Activists Turn Facial Recognition Tools Against the Police (nytimes.com) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: In early September, the City Council in Portland, Ore., met virtually to consider sweeping legislation outlawing the use of facial recognition technology. The bills would not only bar the police from using it to unmask protesters and individuals captured in surveillance imagery; they would also prevent companies and a variety of other organizations from using the software to identify an unknown person. During the time for public comments, a local man, Christopher Howell, said he had concerns about a blanket ban. He gave a surprising reason. "I am involved with developing facial recognition to in fact use on Portland police officers, since they are not identifying themselves to the public," Mr. Howell said. Over the summer, with the city seized by demonstrations against police violence, leaders of the department had told uniformed officers that they could tape over their name. Mr. Howell wanted to know: Would his use of facial recognition technology become illegal?
Portland's mayor, Ted Wheeler, told Mr. Howell that his project was "a little creepy," but a lawyer for the city clarified that the bills would not apply to individuals. The Council then passed the legislation in a unanimous vote. Mr. Howell was offended by Mr. Wheeler's characterization of his project but relieved he could keep working on it. "There's a lot of excessive force here in Portland," he said in a phone interview. "Knowing who the officers are seems like a baseline." Mr. Howell, 42, is a lifelong protester and self-taught coder; in graduate school, he started working with neural net technology, an artificial intelligence that learns to make decisions from data it is fed, such as images. He said that the police had tear-gassed him during a midday protest in June, and that he had begun researching how to build a facial recognition product that could defeat officers' attempts to shield their identity. Mr. Howell is not alone in his pursuit. Law enforcement has used facial recognition to identify criminals, using photos from government databases or, through a company called Clearview AI, from the public internet. But now activists around the world are turning the process around and developing tools that can unmask law enforcement in cases of misconduct. The report also mentions a few other projects around the world that are using facial recognition tools against the police.
An online exhibit called "Capture," was created by artist Paolo Cirio and includes photos of 4,000 faces of French police officers. It's currently down because France's interior minister threatened legal action against Mr. Cirio but he hopes to republish them.
Andrew Maximov, a technologist from Belarus, uploaded a video to YouTube that demonstrated how facial recognition technology could be used to digitally strip away masks from police officers.
The report also notes that older attempts to identify police officers have relied on crowdsourcing. For example, news service ProPublica asks readers to identify officers in a series of videos of police violence. There's also the OpenOversight, a "public searchable database of law enforcement officers" that asks people to upload photos of uniformed officers and match them to the officers' names or badge numbers.
Portland's mayor, Ted Wheeler, told Mr. Howell that his project was "a little creepy," but a lawyer for the city clarified that the bills would not apply to individuals. The Council then passed the legislation in a unanimous vote. Mr. Howell was offended by Mr. Wheeler's characterization of his project but relieved he could keep working on it. "There's a lot of excessive force here in Portland," he said in a phone interview. "Knowing who the officers are seems like a baseline." Mr. Howell, 42, is a lifelong protester and self-taught coder; in graduate school, he started working with neural net technology, an artificial intelligence that learns to make decisions from data it is fed, such as images. He said that the police had tear-gassed him during a midday protest in June, and that he had begun researching how to build a facial recognition product that could defeat officers' attempts to shield their identity. Mr. Howell is not alone in his pursuit. Law enforcement has used facial recognition to identify criminals, using photos from government databases or, through a company called Clearview AI, from the public internet. But now activists around the world are turning the process around and developing tools that can unmask law enforcement in cases of misconduct. The report also mentions a few other projects around the world that are using facial recognition tools against the police.
An online exhibit called "Capture," was created by artist Paolo Cirio and includes photos of 4,000 faces of French police officers. It's currently down because France's interior minister threatened legal action against Mr. Cirio but he hopes to republish them.
Andrew Maximov, a technologist from Belarus, uploaded a video to YouTube that demonstrated how facial recognition technology could be used to digitally strip away masks from police officers.
The report also notes that older attempts to identify police officers have relied on crowdsourcing. For example, news service ProPublica asks readers to identify officers in a series of videos of police violence. There's also the OpenOversight, a "public searchable database of law enforcement officers" that asks people to upload photos of uniformed officers and match them to the officers' names or badge numbers.
Re: Good Job (Score:2)
What fires? That was like 4 months ago. Perhaps you live in a parallel universe where Portland is constantly on fire?
All is proceeding as David Brin has foretold (Score:5, Interesting)
In the David Brin novel Earth, the entire planet was covered in surveillance cameras.
But not from governments - instead the bulk of them were private citizen cameras. And anyone could see the footage.
We should have a proliferation of cameras everywhere. Cameras on people. Cameras on police. Let everyone see what really happened in any conflict anywhere.
Re: All is proceeding as David Brin has foretold (Score:3)
Re:All is proceeding as David Brin has foretold (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:All is proceeding as David Brin has foretold (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the answer to the problem of privacy. You see, the real problem is the imbalance of information, and power to act on that information. When a small group of people have the power to surveil everyone else, but no one can surveil them, society has a problem. That power will be abused, and no one will be able to see it being abused.
Privacy is a stop gap solution to that problem. It is only a stop gap because there is no real way to enforce the norms of "Don't look in other people's private areas" without, you know, looking in other people's private areas to see if they are looking at you.
The perfect solution is total information availability with gaze notification. Every person would be able to look at any place, any time. And every person would be notified whenever anyone else was looking at them, or a recording of them. If someone was looking at you, you would be notified.
Sure, people could watch you shitting or fucking, but so what? You could watch them too, and you'd know when they were looking at you, and who they were.
Of course, the implementation of such a solution is still beyond our technical capabilities. But it won't be forever. In the end, privacy will die. It will either be replaced by something akin to the system I described, or by an authoritarian surveillance state.
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Privacy is an outgrowth from the end of slavery. The right of the private person ie why should you complain if you are not harmed, when someone fondles your genitals actively, what right do you claim to your private person, as a slave, none, as a freeman the right to protect it using physical force in that protection and the right to be protected by society from that abuse (keep in mind not a one off, but repeated and public). So you have a citizens right to private space, extending from you body out. The r
Re: All is proceeding as David Brin has foretold (Score:2)
Whether or not I can watch someone else poop has no bearing on my desire to poop in private.
Since we're talking about absurd hypothetical scenarios, here's mine: no one should have any form of (technologically-assisted) surveillance ever. I think that's a far better solution than everyone having surveillance all the time.
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But that will lead to an aristocracy that has total surveillance powers. If you can't check up on what they are doing, how will you enforce the "no technologically assisted surveillance" rules? If they have the surveillance tech and you don't, they will always see you coming.
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Seems trivially easy to get privacy in your bathroom by simply not installing a camera in there.
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Nano camera dust is coming.
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But not from governments - instead the bulk of them were private citizen cameras. And anyone could see the footage.
Sounds similar to Clarke and Baxter's The Light of Other Days [wikipedia.org]. The key difference is with Clarke's book anyone could watch anyone at any point in time, present or past.
Deepfakes moot both sides? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The Metropolitan Police (London) have just decided that they will no longer automatically release bodycam footage when a complaint is made. The reason they gave is that it often shows officers doing a poor job, not knowing the law, exceeding their authority, failing to de-escalate the situation and using excessive force.
You couldn't make it up.
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It's possible to create a strong chain of control over police bodycam footage so that it can continue to be a trusted source of evidence.
Mobile phone footage, obviously rather harder.
Video evidence where the participants are already known can still nonetheless be useful. If someone's been arrested and video shows their (and the police's) actions prior to and during the arrest, there's little mileage in claiming "That video was of someone else".
Leveling the playing field (Score:5, Insightful)
We need more table-turning like this. If private citizens had as much information available about law enforcement, government, and big business as these entities have about us, the world would be a much safer place. All those fucktards in positions of power who chant the 'nothing to hide nothing to fear' mantra when it comes to surveillance, ought to be forced to bare their asses and air their dirty laundry in public. Anybody or any agency that wants to invade privacy and gather data without offering up their own in return, needs to be either forced into doing so or dismantled altogether. Using their coveted facial recognition against them is a damned good place to start.
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If private citizens had as much information available about law enforcement, government, and big business as these entities have about us, the world would be a much safer place.
Have you ever MET your fellow Private citizens? While I'm not personally in favor of authoritarian surveilance, allowing every random moron around us access to anything more complicated than a Cell Phone seems a mistake.
We need this (Score:5, Insightful)
leaders of the department had told uniformed officers that they could tape over their name.
Cute how police want to identify protestors (which people are freely allowed to do, anonymously, without any prior registration required to attend), but the police are allowed to be unidentified.
As far as I'm concerned, law enforcement should wear jerseys with the badge number and name just like athletes do.
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All it takes is for an arrest of a particular individual of not so great character, then the officer in question has themselves and their families at risk.
What happened to "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"?
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Are they at risk because privacy laws in the USA are so nonexistent that you can google someone's name and city and up on the screen pops their home address?
Maybe we should fix that.
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But they have an identifier that is identifiable to the organisation for when misconduct occurs.
This assumes that the organization has a process in place for handling complaints in an unbiased manner. All too often, police unions and other law enforcement interest groups have held their thumbs on the scales of police misconduct procedures. And then the result is that the public takes their complaints outside of the system. For better or worse.
As long as I am satisfied that misconduct will be handled properly within the system, I will be satisfied to note a badge number, file a complaint and be relat
Re:We need this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Qualifications of a cop and a McD worker are the same, the cop is just paid more to risk his/her life.
Not even close.
McD hires 16-75 year-olds, the police are a bit more constrained.
I've never heard of a McD entrance exam, including a physical component.
I've never heard of McD line workers going to a McD academy before they start working behind the counter.
Etc. You seem to think that because police departments don't typically require a college degree to get the job, it's just like McD that likely doesn't even require a HS diploma/GED.
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No, there are other fields as well. Crab fishermen routinely make $30-40,000 per crab season (2-3 months), and being employed year round pretty much guarantees a 6 figure salary. Of course, it's also a highly dangerous job, with an injury rate of 100% and working conditions are generally miserable. But you don't even need a high school diploma - just muscle.
Then there are oilworkers where even the labourers earn 6 figures. Again,
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Ahh.. The "I don't like to hear this so it's a troll" mod is still out there poking around!
Re:We need this (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned, law enforcement should wear jerseys with the badge number and name just like athletes do.
Hey, if they've done (or are doing) nothing wrong, then they've got nothing to fear, right?
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if a police office breaks the law and gets caught that is good. The problem is when the criminals target the police not for justice but injustice
Hence the tension between the expectation that police officers will display their name (or badge number) while on duty, and the desire by the police to hide that information when policing aggressive crowds.
When a police officer clubs a peaceful protester to the floor it's reasonable to identify that officer and bring criminal charges against them.
When a police officer shoots someone in self defence it's reasonable to protect that officer from public retaliation.
Difficult situations, and although I veer towa
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When a police officer clubs a peaceful protester to the floor it's reasonable to identify that officer and bring criminal charges against them. When a police officer shoots someone in self defence it's reasonable to protect that officer from public retaliation. Difficult situations, and although I veer towards making the police identifiable, I also strongly believe that they deserve protection from thugs.
These are obviously mutually exclusive. If a police office beats a protester they need to be dealt with by the police not the mob. It is reasonable to protect a police office from the mob or even anyone from the mob criminal or not. Mob justice is injustice which is why we have a court system. Also we will have no police if the police are not protected from the mob since no police will want to do the job.
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. If a police office beats a protester they need to be dealt with by the police not the mob.
I agree. If only we had some way of identifying which of the dozens of police officers on duty at that time was responsible for the offence.
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These are obviously mutually exclusive. If a police office beats a protester they need to be dealt with by the police not the mob.
The problem is the frequency that the police DON'T deal with it, often denying that it happened at all. The mob at least needs to be able to identify the officer so they can see to it that the police and the justice system DO deal with it.
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Worse for WHO? If the police don't want more of this, they COULD try actually dealing with it so people don't feel it to be necessary anymore.
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Cute how police want to identify protestors (which people are freely allowed to do, anonymously, without any prior registration required to attend)
It gets worse: police departments have been doxing protestors on social media, effectively inviting the Good 'Ol Boys to pay a visit.
So in Portland it sounds like (Score:3, Informative)
Easily circomvented (Score:2)
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Come back and tell us once this miracle technology is able to run through Star Wars footage, unmasking all actors and extras playing stormtroopers. Then you'll have a story.
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Pebble in shoe. And yes, I stole that.
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Terrorists (Score:2, Insightful)
The shit going on in Portland is not demonstrations, it's sedition and domestic terrorism.
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The death threats [twitter.com] are mostly peaceful.
Give me the app and I'll use it (Score:2)
It's easy enough to point a good camera at a police station from far enough away they won't see it, and catch them when they arrive before or leave after a shift.
You could build up a database of badge numbers vs. faces as well as their shifts, even document which cruiser they were using on a particular day, making it easier to produce a lineup for a victim to match a complaint to an officer.
All you need is the right vantage point.
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Describe the vantage point that allows you to read a badge number from a distance.
And remember, cops don't wear their badges going into the police station, only when they leave, typically sitting inside a patrol car.
By demanding reciprocity, you are giving the police the right to know your name and home address since you feel entitled to learning the same about them.
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>Describe the vantage point that allows you to read a badge number from a distance.
Straight at the personnel door that leads to the cruiser parking lot would be ideal - they'll be coming out in uniform to get in their cars.
>By demanding reciprocity, you are giving the police the right to know your name and home address since you feel entitled to learning the same about them.
They already do. 20 years ago they could pretty much only check for IDs flagged as wanted for some reason, but these days it's b
Good and Bad Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
For authoritarian regimes like China and Belarus, I have no problem with citizens having the technical ability to identify police and other agents of an oppressive state. It gives the citizens a slight edge and puts the police on notice that they can be held accountable.
But for democratic nations, I have mixed feelings about it. To curb police excesses and brutality, it may be a useful tool as police will know they cannot act with complete impunity. On the other hand, I don't want extremist groups like Antifa and BLM using this tool to dox, harass, and attack police officers who do their work in a ethical and professional manner.
ANTIFA?..what...are they going to send mean tweet? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, I don't want extremist groups like Antifa and BLM using this tool to dox, harass, and attack police officers who do their work in a ethical and professional manner.
Sorry, ANTIFA & BLM is a big nothingburger in regards to a physical threat, but even if they doxed the police?...it doesn't look like the police are ever held accountable. How many have been filmed straight up murdering unarmed individuals and acquitted?
Also, quit it with the whole "ooh, I'm scared of ANTIFA and BLM" bullshit. We have right wing extremist groups heavily armed and actively threatening people, even marching capitals armed and trying to kidnap governors...and that's not including the m
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How many have been filmed straight up murdering unarmed individuals and acquitted?
Almost none. Which is why it's so newsworthy.
Also, quit it with the whole "ooh, I'm scared of ANTIFA and BLM" bullshit. We have right wing extremist groups heavily armed and actively threatening people, even marching capitals armed and trying to kidnap governors.
Why shouldn't people be scared of the extremists on all sides of the political spectrum, in particular the ones burning and looting city centres and the anarchists plotting kidnaps.
Right Wing Terrorist killers like Kyle Rittenhouse
Qualified medic puts out arsonist's fire, defends himself against lethal force from a mob, seeks police protection. This doesn't sound like a terrorist to me.
Sorry, ANTIFA is not an organization.
So fucking what? You don't have to create a legal corporation before you can congregate to burn, loot and murder.
Sorry buddy, I don't buy that ANTIFA are BLM are threats to the police
Given that both
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Some politicians want to strip police officers of their limited immunity from personal liability - would those same politicians so easily surrender their immunity from prosecution when their policies and regulations harm citizens? Probably not.
Re: ANTIFA?..what...are they going to send mean tw (Score:3)
Probably not, but I would be happy to see politicians subject to prosecution, like everybody else, when they break the law.
Tell that to Philando Castile (Score:3)
I can walk around without fearing the police. I am confident someone on my city payroll won't murder me....that the worst that will happen during a routine traffic stop is that I'll get an expensive ticket.
So can anybody else who isn't a violent criminal, high on dissociative drugs, or trying to pick fights with police officers. Skin colour isn't the issue. Skin colour has at best a week correlation with being shot. It's a multivariate issue, with other variables correlating far more strongly than skin colour.
Tell that to Philando Castile, George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. You seem to forget we have video for Castile and Floyd. We know what happened.
Floyd didn't resist. The officer casually kneeled on his neck for 8:46. This is all on video. People are not protesting because they love to dress in black and pretend to be oppressed. What happened is clearly police brutality. We now can easily record and upload video and examine evidence of brutality...something that the black folks in your community have
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I mentioned Castile as an example where I think it was entirely unjustified. That officer should have been sent to prison for a long time. Floyd and Taylor were not simple bystanders. He was a convicted felon, high on fentanyl at the time. You can see in the video footage that his behaviour was erratic. Taylor had a very spotty history, including having to explain a
The standard for lethal force is not being erratic (Score:2)
I mentioned Castile as an example where I think it was entirely unjustified. That officer should have been sent to prison for a long time. Floyd and Taylor were not simple bystanders. He was a convicted felon, high on fentanyl at the time. You can see in the video footage that his behaviour was erratic.
I don't know if you're trolling or you really believe what you just said. None of those matter. It doesn't matter how high he was. I know Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram love to tell everyone every night how the victims of police brutality had it coming. It makes us feel better...that problem solved...Floyd deserved it!! However, whatever they did in the past or whatever chemicals in their system are irrelevant details. He was in handcuffs, unarmed, and on the ground. You knew that, right? How the fuc
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Yep, the "but my bad guys aren't actually bad and don't really exist, but your bad guys seriously are a threat to the universe!" argument.
Plus, you mentioned all your black friends. Bonus points!
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I'm more concerned with drug cartels getting this information and specifically targeting individual police. Antifa and BLM are mostly cowards that want to smash and run. Drug cartels on the other hand have no problem with mass murder, extortion and more.
If you can identify police and figure out where they live, you end up with what Mexico has. Police being told to take the money or their family is dead.
I guess that's better then what we have now, right? /s
Police brought them on themselves (Score:2)
By going cowboy, or Rambo, or forming gangs within their departments, they brought this down on themselves.
You'd think they would have learned after the 1992 Rodney King riots, but no.
Their overtestosteroned, Gi-Joe fantasies have come back to bite them. Unsorry, but that's how it is.
Ban does not apply to individuals? (Score:2)
So all that will happen now is police will simply source the facial recognition data from individuals. I see an opportunity for some company to start supplying facial recognition to all individuals, police officers (not the department), and both sides of the demonstrations. Heck, there is probably more money in selling it to individuals than to whole departments, you can even make it a service, charge per usage. The facial recognized footage can then be provided to the police voluntarily, in the same way as
Police sometimes need anonymity (Score:2)
Systematic surveillance would undermine undercover work, putting officer's lives at stake and diminish law enforcement's ability to go after organized crime.
Doxxing police officers easily leads to threats or violence against not only the officer, but his/her family. This is already an issue in some cases (again, organized crime), but in a climate where riots occur, this has the potential to become a big problem.
Re: Police sometimes need anonymity (Score:2)
If you got a rogue going around planting drugs on people, beating up teenagers in alleys, and 'getting a cut' from drug dealers, maybe he or she needs to be doxxed.
Just because you have a badge does not put you above everybody else.
"A lifelong Protestor" (Score:2)
No comment.