San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18202602/san-francisco-facial-recognition-ban-proposal

194 69 7 years ago

mc32• 7 years ago

But will it yet allow private facial recognition? If so that’s a loophole. Oh, we don’t do FR ourselves, we contract that out!

FR isn’t bad in and of itself. What is needed is regulation governing that data.

tehlike• 7 years ago

If it is available, it will be used. Either within stretched legal frameworks, or through illegal surveillance.

Not that we can do much about it. It is going to happen eventually .

philliphaydon• 7 years ago

“Eye witness put a person in the area and we just looked at the footage for that time frame”

samstave• 7 years ago

exactly - all the bigTechCos will likely have it, of they dont already...

el_don_almighty• 7 years ago

umm..so no more iPhones????

chrisseaton2• 7 years ago

Dose the iPhone count as government facial recognition?

eecsninja• 7 years ago

It does if you believe Apple was infiltrated by NSA agents.

sp332• 7 years ago

It does if a department issues iPhones to employees. Or Windows laptops with "Windows Hello" logins, or Samsung phones with facial unlock features, etc. It doesn't specify if "face recognition" includes iris and retina scans.

PHGamer• 7 years ago

and whats to stop the federal government from doing this. At this point people need to accept everything is being recording in public.

gnicholas• 7 years ago

My thoughts exactly. The proposed ordinance would only apply to "city departments", so the feds could do whatever they want.

Given my vague recollections of the Supremacy Clause [1] of the Constitution, I don't think a local ordinance like this could have legal effect on the feds, even if it purported to.

1: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause

freedomben• 7 years ago

It would be a legal battle for sure, but there's a chance that nullification could win [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_(U.S._Constituti...

stickfigure2• 7 years ago

The third time my car was broken into (to steal - no joke - a crappy stock car stereo from the 90s), I'd have voted for mandatory cameras and facial recognition on every street corner. Maybe sentry guns too.

Instead I moved out of SF. Good luck, folks.

remarkEon• 7 years ago

I don’t necessarily agree with this, but I see your point. There’s a point where people’s security concerns start to override other moral programming they’re running. This isn’t really that profound of an observation; it’s perfectly rational. City and state leaders should recognize that reality, and react accordingly. If it gets to the point where the security situation is so bad (I don’t live in SF, but am there often for work) that otherwise well meaning people entertain mass surveillance as a solution it might be too late.

admiralEyebrows2• 7 years ago

Maybe some amount law breaking is necessary for social change. If everyone followed marijuana laws, there wouldn't be a push for state level legalization. If no cars are broken into because of a perfect facial recognition system, then there might not be a strong motive to fix the homeless situation in San Francisco.

I am sure this idea is not new, but I think it is important to keep it in the conversation as the number and capability of sensors dramatically increases over the next decade.

zavi• 7 years ago

Somebody once broke into my car in the East Cut and stole a bottle of water.

standardUser• 7 years ago

I still live here. Yes, we need a severe and sustained crackdown to change the dynamics in this city. But some things are harder to undo than others, and major investments like facial recognition would live on indefinitely even if/when crime declined.

Having said that, the San Francisco government has demonstrated beyond all doubt that they are incapable of carrying out even basic functions, let alone implementing a brand new, cutting edge facial recognition system. So a law like this is pointless to begin with.

shard972• 7 years ago

Are you saying that wealthiest state in America, the one that also houses the largest tech companies in the world, doesn't have the competence to buy facial recognition software from amazon?

Apocryphon• 7 years ago

Eh, it’s a future-proofing measure in case that some hyper-competent municipal regime comes to power that not only makes MUNI run on time, but also more sinister schemes.

code_beers• 7 years ago

Fast forward a few months, criminals are just wearing ski masks when they steal cars, and you’ve given up a significant amount of your privacy for absolutely zero benefit. Not a good plan, in my opinion.

baroffoos3• 7 years ago

Its a much better idea to fix the fact that so many people are in such a shitty situation that they are willing to steal a worthless radio.

YaxelPerez• 7 years ago

ez, just use gait recognition /s

https://www.apnews.com/bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a

ovi256• 7 years ago

So they have to wear the ski mask all the way to cover (a private place without cameras), increasing their vulnerable time (time they're easily recognizable as performing a criminal act). That sounds like a big security win.

dgzl2• 7 years ago

You should try tinting your windows.

olliej2• 7 years ago

I think that’s illegal in California.

But also, that would mean you could assume in a row of cars, the ones with tinted windows were most worth breaking into (which would also defeat the traditional “keep expensive things out of sight” mechanism).

tokyodude• 7 years ago

walking down streets in SF seeing the piles of broken glass every few car spaces showing someone broke into a bunch of cars recently was really eye opening how bad it is.

Seems quickly solvable with a few honeypot cars. AFAIK isn't not entrapment if you don't ask them to do it. I imagine it's a relatively small number of people doing it. A month or two of honeypot cars would clear up that issue

TeMPOraL• 7 years ago

As others mention, facial recognition won't help in this case (because masks). I'm partial to sentry guns, though.

alottafunchata• 7 years ago

I for one want criminals apprehended. This is more of the typical San Francisco hoopla.

isostatic2• 7 years ago

I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear

imtringued• 7 years ago

If the police had one's detailed driving history including speed limits and how fast one was driving at any given moment then how many speeding tickets would one get?

Even someone who obeys the speed limit would get dozens of tickets per year.

bsenftner• 7 years ago

So, private use and private security agencies are free and clear. Sounds like a nice contract for a security firm to land with various loose neighborhood associations, shopping district management and pretty much the exact private hands you do not want developing large scale FR.

olliej2• 7 years ago

Given people seem super pro “catch the criminals” because facial recognition:

1. It can only identify people it already has facial recognition for. So that means people who are already in the system - who you already have fingerprints as well.

2. Can facial recognition provide cause for a warrant? If it can, what happens if its accuracy is biased (see the numerous studies showing “accurate” facial recognition systems are in the order of 15%-20% less accurate at identifying women of color than white men). Seems like that would be reason to get the warrant dismissed and subsequent evidence removed - based on my years of legal experience watching tv ;)

3. Can this be used to identify wanted people randomly on the street, or is it just retroactive (eg there was a crime, identify the person in the picture). The latter is significantly less of a problem (imo) than continuous live identification.

4. How long is this data archived? Who is responsible when it leaks?

throwawaysea4• 7 years ago

This seems like a really bad time to propose something like this. Parts of SF look like a mad max wasteland and they really have blown it when it comes to crime, vagrancy, and blight. It really seems like facial recognition could help catch criminals and put them away for once.

gammateam2• 7 years ago

The city knows who the criminals are. The district attorney drops the cases, you can have your open air drug bazaar or stolen bike shanty town in broad daylight.

newnewpdro• 7 years ago

When I worked in the Mission we watched a small homeless encampment run a bicycle chop shop wide open in broad daylight for over a month. Police regularly came by, nothing more than an old tarp was used to try hide the bicycle operation.

Increased surveillance would have made zero difference. For whatever reason the activity was simply tolerated.

jjcm• 7 years ago

I'm against this, but not for the typical reason of privacy or worry of government overuse. What I'm worried about more than either of those is the growing prevalence of GAN created video. As the outputs of GAN become more realistic and indistinguishable from the real thing, having a facial recognition system to be able to prove that you were or were not in some place at a certain time is going to be integral in fighting off the fake videos that are going to swarm us all soon.

What I'd rather see is twofold:

1.) A right to wear a mask. Both legally and for it to become socially acceptable. We should have a right to protect our privacy, when we want it.

2.) Open data when it comes to this. Otherwise I feel that power will centralize with governments and larger private orgs. By opening the data set, the system can be used for good. This would have to include some sort of authentication system as well - possibly something like 2fa where an alert comes to your phone that you have to authorize before an entity can query your facial recognition stats.

run414• 7 years ago

Some of comments here are suggesting that facial recognition wouldn't be necessary if San Francisco would just fix the root cause of its crime problem.

There is a common pattern I've noticed in discussions about San Francisco. Person A: San Francisco should implement <solution that provides relief in the near-future>. Person B: That's just a bandaid over the problem. It's better to just fix <problem that has plagued humanity for all of history>.

Usually, the solution to <problem that has always plagued humanity> requires large changes to our economic system or society that would take decades, if not lifetimes. I'm not opposed to such changes, but it seems naive to me to not do quality-of-life improvements because they would be unnecessary if our society was massively different.

If this is how the city is managed, it's no surprise that it's a mess.

spullara• 7 years ago

SF is broken because they refuse to punish bad behavior. Pising and pooping on streets and sidewalks. Breaking into cars. Using heroin and meth in public. Disposing of needles wherever you feel like. Setting up a tent in the park. Most other cities would stop this from happening but SF won't.

selestify• 7 years ago

Why wouldn't they punish such behavior? That sounds ridiculous

kevcampb• 7 years ago

City full of tech companies working on facial recognition, bans facial recognition being used on it's residents

San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in the city

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