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Technology

Face Recognition (Cool or Privacy Threat?) 94

Posted by CmdrTaco from the way-cool-technology dept.
Hapster writes "A company called Neurodynamics based in Cambridge, England is testing face recognition technology in shopping malls and at least one British airport. Another company taunts that their technology "cannot be fooled" by disguises and hats and they're testing it on the streets. " There are 'Big Brother' aspects to this story and 'Wow, thats cool' aspects to this story. I still want a head mounted camera/monitor that can recognize people and remind me who they are: it'd be great for conferences when you see 1000 faces that you only know as email addresses...
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Face Recognition (Cool or Privacy Threat?) More

Face Recognition (Cool or Privacy Threat?)

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  • We 'Brits' haven't been governed by royalty for some 400 years.
  • I can see face recognition as a cool area of study. It has some cool applications-- sitting down in front of a computer and having it recognize" you would be cool.

    Try http://www.visionics.com/Faceit/Products/NT.htm

    imh
  • Hello, I went to the link offered on the page:
    http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmo r/docs/dg092499.htm .

    Its got nothing to do with face recognition.

    Too bad, I'm a firm believer in letting our computers and other systems which require authentication recognize us for who we are (biometrics) rather than what we know (passwords and PINs) because it requires nothing from us but being ourselves and makes it MUCH harder for somebody else to pretend to be us. This applies far beyond just cracking computer systems.

    My wife and I have been victims of forgery and criminal impersonation because some ethically challenged old family "friend" found (stole really,) some blank checks and an SS# and ran up thousands of dollars in forged cheques, a phony credit card application and thousands in fraudulent credit card charges. (she 'copped a plea' in one case but the other has not yet come to trial so I'm not going to post her image with a large red warning on it.)

    That person was not very good at running scams and she got caught for both offenses, but the crimes shouldn't have happened in the first place. They wouldn't have if the systems were vigilant and had proper recognition mechanisms. Computers are 'patient' and 'vigilant' but they are still too 'gullible' for our collective good.

    Credit cards and other fiscal instruments which are tagged with biometric data constitute an excellent line of defense for financial institutions and us, their customers.

    My wife and I are out a grand or so and the time and expense to go back to somewhere we don't live anymore to swear out criminal complaints. Its more than just a nuisance. But imagine if we had moved somewhere really far away, she'd have got away with being a parasite and she'd still be out there preying on others, perhaps you!

    Yes there are aspects of '1984' and 'Big Brother' which are worrisome but we already live under constant surveillance. Except for certain bulk items, (fasteners, drugs, shotgun shells, boxers, biefs, lipstick and the like, which are are tracable by lot number,) every single thing we buy is given a serial number and is tracable from the manufacturing plant all the way to you.

    Everything in your possession of any worth has "provenance," has a serial number or a lot number and can be traced all from you, through all others who might have owned it all the way back to the manufacturer or artisan that created it. And I do mean everything: (With apologies to "Sting" :-) every fib you lie, every fake-tear you cry, every knife you buy, every scam you try, someone's recorded you.

    Right now, most retrieval's a time consuming pain, (and someone's pain is someone else's profit center, crminals as well as honest companies are getting rich off of the fact that verification is still a slow process) but things like the automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS)make it much easier to retrieve information based on biometrics and that's the only difference. The information's ALREADY in there!

    Personally, I'm looking forward to Mac OS9 when I can just walk up to my Macs, say "Honey I'm Home!" and they'll actually let me touch the keyboard without shutting down.

    The only safegard we need to put on the systems, both machine and human, already in place is that they remain passive observers or arbitrers of access and that they aren't used in predatory fashion.
  • Visionics ( http://www.visionics.com ) is one the 'big' facial recognition companies...

    imh
  • I can't even fathom a "big brother" hypothetical here. In the police example, only *wanted* violent criminals are added to the database. Unless you're a wanted fugitive, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Secondly, the article states that businesses are testing this system out by adding *known* shoplifters to its database as they are caught. If you don't want to be added to their database, don't shoplift there (or don't get caught). If you're paranoid about their security cameras, don't shop there (though you'll be hard-pressed to find a store that doesn't use cameras in some fashion).

    The only difference between existing stores and these testbed stores is that in existing stores, there's a human being watching the cameras, looking for familiar faces. In this case, it's the computers looking for the SAME familiar faces.

    The paranoid fears that every citizen is being labeled and tracked by these systems is just utter bullshit. I sincerely wish you people would read the article before you start up with your idiotic big brother conspiracy theories that are so obviously uninformed by those of us who HAVE read the article and UNDERSTAND what's really happening.

    Some of these Slashdot comments are getting pretty pathetic nowadays.
  • Perhaps it has not been absolute rule since 400 years ago, BUT until relatively recently (taking the country's ENTIRE history into account) the "Royals" got almost anything that they wanted.

    After all, it was only 223 years ago that the actions of King George and reactions to them sparked a war between our two countries.

    LK
  • People insist on taking something relatively benign and beneficial and keep "taking it to the next level" where suddenly it isn't quite so benign or beneficial, and then proceed to judge that thing based on where it can be taken.

    This is totally unfair and just silly.

    Hey, wow, you know, I have this friend that invented a thing called a "microphone" that can be used to detect sounds. But I'm kinda worried, because, you know, you could put this microphone someplace remote and using a bit of wire, you could hear what was going on in another room. In fact, you could really hide these in every single room in the city, and people could, like, memorize the sounds of other peoples voices and then compare it and that way they can track where everyone in the city is at any given time! THIS TECHNOLOGY MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS.

    If there are people out there that wish to abuse technology such as this in the manners you suggest, fight those people, don't fight the technology. Write your government. Write businesses you suspect are considering using the technology as you suggest (I sincerely doubt any are).

    The article states only wanted criminals will be temporarily added to their "face" database. If you aren't a wanted criminal, you're not even *in* the database, much less identified on sight. In the store example, only known, caught shoplifters are added. Don't shoplift (or don't get caught). If that store's policy of photographing the faces of shoplifters and comparing their face with patrons disturbs you, DON'T SHOP THERE.

    All other applications of this technology that you suggest are paranoid fantasies. Stop judging something based on what it's theoretically capable of.
  • How about slashdot employ some kind of hype-recognition program to filter out this kind of guff? Pure marketing bullshit. Have you ever seen any of those images from CCTV's? Very poor, very low resolution. The villain's mum would have difficulty recognising her son from the quality of those shots, never mind a computer. Just think of the difficulty of first even recognising that there's a face in shot at all, then figuring out what angle it's looking at, building a 3D model, rotating it, taking into account light source, etc etc etc. Sure it kind-of works in the demo, and they were probably able to sucker some technically illiterate council IT manager into a pilot scheme. But really. I once spent months writing an OCR program. This stuff is seriously _hard_.
  • I think it might be helpful to distinguish between technology and objects built using that technology. Making a sword involves knowing how to forge steel. That knowledge, or technology, can be used to make a weapon like a sword, or a tool like a dinner knife. Just a thought.
  • Sounds like a good idea. But I think I'd need a jolly decent security layer on top of the card, something involving a lot of bits' encryption, before I was happy about losing it at the drop of a hat..
  • Ahh, the sweet smell of big brother! Soon, repressive governments the world over will be able to arrest people on sight, without the bother of having to prove anything. You won't be able to enter an airport unless you're a good corporate citizen. And if you're having a bad hair day ... well, let's just say it may be a lot worse than before, that's for sure.

    I think I'll use those Bill Gates facial prints I got from the cream pies and make a teeny tiny withdrawal of a few million right now ...

  • All this seem to me like a real unnholy mix of researchers with no thought to the consequences of their work, and "law and order" forces just reflexively grabbing for any power they can somehow justify.

    Sure, face recognision could have a lot of cool aplications, but under the current political/economic system it is unfortunately the most ugly uses that has the most plentifull suporters, with the most money to spend..

    When I think of what I have read and been told, of the british police treatment of travelers, gypsies, house culture, and basically everyone choosing to live other lives than "the matrix" has designed for us, it makes me want to move to somewhere very far from "western culture"...

    -- We plunge for the slipstream the realness to find
  • Well, yes. Personally, I would love a smart ID card, containing all my bank account information, driver`s licence, passport info, blood donor info, and supermarket loyalty cards all on one piece of plastic. It`s no more information than is available to people at the moment, and it would be much more convenient all in one card - and losing it would be about the same as losing my wallet; there`d be a number to phone to report it missing and get a new one.

    Besides, given the Data Protection Act (people aren`t allowed to hold personal data (including as little as a name and address) about you on computers unless you give them permission, AND they have to be registered to do so, and you can demand to see the information they have on you and ask to be removed at any time) I don`t think there`s that much to worry about.

    Access to databases? Depends who`s wanting it. Perhaps you`d have to register and give a legitimate reason for wanting to see it (things like Research Project would have to be backed up by the relevant institution), or perhaps there`d be a summary version that would be available to the general public, with the full details only available to the police..
  • Nothing ruffles their feathers. The British laugh at the anti-government 'paranoia' they see in the US. Yes, we are all a bunch of conspiritorial wackos. When I was working over their recently I was amazed at how my British co-workers did not seem to care much about the increasing pervasiveness of government sponsored video surveillance.

    They thought it was incredibly funny when an American friend of mine freaked out when he realized what looked like a lamp post in a park was actually a concealed camera, pointing at him.

    In England, there are cameras EVERYWHERE, and now the cameras can recognize them without human intervention, greatly reducing the cost of creating an even more expansive surveillance network.

    The brits just seem to trust in the benign intent of their grand paternalistic government. But once any entity has enough information about you and power over you, there can be no trust relationship.

    -josh

  • Sure the government could start to do some really scary things with this technology, but has anyone thought of the sorts of annoying things marketing people could do with this?

    How's about applying the technology to mall security cameras, and linking the visual recognition with a marketing database so that a band of roving salespeople can "point you in the right direction". Or even more annoying, how's about salespeople standing outside of store doors accosting people by name to try to get them in the store, but since the faces are linked to marketing databases, they only choose people that fit their "target market".

    Taking things to the next level, stores would be able to effortlessly track each individual customer that shops in their store. With this technology, simply walking into the store tells them your name, address, social security number, phone number, e-mail address, credit history, checking/savings account balances, crimminal record, sexual preference, television viewing habits, and the list of recent stores that you've shopped in. Paying cash to remain anonymous to marketing people no longer will work.

    An even more screwed-up use would be using video monitors that display advertisements based on who happens to walk by them. A camera looks at your face, figures out what you like, then displays only the commercials that fit your profile. It's kinda like when you use search engines on web pages and all those porno advertisements start popping up -- except everyone else walking by sees the commercial too. Imagine cameras and LCD screens at eye-level in bathroom stalls and urinals that shove commercials in your face while you're doing your business.

    Just a few paranoid thoughts...
  • A read about something like this a few weeks ago, though I'm not sure where. The gist of the article was that a marketing company is investigating the use face recognition to identify shoppers as they move around stores to determine their shopping habits, almost exactly as you described.

    And they don't need a lame excuse like "protecting kids" to put cameras up. Most large stores already have cameras mounted to catch shoplifters.

    And they don't need to get information illegally from the government. Simply watch the shoppers as they go through the checkout stand. Use a credit card and they know who you are.

    Am I worried? Not really. The credit card companies know far more about me already.

  • Face Recognition is in its infancy (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Before you get too excited about this, be
    aware that face recognition technology is
    in its infancy.

    At my company I've done an extensive evaluation
    of face recognition products. Conclusions are:

    (I'm not going to give any statistics here,
    but I have calculated them for each point)

    1. Face finding algorithms are actually
    suprisingly poor. At least three face rec
    products can be fooled into not finding
    a face if you tilt you head 30 degrees to
    the side.

    2. In a Humans vs face rec test. Humans
    are always better. Most humans are much
    better, but the worst are just barely
    better than face rec.
    (Interestingly, these results show no
    difference between Male and Female
    face recognition performance)

    3. Face rec performance with recent photos
    is excellent - however with older,
    poor quality photos the performance is
    abysmal.

    Since photos of criminals tend to be
    older, this explains the
    new scientist article where the
    system did well in beta testing (with
    recent photos) but only caught 2
    criminals.

    I'm not saying face rec doesn't have promise,
    but don't expect it to outperform real live
    neural networks soon!
  • According to several sources, the UK government is already actively employing this sort of technology. They certainly had reason to develop it, with all their counter-terrorism worries.

    In the book The Irish War [jya.com], Tony Geraghty says, "Surveillance cameras around sensitive areas such as the City of London, linked to computers which will automatically identify suspect vehicles within four seconds,
    evolved into computerized, digital maps of human faces." He claims they used this to identify and capture an IRA bomber.
    Of course, some of these claims about British Intelligence are rather fanciful, but these seem to have the ring of truth to them.
  • My twin brother and I have tested a similar product in Comdex, 2 - 3 years ago. We are identical twins, but 'cultivate' a different look with different hairstyles.

    The system shown at Comdex could not be fooled by us, even when we came back the next day, with 'swapped' looks (I looked like my bro did the day before, etc).

    Nifty stuff.

  • I have a condition called prosopagnosia.. that basically means I can't recognize faces. As a result, it takes me a LOT longer to know 90% of the people in a group of 30 students, and by that time people are done introducing themselves to each other.

    I can't wait until this technology is improved to the point where I can get a wearable computer with face recognition built in :)

    A relavant link about prosopagnosia: http://www.choisser.com/faceblind/ [choisser.com]


  • Of course a sword is for threatening or killing. That isn't the issue. What matters is why and how it is used. The genie is _NOT_ going to go back into the bottle, so we'd best learn to cope.

    Marshall McLuhan's "The media is the message" has been widely misunderstood as "the media shapes the message". That is trite--of course it must. I heard him speak to my highschool class in the early '70s. IIRC, his point was that a new media [TV] has a message all of it's own: Things formerly hidden can now be seen/shown. That held true for the printing press, telegraph, cinema, telephone and television. It seems to be holding true for the Internet.

    -- Robert
  • Publicity on the stuff that makes LE more able to track, classify and snoop is long overdue.

    Of course, the real screaming will come when the government-watchers demand access to all the cameras and sensors and put them to work watching the government. Can you imagine having a real-time display of the locations of all the legislators ... and lobbyists ... in Washington? See who's in bed with whom, and who's chatting just a little too much with the wealthy contributor who just happens to to be trying to compromise so-and-so's position on an issue that's near and dear to you?

    Unless sunshine comes first and hardest to the government itself, government is just being hypocritical. It should not be allowed to do anything to the public that it does not first do to itself.

  • This technology has as ton of cool possible uses. The problem is, paranoid or not, I don't trust the government with it. Of course, my oppinion doesn't mean jack to them, and they are probably using it allready and just haven't told us about it. That doesn't mean I have to like it. IF they are to deploy something like this the only way I would even begin to feel good about it was if the government and law enforcement had to have a warrent to use it to look for someone. A public warrent, not those stupid sealed warrents. IMO they shouldn't even get to HAVE my pattern in there unless they would have my fingerprints allready (such as an arrest, etc). There should also be PUBLIC supervision. And I do mean public. I want EVERYONE to be able to check up on big brother.

    Of course, even if it were to happen, and to quote Wayne from Wayne's World "Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!".. It still requires a lot of trust on our part that they will have all the records regarding the use of the system available and not just cover it up. When they show me they can be responsible with the tech they have allready I'll reconsider my position. Of course, in the grand scheme of things even if the people voted it down (if they let us vote on it, and they probably wouldn't) they would just ignore us and do it anyway just like everything else. Am I being cynical, probably, but history gives me cause to be.
  • Seems you know so much about how gov't works.
  • While I find technology like this cool, I can't imagine anything worse than surviving a horrible attack and then being unable to get money from my bank account because I had been disfigured by the attack. Sigh.
  • well, it seems to me that having your face on file isn't as bad as it sounds. doesn't the dmv already have us on file?
  • Exactly.

    Already, fashion trends start in the criminal classes, and propagate out as the children of the upper classes get a cheap thrill.

    It is already a fashion aphorism that to see what the well-dressed woman will be wearing in five years, see what New York streetwalkers are wearing now.

    Hats will finally make a comeback...
  • ...without some kind of edge-detection algorithm, and even then, the edges it detects would have to be skin-based.

    As such, changes in body weight would change the edges to be detected, as would temporary swelling, broken nose/jaw, and to a lesser extent, facial blemishes such as recently-earned scars, pimples, or even blowing off shaving for a few days would make the edges different enough to defeat the algorithm.

    Yet, they're saying it would beat disguises. Again, I don't see how unless they're going straight into the eye to do retinal scan.

    I'd be interested to find out...
    _____
  • I just followed the link and got to an equally interesting, but irrelevant story regarding IBM's bad business moves regarding TCP/IP.

    Oh well...
    Christopher Kalos
  • While I think the article on IBM's missed opportunity is a very informative one, at the same time I was really looking forward to an article on face recognition... Well, too bad. Sorry I'm not enterprising enough to find the correct link. Translation of humorous sarcasm: I think this is the wrong link.

  • Let's see... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Okay, this technology will in effect make it possible for a government to track all its citizens who dare to venture out in public. Thus further increasing the imbalance in power between government and its citizens.

    I guess I wouldn't have a problem with such proliferation if every citizen had equal access to the tracking database, but you know governments will never allow this to happen.
  • Whoops, that link will only work with the websites own search engine. Well, it is pointless anway, anything beyond this little blurb costs you 1.95:

    Published on 09/24/99, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS FACE-RECOGNITION ATMS BEING OFFERED BY S.F. FIRM You can see the future of automated teller machines inside a refurbished brick warehouse here -- and it can see you too. A new cash-machine company is producing a line of ATMs that uses cutting-edge biometric technology, which scans a users' face to determine identity, eliminating the need for bank cards or personal identification numbers during a transaction. Your search terms appear 2 times in this article. Complete Article, 199 words ( $1.95 )

  • The New Scientist [newscientist.com] is carrying it too.

    This kind of technology has practical benefits for some too. The sides of Britain's roads are increasingly populated by cameras which aren't there for speed, they recognise number-plates and then, when another camera sees that same plate at some other place it can use that information to help formulate a picture of traffic flows. That's cool. So long as the do as they say and drop the data after 20-30 minutes and only encode the middle few characters and not the whole plate.

    If the camera makes the high street safer and the criminal more scared, is it a totally bad thing?
  • Couldn't find the article, but here's the home page for that company...

    http://www.neurodynamics.com [neurodynamics.com]

  • Correct Link (Score:3)

    by TheBeginner ( 30987 ) on Monday September 27, 1999 @02:48AM (#1657748)
    I decided to make myself useful and here is the correct link:

    http://newslibrary.krmediast ream.com/cgi-bin/search/sj [krmediastream.com]

  • This is already in use in London, UK (Score:3)

    by Cally ( 10873 ) on Monday September 27, 1999 @02:56AM (#1657749) Homepage
    A couple of councils (local govt.) in the UK, specifically Newham in London, are already using digital face-recognition systems [computerweekly.co.uk] to (they claim) identify known criminals from CCTV and move them on.

    CCTV coverage has exploded in the UK in recent years, with mixed results -- crime has fallen in some areas, and the recent bomber was caught partly through the extensive coverage of the area where I live, Brixton [brixton.co.uk]. OTOH (a) muggers, drug users & other anti-social types just move away -- eg to the (CCTV free) council estate where I live [streetmap.co.uk]. The Civil Liberty aspect hasn't really got much attention over here AFAIK -- the police and govt. have their marketing down perfectly ...


  • Any technology is merely a tool, neither bad nor good in and of itself. What matters is how people use it, and the motivations of those people.

    If you think the police/govt/bosses are evil/hostile/malevolent or otherwise out to get you, then _ANY_ tools they have are bad. From gunpowder and the telegraph onwards.

    I'm not quite so fearful, even though I have been the victim of malicious prosecution. Mostly they are after criminals. The definition of crime is usually reasonable but not always nor everywhere, so it bears watching.

    The price of freedom has always been vigilance. Mostly of people in positions of power to ensure that they act reasonably and not from personal biases, hidden agendas or perverse incentives.

    -- Robert
  • Get an Xface compatible mail client.
  • The closet thing I could find about "face recognition" was this [newslibrary.com] article about face recognition on ATMs. It wanted to charge me $1.95 to read the article... too bad.

    On topic, however, I'm not so sure I like the idea of having these cameras all over the place. This seems to be almost the equivilent of having a wire tap on your phone at all times. Whenver you go into a public place you're subject to monitoring. I really don't like that.

    perhaps I'm a tad paranoid, but when I know people can be watching me, I usually assume that I am being watched... and that makes me nervous. I'm sure it will be (has been?) deployed without them telling us about it for a few years.... and when it does finally come up, they'll be able to say "Yes, but we caught X really bad guys with it!"

  • I actually found the IBM link more interesting. I donno, maybe that was just me.

  • Re:A link... (Score:3)

    by HugoRune ( 20378 ) on Monday September 27, 1999 @02:50AM (#1657754)
    Try this one:

    http://www.neurodynamics.com /biometrics/new_facial.htm [neurodynamics.com]
  • In some parts of Britain (particularly in London) you can almost guarantee that at any given time there will be a camera watching you. There is even a camera outside my flat in Battersea which is capable of looking in our livingroom window. TV is filled with what can only be described as pro-surveillance propoganda (shows such as "Eye Spy" and "Police Camera Action"), and almost nobody is expressing any serious concern about this. Integrating face recognition software into this system will allow the police and their "friends" to automatically monitor your movements in public, who you hang around with, what shops you use ect etc. This is all being done in the name of combatting crime, yet all these cameras seem to do is take the police off the streets.

    The British police have far too much important work to do filling out arrest reports and stamping out racism to engage in politicially incorrect things like catching criminals. Cameras on the streets (instead of police) will only give the police further excuses to disregard their responsibility to the public.

    --

  • For the ones that actually look at the face: veils, masks, makeup and motorcycle helmets with the visor down. For the ones that read dermal heat patterns: masks, makeup that changes heat loss (like mud?), and motorcycle helmets with the visor down. This may even start a few fashion trends that would be kind of interesting and lend new meaning to the terms public and private faces...
  • Here's what probably will happen. Reliable face recognition technology will be perfected and as lip service to privacy they'll make laws and international treaties that the only people who will be allowed to use it are licensed security and law enforcement people. Of course people will think this improves their privacy while it only just increases the power of big brother. If the average joe had ready access to this technology there might be some parity, as people would share face patterns of spooks and undercover cops and other mischevious persons on the internet. Alas unless we fight for it we're never going to get that. Unless we fight for the right to use this technology in flexible consumer applications, "the watchers" are the only ones who are going to get to be anonymous.
  • I remember watching a show on the discovery channel about this at least a year ago. They were testing systems like these in "nielsen homes", as in the people they get the ratings for shows from. Normally they have to punch in when they watch shows and who they are, but with that they were able to just sit down and it would tell who was was watching what when. Of course, it still had some glitches, as in when it thought the family dog was the little girl... but ohwell :D
  • Yes, but then, if criminals know that there`s a camera pointing at them they`re less likely to do stuff. The point about `Police Camera Action` is that most of the people shown on it do get caught. And they wouldn`t if they weren`t being filmed.
    (Actually, a lot of the footage in PCA is taken from cameras mounted on police cars or helicopters. So it`s not that the police aren`t there.)

    I have nothing against cameras filming in public places. Your living room is a different matter. What you do in the street is public domain: by doing it in a public place you are tacitly consenting to being seen by other people, and thus to having it recorded. But I would be the first to object if surveillance cameras in the living-room became commonplace. (I know that it already happens sometimes, and I`m not happy about it.)

  • All technology has two sides... (Score:4)

    by Seth Scali ( 18018 ) on Monday September 27, 1999 @03:24AM (#1657760)
    Note: Statements below are not neccessarily my opinions-- they're just illustrations.


    The Internet has allowed us to communicate more and more with other people, through forums like Slashdot.
    Questions are now raised over privacy, censorship, sexually explicit or violent material, and the social impacts that the Internet has on geeks (are we all hermits?)

    Guns allowed people a method to protect their homes against criminals.
    Guns have also allowed criminals the ability to use deadly force while committing crimes.

    Radio brought into existence an entirely new area of journalism, allowing information to be spread nearly instantaneously through the airwaves.
    The same journalists also brought close-ups of grieving families in the post-Columbine hysteria, inciting a nation towards a series of knee-jerk reactions.

    I can see face recognition as a cool area of study. It has some cool applications-- sitting down in front of a computer and having it "recognize" you would be cool.
    But, as with guns, radio, and the Internet, there's a downside. The technology can be used for things that people don't like-- including the invasion of privacy.

    Anyway, just my $0.02
  • All these cameras use CCD. I'm sure these CCD's are sensitive to light other then visible light. Would it be possible to make a device the emitted this light (Ultraviolet, infrared) that would make you appear as just a glow on cameras? How about a very bright light that could actually damage that camera? (But all out of the visible spectrum, so nobody can see you have it on.)

    Could they kick you out of the store for not showing up on the video?

    Just a thought...

    -RossB
  • "Besides, given the Data Protection Act (people aren`t allowed to hold personal data (including as little as a name and address) about you on computers unless you give them permission,..." Read the DPA. Governmental institutions have a cast iron opt out clause, pretty much whenever they want...

    And for those who bleat that they would like a National ID card in the UK because the "innocent have nothing to fear", I would suggest they spend 90 minutes being strip searched in the back of a Police van, having comitted no crime other than being a passenger in a car that was being driven at 10mph over the speed limit. Then tell me you really want that ID card.

  • It's a part of the Brit's psychology. For as long as there has been an England they've been governed by the whim of the Royalty.

    In fact I'm rather surprised that Christianity even took hold there, due to their undying loyalty to authority the typical Brit response to the story of Christ should have been "Well, if he was executed, he must have been a criminal."

    Every country seems to have it's own psychological traits. Here in the US, the "Cowboy mentality" seems to be very common. In Japan the culture can be traced back to their feudal past. These traits can often be carried with a people no matter where they live. For example, around the globe Jewish people seem to be very concerned with remembering the hardships that they faced in the past so that they can be strong in the future. This seems to be common from the American Jews to the Seraphim that have been scattered through Europe.

    LK
  • If you were at a conference with thousands of people wearing badges, rather than recognizing faces, would not an electronic wireless badge identification system be much easier and less intrusive? Imagine that the name, profile, and picture flashed on a Visor or something as you approached them? Or if you must have your HUD, that as the person approached that they would have their name float above them, as well as a short description being read to you or something.

    All of a sudden images of Quake3Arena pop into my head =)


    -AS

  • Well, one really may want to send encrypted messages. One may really want to make purchases anonymously. That's what the cash is for. But I can't make up a situation when one might want to deny his face (implying he/she is not a criminal, of course)

    Scared of that pesky paper flyers? Oh, I just throw them away. You see, the worst thing about spam is that you can not tell at first glance whenever a message is a meaningful message or a spam. When you got paper flyers, you don't have even read then in order to know it's just an ad.

    Scared of evil police robo-cameras looking through the crowd at you? Then what about simple human cops?

    Seems like you guys are scared of technology. And you dare call yourself geeks? :-)

  • I could imagine a medium powered laser being enough to temporarily blind or damage a CCD, BUT you'd have to be able to aim it without being noticed.

    Since the emits a coherent beam of light, nobody should be able to detect it, and even a camera operator my not be able to determine it's source.

    LK
  • Did that happen to you? And would it have been any more or less likely to happen if you had had an ID card?
  • I am well aware that face recognition software is not up to this task right now (having played with some face recognition algorithms myself), but foolish is he who underestimates the rate of increase in computer power, particularly when there is such a strong motive for developing this capability.

    --

  • There's a fashion designer (can't remember his name, but he's based in Soho, London and was responsible for those single strap backpacks everyone's been wearing for the last year) who actually designs clothes with this in mind. Dunno how much of a gimic it is. But he designs clothes with crotch protection, veils to hide the face, etc. Kind of the logical progression of all this urban survival crap that everyone's been wearing for the last couple of years.
  • I assume all of the products you tested were facial recognition based on photography. Have you tried any based on ultrasonic imaging? I'd quote from the book directly, but I didn't bring many of my books when I moved down here to Mexico from the States. I had a book on Neural Networks, and the authors of one of the articles in the book had used a neural network and an ultrasonic imaging system to do facial recognitions. Based on a small training set, it was quite amazing what this program could do. It had something like a 95% success rate of recognizing the sex of "unknown" faces and about a 90% success rate of recognizing expressions on unknown faces. For known faces it had, as I recall, a 99% recognition accuracy. Part of the nice thing was that it didn't matter if the face was right side up, upside down, or sideways (thought it did have to be, more or less, head on.) Essentially, the neural network was fed the waveform of the echo from a single ultrasonic transducer (which has no information about up or down). It was then told the name, sex, and facial expression of the person being "photographed" (for lack of a better term). I don't recall what the training set size was, but it was quite small. This was also quite a few years ago. My guess is this would be much better these days with faster computers and using larger N-Nets....

  • Re:Britain also has DNA databases? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ** What you do in the street is public domain: by doing it in a public place you are tacitly consenting to being seen by other people, and thus to having it recorded. **

    I think your tacit agreement can only be assumed if you have an alternative that you may have employed. Don't want to be seen picking your nose? Do it in private. But you MUST leave your home to get grocieries and what not. Tacit agreement can only be assumed when there is a resonable alternative.
  • if it were compact enough that it could become part of a wearable computer. it could be a great addition to the arsenel of equipment for the blind. It would probably sound like a MUD though.. hehe.
  • While focusing on Big Brother aspects, I think people are leaving out more important issues - for example, what impact will this have on Michael Jackson's life when he undergoes facial surgery gain? What about other celebrities who regularly undergo facelifts?

    Sure, *you* may worry about petty matters like surveillance, but think of it. This technology could have the potential to seriously disrupt their lives...
  • Honestly, I think it's more likely that there are rookie police officers at the other ends of the cameras watching the various malls, etc. It would be much easier to have a packet of "criminals we want to find" sitting on the desk and watch the cameras around known hangouts of those criminals. Then it's a simple call to the police on the street with a full description of the criminal and what he/she is wearing and his current location. Why say it's done by computer? Probably because people would be up in arms if they knew that humans were on the other end.
  • While there is nothing to say against the intentions and possible benefits of this technology, building such a network creates a huge potential for misuse:

    who has access to this system?

    how long is the data stored?

    how secure is the system (tampering)?
    A more "democratic" system would be the one invented by Neal Stephenson where everyone wears a camera with hotlink to the police station. Kind of a visual 911.

    But even that creates a society I wouldn't want to live in. So, I cannot find anything cool about it...

    For reasons why biometrics isn't as good as you might think, you can read this article by Bruce Schneier [counterpane.com].

  • I think it's a fairly simple conflict between privacy, as a nice ideal state of play, and safety & justice on the other hand, as required in a non-ideal world.

    So yeah, I'd be quite happy if I didn't turn up on cameras all over the shop, but no I'm hardly worried about it if I do - but I'm not going to be complacent and let the governmnet walk all over the issue in the future..
  • Hold on - what you do on the street is seen by others and hence constitutes an implicit consent to be recorded? I think that's a bit of a stretch.

    For example - let's say you film a person in the town square, that's perfectly legal. IANAL, but if you follow them around for the whole day filming everything that he or she does (even in public), I'm pretty sure they can take legal action against you.

    In any case, that's not the point - there's a difference between someone filming an occasional home video and institutional surveillance by the govt. of everyone's every move.
  • Hmmmm well it seems to me the the US has been working with this for some time. The CIA and FBI both use this technology with mostly unpublished results. However, with the FBI and CIA getting seemingly bored with there toys they are starting to share. I saw a program on Discovery awhile back with the FBI letting the LAPD use this technology at LAX in a random search for fugetives. I belive all they came up with were 3 men avoiding child support payments. Oh well....
  • Nobody is denying that cameras are an aid to fighting crime in some situations, but the issue is - how much power should the police have? Would it annoy you if someone followed you around with a notepad, recording your every movement, what shops you go into, how many times you use the toilet in a day, who you see (and what you do with them) etc etc? This is a perfectly legal thing for someone to do - but does that make it ok? So now the government wants to spend our money to do this to us? You may be comfortable with that, but I certainly am not.

    I am not suggesting public cameras are banned, I merely suggest that the data collected using them is carefully restricted, as is the case with the Car licence plate database (all accesses are recorded, and any misuse will get the relevant person into *alot* of trouble). Requiring a search warrent to perform certain kinds of database query is one option.

    --

  • Actually this technoilogy has been in use for more than a couple of years. The customs at heathrow, and gatwick have had this technology for some time, as well as Uncle Sam.
    The use of the techology is ok by me, as long as it is used responsibly. Shades of Big Brother. The Brits actually have a lot of cameras everywhere, or didn't anyone else watch that 60 Minutes?
  • Would it annoy you if someone followed you around with a notepad, recording your every movement, what shops you go into, how many times you use the toilet in a day, who you see (and what you do with them) etc etc?

    Yes, but only because it would by its intrusive nature hinder my activities. This isn`t a problem with security cameras, however.

    I do agree with what you say about monitoring access to the resulting databases though.
  • You see, the problem with any personal IDs is not that you lack privacy. The problem is that IDs become more important than the person. The IDs were invented for convenience to make your life easier. It's a pleasure to shop with a credit card, isn't it? But when ID take over the person - the passport system is a good example - it's a disaster. Without a passport you can't marry, can't get a job, can't get medical help etc. Like the state serves not people but the IDs. That's real problem
  • It will make it possible to track those who go out in public, but two points. The first being, they won't. They don't have the resources to do it, nor do they care. What this will most likely be used for is searching public places for people with arrest warrants out on them, or missing children. Second, from a purely constitutional point of view, you have no expectation of privacy in a public area. so, legally speaking, it wouldn't matter if they did track you,
  • It is not a wire tap on your phone. These are cameras, not microwave, directional microphonones. And if they were used to record what is said in a private conversation, I can guaranty that the Supreme Court would toss it in an instant. Being subject to monitoring in a public place? Ever heard of surveilence? Guys with badges discreetly follow you around? If they want to track you, they can track you. Do you assume that because the FBI could be following you around, they are?
    As for deploying it without our knowledge, that is unlikely. It would require a massive budget to put cameras in every public place, or even quite a few. It would likely neccesitate the creation of a new governmental agency. Those things tend to show up on the federal budget.
  • The gov't didn't care so much about how we used cryptography...until technology put world class cryptosystems into the hands of ordinary citizens.

    Now the gov't sees strong crypto as a threat, and want to restrict it. And most right thinking technophiles are screaming to high heaven, saying the technology is out there, where does the gov't get off trying to stop it?

    But now the shoe is on the other foot. Nobody cared so much about security cameras until a technology makes them more effective. Enter the wailing and gnashing of teeth, and now the privacy advocates are trying to suppress a technology.

    Technology is irrelevant. Either I have the right to send private data, or I don't. Either the gov't has the right to take pictures, or it doesn't. The technological ability to do either effectively should not matter.

    Law enforcement types like to whine about how technology is making their jobs so much harder. I for one would like to see as much publicity on the stuff that make their jobs easier...

    ...maybe it will take a little heat off the crypto.
  • Wah wah wah, face recognition is going to lead to a big brother society, the government is going to sell my face to door to door salesmen...Quit it! Why is everyone so afraid of this face recognition stuff? I think it's cool, maybe I'll be able to go to the atm without my card and still pull enough loot for new palm pilot external mouse I had my eye on. People who are afraid that face recognition technology will lead to a decrease in their personal privicay have big egos. The governmet doesn't care what you look like, unless you're a terrorist.
  • This is a very interesting observation, as it implies that criminality is a clearly defined entity, and road speeding does not belong there.

    I personally think that speeding by car is a dangerous thing to do, and greatly undercontrolled or -fined.

    However, I would not condone a network of cameras that is capable of big brothering to mend that ill.
  • Does it also do ass recognition, so that they can track me down when I run up and do a pressed ham on the plexiglass cover?
  • That technology is neutral is an idea that should be dead and cold by now. "The media is the message"... One simple picture: a sword. Is a sword a neutral technology? you could use it to dig a hole or something i guess, but I would say it's a little more likely to be used for chopping somebodies head in two.. "If all you have is a hammer every problem looks a little like a nail"...
    I am afraid it looks like every technology has it's biases, and it will require some concious thought to figure out how they will shape society, and wherther we want to try it out on our selves or not.

    -- We plunge for the slipstream the realness to find
  • If the camera makes the high street safer and the criminal more scared, is it a totally bad thing?

    The problem with this logic is that the definition of who is a "criminal" can be a very fluid thing. The most innocuous thing today can be a major crime tomorrow, should the government decide to make it so.

    Even worse (and a bit more likely, IMHO) is the possibility that corporations will look upon this technology as the Holy Grail of obtaining marketing data. Right now, companies can only track your purchasing in very crude ways (such as grocery store clubs and the like). However, think of the abuses possible if this system was put in your local shopping mall for the ostensible purpose of "saving the children from baby-snatchers" (or some similar nonsense involving kids*). Once this system is in place, companies could not only associate your face with everything you buy, but also anything you pick up to look at, or even items you glance at in store windows as you pass by. Once they have your face associated with a shopping list, they cross-reference that data with the database of driver's license information (including photo, name, and address) that they bought from the government**, and spend the next five years happily filling your mailbox with flyers imploring you to buy their product.

    Don't get me wrong, the potential benefits of this system are quite large, but the $64,000 question is whether the potential abuses are even larger.


    * Yes, I realize that this is a legitimate problem, but using this technology to combat it is a bit like using a bazooka to kill roaches... extreme overkill.

    ** But that is a subject for another rant.
  • Integrating face recognition software into this system will allow the police and their "friends" to automatically monitor your

    movements in public, who you hang around with, what shops you use ect etc.

    It would, if it worked that well. Reality though, is different from media hype. One day it may well be possible to monitor everybody on the street, but consider what you need to do this. Cameras need to be everywhere, they need to be all coneected up to a very very very powerfull computer capable of searching through everyones image to see if it matches. This computer must also be capable of extracting all the faces from all the video stream and continuosly tracking them. All this in the few seconds that you're actually in the frame. Oh and did I mention the picture quality these systems need is quite high, and cr+ppy pictures from CCTV are rarely good enough? Or that they don't work well in uncontrolled lighting? Or that you need up to data pictures of people to search against? Or that the systems tell you who looks like the image, but can't say that they are the same person....

    Computers capable of all this just don't exist at the moment, and when they do, they'll be well out the price range of your local police

    The success of the local council's trial in the UK is mainly due to puplicity driving the criminals away, rather than the technology. The computer output won't even be admissable in court.

    I'm not worried....... imh

  • Re:Haha you think they are going to let you have t (Score:3)

    by jflynn ( 61543 ) on Monday September 27, 1999 @04:15AM (#1657798)
    Brin and some others are arguing that privacy is a lost cause and that we should work on making sure governments and corporations lose as much privacy as individuals do.

    In this context, that would amount to giving citizens free access to the camera outputs and technology, just like the cops. I don't think this is a great idea. Spouses tracking their errant partners to an assignation. Employers checking to see if employees calling in sick actually remain at home. Stalkers being able to build up detailed pictures of their victim's movements. Burglars having a great casing tool, and knowing the camera locations ahead of time.

    On the other hand, I'm all for making the government live in a fishbowl if we do, maybe even if we don't. If they want to watch us, they can return the favor by opening up those smoke filled back rooms and going on the public record with their sweetheart deals, plus full financial disclosure. Oh, and they should have to pee in a bottle before taking their seat in congress or the white house, with random checks thereafter. Maybe then there would be more privacy advocates in congress.
  • Yup.
    For some reason, this reminds me of some of the 'personal ID card' debates I encountered a while ago; the thing with the authorities-that-be knowing where you are and what you do isn't that out of the ordinary, when you consider that the banks know exactly where & when & how much you spend on your switch / credit / AmEx card...

    Monitoring access to resultant databases, or blocking it off properly?
  • Check out this site [spy.org.uk]. Lots of stuff on CCTV, privacy.

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