining? No? So journalists aren't in danger either.
Response (Score:2)
Sir,
In the matter of the Clearview AI product and its usage, we refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.
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It's strange how we transitioned so effortlessly from Trump killing everyone with Corona virus to Trump killing blacks and burning down the US. Can Biden save us from these manufactured crises?
No everyone will still blame Trump and Biden will sell the USA to the Chinese saying he had to do it because of Trump
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''Biden will sell the USA to the Chinese saying he had to do it because of Trump''
But he won't remember it in the morning [or 10 minutes later].
Stingray (Score:2)
Re:Stingray (Score:4)
''You can be sure that all of the rioters' cell phones are being tracked at every second.''
This.
I don't know if the looting I saw was coordinated, but it was definitely organized. There's no way the looting I saw on a Sunday from news helicopters happened without communication. It doesn't really matter the route of the communication, the telemetry from tower information paints very clear timestamped locations. The people that did the looting were by no means able to just happen upon a situation and able to act in the coordinated manner that they did, without communication. There is no way that telemetry isn't being studied and used. I just hope our law enforcement will do their jobs and go after the criminals that tarnished a perfectly necessary and legal demonstration.
Protesters like the ones looting Nike? (Score:2)
Bring on ClearView to get these so-called protesters a one-way ticket to jail.
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Would be nice if there was a database for various HR departments in companies. Having people flagged as "Frequently seen protesting". Potential trouble makers. Employers should know who they are hiring.
Not right (Score:1)
"Could be?" (Score:2)
Not protesters (Score:1)
Why would a protester be arrested. He's another Dem that doesn't think arsonists, looters, vandals, and assaulters should be arrested.
wrong word again (Score:2)