Privacy Advocates Alarmed By Singapore's World-First Face-Scanning Plans (msn.com) 25
"Singapore will become the world's first country to use facial verification in its national ID scheme, but privacy advocates are alarmed by what they say is an intrusive system vulnerable to abuse," reports AFP:
Face scanning technology remains controversial despite its growing use and critics have raised ethical concerns about it in some countries — for instance, law enforcement agencies scanning crowds at large events to look for troublemakers. Singapore authorities are frequently accused of targeting government critics and taking a hard line on dissent, and activists are concerned about how the face scanning tech will be used. "There are no clear and explicit restraints on government power when it comes to things like surveillance and data gathering," said Kirsten Han, a freelance journalist from the city. "Will we one day discover that this data is in the hands of the police or in the hands of some other agency that we didn't specifically give consent for?"
Those behind the Singapore scheme stress facial verification is different to recognition as it requires user consent, but privacy advocates remain sceptical. "The technology is still far from benign," Privacy International research officer Tom Fisher told AFP. He said systems like the one planned for Singapore left "opportunities for exploitation", such as use of data to track and profile people.
Those behind the Singapore scheme stress facial verification is different to recognition as it requires user consent, but privacy advocates remain sceptical. "The technology is still far from benign," Privacy International research officer Tom Fisher told AFP. He said systems like the one planned for Singapore left "opportunities for exploitation", such as use of data to track and profile people.
Too late (Score:5, Informative)
We'll wear masks 'til the end of time.
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We'll wear masks 'til the end of time.
Or - you know - a year or so until one of any of a half-dozen promising vaccines are produced in high quantities. But... that reality doesn't support your agenda, does it?
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No, the OP was referring to defeating facial recognition systems by wearing a mask. Something this current pandemic has started to normalize and many state actors have discovered cause the recognition rate to plummet. Even China with their "mask aware facial recognition" only gets around 10% accuracy w
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just dont do stupid shit like take selfies wearing a mask. Why people do all the heavy lifting and feed their oppressors is beyond me. If they roll out a facial recognition system the least that we can do is not make their job any easier. Make them have to take all the photos themselves. That should help slow things down and generate red tape.
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If you want to "slow them down" then you need to poison the well so to speak. Have your brother or a similar looking cousin tag themselves as you and vica versa, rotate your facial hair and hair styles, switch up your sunglasses dye your hair, maybe curl it or cut it off, trim and don't trim your eyebrows and most importantly NO VISABLE TATOOS. The idea here is to give them so much conflicting data that any pattern established on you is going to have enough false positives to be near worthless.
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from what I understand its the geometry of the corners of your mouth, how wide your mouth is and how full the lips are, the distance from your nose to your lips (philtrum), the width of your nose, the width of your eyes as well as their distance from your nose, the size of your ears and their position relative to your eyes, and the height of your cheek bones, that create your fingerprint. I am not sure hair styles will do much. Properly wearing a mask takes the mouth, nose, and cheekbones out of the measure
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from what I understand its the geometry of the corners of your mouth, how wide your mouth is ...
Your understanding is outdated. That used to be the way it was done.
Modern FR takes a bunch of images of your face, stuffs them into an ANN, and does a dimensionality reduction to produce a matrix that identifies your face. The individual components of the matrix don't directly map onto features that a human would recognize.
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Someone should make masks with randomly generated lower facial features printed on them (mouths, facial hair, chins, etc) and sell them in packs. Rotate through several different masks and you've just poisoned the recognition algorithm by having your eyes be matched to multiple different faces, none of which are actually yours.
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You mean something like this [pollutionairmask.com]? Or this>? [gearbeauty.com] Or perhaps this [pollutionairmask.com]? Maybe this [chinavasion.com]? (We need more pics of cute asian women on here)
In reality, someone has already come up with what you suggested, although it's to identify them to their phones [republicworld.com]. No reason this couldn't be adapted.
Asia likes this (Score:2)
I had an interesting observation thrown at me by Japanese people. They thought that the Japanese are so dutiful with masks because when wearing a mask you don't have to care about your facial expression. All these unwritten rules about social interactions in combination with the traditional, introvert Japanese culture, are mostly moot if you wear a mask.
"We like that we do not have to interact with others" is what they said.
Then I mentioned to them that in Europe we think more or less exactly the opposite.
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When will it be the end of time? Tomorrow?
Capabilities (Score:2)
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Same concern to this 3 letter agency? (Score:3)
He said systems like the one planned for Singapore left "opportunities for exploitation", such as use of data to track and profile people.
[...bold mine...]
Not any different when compared to what the NSA has continues to do. [reuters.com]
Let's see close to equal "outrage" here.
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Big tech does not even care about appearances anymore they are all in for the socialist take over.
Why (Score:2)
Why does the government of any country need such a sophisticated (and expensive) way to identify it's citizens? Are we using tech because it's there or does the government of Singapore - or any country for that matter - have so many criminals that they need something like this to keep an eye on them? In my opinion, anything beyond managing driver's licenses is too much responsibility for government.
"1984" [Re:Why' (Score:3)
No, crime is just the excuse they use to track potential dissidents. Totalitarian gov'ts can't resist this technology in order to keep in power.
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William Gibson wrote in Wired, nearly three decades ago, Singapore is "Disneyland with the Death Penalty." It's basically a totalitarian state operated like a company town, with a very different view of what "Personal Freedom" is compared to North American expectations.
OK, So long as it uses 2FA (Score:3)
From next year, millions of people living in the city-state will be able to access government agencies, banking services and other amenities with a quick face scan.
We al know facial recognition isn't 100% accurate, and there's the whole AI thinks there's only one black person thing.
So all I ask is that the system send me a text when it thinks it's identified me.
text from government: Clovis, it appears you are buying a rifle right now. Do you authorize this transaction?
reply: yes
text from government: Clovis, it appears you closing your bank account right now. Do you authorize this transaction?
reply: yes
text: Clovis, are you giving a speech supporting bloody revolution in front of 391 New Bridge Road?
reply: uh, uh, uh, no?
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From next year, millions of people living in the city-state will be able to access government agencies, banking services and other amenities with a quick Facebook login. No account required - someone already gave us your photos to faceprint.
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A friend noted that the only pictures on my page are my dog. Facebook probably thinks I'm a dachshund.
Another friend said they got that from my personality, not my photos.