Ban Facial Recognition at Festivals

https://www.banfacialrecognition.com/festivals/

by Tomte • 7 years ago

177 141 7 years ago

banfacialrecognition.com

duckqlz• 7 years ago

Ironic how they want your name and address and phone number for a petition to protect your privacy.

himlion• 7 years ago

No need for snark, those are completely different situations.

Nextgrid• 7 years ago

Or not, considering you’d still be permanently recorded in their marketing/spam database, equivalent to the “matching faces to ticket purchase details” they mention on their own website.

In fact, my biggest worry about facial recognition is not even government abuse but the marketing, ads & stalking industry which is way more efficient at stalking people than any government will ever be (see Facebook for an example).

Hnrobert428• 7 years ago

It is to prevent claims that the petition count is fraudulent.

Voluntarily providing your identity is different having it involuntarily collected.

derangedHorse• 7 years ago

To be fair, going to a music festival where you know you have to give camera consent is also voluntarily. Doesn't mean you can't complain about it.

neiman• 7 years ago

In theory you can use cryptography to give a signature confirming you belong to a group, without saying who you are in the group (ring signature, or more specifically for our case, traceable ring signature or linkable ring signatures).

But we don't have the infrastructure to do such things atm, so which other option do you have to prove the validity of a petition?

dbg31415• 7 years ago

Burning Man wants to use facial recognition? Uh... guess it's time we all got gas masks.

bredren• 7 years ago

I can’t see how the org would choose to use facial recognition.

I can see how they would not explicitly ban participants from including it in art. New rules can take a while to be formed and it is only if there is a real need.

I can also see LE using it or requiring its use—but that could happen at any of these events.

This is sort of an alarmist site / concept given only five out of the large list “might” use it.

LeanderK• 7 years ago

I can see how they would not explicitly ban participants from including it in art. New rules can take a while to be formed and it is only if there is a real need.

Banning it in art would also make art that is explicitly about facial recongnition pretty much impossible.

anilakar2• 7 years ago

Why are most of the tweets mentioning deportation? Surveillance aside, since when has it been a human right to attend a festival in a country you are not allowed to reside in?

empath753• 7 years ago

Someone always makes this comment every time illegal immigration is mentioned as if the law is the final word on what is just. And then they’ll complain about someone going to prison for being a whistleblower or pirating movies or cheer on the protestors in Hong Kong.

anilakar2• 7 years ago

Where I live, work permits are so easy (or automatic through the virtue of being in Schengen area) to get that illegal immigration basically does not exist, so the whole idea is vague at best to me.

luqmanbadar• 7 years ago

You are absolutly right

infinitezest• 7 years ago

I didn't see anything in OP's comment about whistleblowers, pirating or HK.

otterley10• 7 years ago

Perhaps existing law isn’t perfect, but ignoring it isn’t an answer to it; otherwise there’d be no point in having any laws at all. Our laws are supposed to codify what we collectively believe are the boundaries of individual and collective action for the common good. And we have constitutional means to change them when we conclude we need to do so.

If you want to practice civil disobedience, it can sometimes effectuate change, but it doesn’t always work — especially not immediately — and you have to be willing to be punished in the meantime.

BurningFrog• 7 years ago

The proposal here is to make a new law.

When people argue both that laws are bad, and we need a new law to improve society, I wonder if they're really thought things through.

jstanley• 7 years ago

It should be a human right to exist at a public place/event anywhere on Earth, regardless of which country you were born in.

logicchains9• 7 years ago

It's insane that people will go on about how important it is to treat people equally regardless of their race, gender, skin colour or sexuality, but also argue it's perfectly fine and moral to discriminate based on place of birth. Because people clearly have a lot more control over where they're born than they do over their skin color or gender..

vorpalhex• 7 years ago

Sure.. as long as you pay your back taxes.

harshreality2• 7 years ago

Where do you live, Neverland?

Of course it should be a human right to freely travel, in a political utopia. Guess where we don't live? We don't live somewhere called no place.

If wishes (moral and otherwise) were horses, we'd drown in horse shit.

mc323• 7 years ago

Because it’s the cause celebre today. The causes are often cultivated by different loose organizations like influential people, moneyed people, media and eventually elementary schools. Sometimes the issues are leftist, sometimes rightist. Today leftist ideas are in ascension, ten years from now, who knows.

Ten years ago it wouldn’t have been a thing. There were other issues. These things come and go like fashion. Twenty thirty years ago it was self determination of nations, today its “there should be no borders” which is the opposite of self determination of nations.

pgcj_poster2• 7 years ago

today its “there should be no borders” which is the opposite of self determination of nations.

It is not. To quote Zach Weinersmith

"Every time I talk about immigration, someone says 'but the US has the right to control borders.' Sure! Yes!

The US also has the right to create a branch of the military containing only monkeys wearing tiny hats. That has no bearing on whether it's good policy or not!"

sneak• 7 years ago

The right to go about your business without your location being tracked automatically and in bulk is recognized regardless of one’s immigration status.

angry_octet6• 7 years ago

Recognized by whom?

eeZah7Ux• 7 years ago

Surveillance aside, since when has it been a human right to attend a festival in a country you are not allowed to reside in?

This is a pure strawman.

The efforts and the social impact of chasing people doing something illegal must be balanced with the seriousness of the crime.

logicchains9• 7 years ago

Since when was it a human right to tell other people where they're allowed to live?

i_am_nomad2• 7 years ago

Good question. I’ll be moving in to your house this evening, thanks.

golergka3• 7 years ago

Since property, both private and public, is a fundamental human right. Just as you have a right to privacy of your home, a country's citizens have the same right to their country.

modriano• 7 years ago

On the topic of deportation, has anyone seen anyone arrested for deportation at a music festival? Do we have any data that this is actually happening? I'm a crime analyst in Chicago and I can't imagine officers doing event management would ever spend time on nonviolent undocumented residents.

mattlondon2• 7 years ago

Because the computer might say you are someone else.

Do not underestimate the power of "computer said so"

otterley10• 7 years ago

We’ve had judicial procedures to challenge the results of technological processes for nearly a century (radar guns for speeding violations, for example). It’s not a foregone conclusion that the computer is always right.

fnordfnordfnord• 7 years ago

Surveillance aside, since when has it been a human right to attend a festival in a country you are not allowed to reside in?

Forgetting about illegal immigrants for a moment, are you saying that visitors to some country shouldn't be allowed at festivals? What have you got against tourism?

There's no right to visit attractions, but there ought to be a right to privacy, and I'd personally prefer a few illegals get to unjustly enjoy themselves over the invasive panopticon required to prevent that.

pgcj_poster2• 7 years ago

The people mentioning deportation probably believe that the rules determining who is or is not allowed in a country are unfair and should be circumvented in at least some cases.

You might disagree, but perhaps you can think of some other law that you wouldn't want festivals to assist in enforcing. If you can't, do you trust that the government will never pass such a law? If not, you might not want to normalize having facial recognition tech everywhere.

julienreszka• 7 years ago

What is the original intent of the use of facial recognition at festivals? Is it drug trafficking tracking? Terrorism tracking? Satisfaction tracking?

bsenftner5• 7 years ago

People make threats against the hosts, the venue, the fans, the choice of location... you name it. Any simple displeasure gets elevated today with irrational anger and threats of violence. When one's festival receives threats of violence, and you know who made them, FR is a natural...

mc323• 7 years ago

Probably to avoid liability ala Mandalay Bay.

michaelt2• 7 years ago

Wikipedia tells me the shooter "was a high-stakes gambler who placed bets at a high enough level to earn valuable comps—free benefits such as rooms and meals."

If they'd had facial recognition, it'd only be for staff to treat him as a VIP.

xfitm3• 7 years ago

It starts off with obvious and socially acceptable uses of technology, such as stopping terrorism. Over time, though, the application of technology like this will be used to target people for lesser offenses. Unpaid parking tickets, for example.

Hnrobert428• 7 years ago

To whit, in China it is now used to issue jay-walking tickets.

bsenftner5• 7 years ago

The ban is not going to happen. It's an issue of public safety and venue liability. FR use at video game conferences is a must, because every one has a series of morons threatening the venue, the conference, and the host. It is very difficult today to host any type of public event without multiple individuals taking their displeasure to extreme levels and making threats they might carry out. For such reasons, FR is booming.

michaelt2• 7 years ago

It was my understanding that most people who threaten venues do so anonymously, making facial recognition useless - can you cite any sources saying this isn't the case?

bsenftner5• 7 years ago

Most people that threaten venues do so via email, or make statements of intent in social media. Places where their identity is known or easily acquired. People who make these threats are emotional and non-rational. The threats are bogus, but must be followed up due to liabilities. I know, because I and one of the security guys that has to respond to them.

greggman2• 7 years ago

what changed? FR didn't exist 10 years ago but the events did so why do the events need FR now?

sumitviii• 7 years ago

dons tinfoil hat

Maybe because the FR industry is the one that's delivering those death threats?

bsenftner5• 7 years ago

Yeah, 10 years ago a venue receiving threats had to purchase additional insurance, hire additional security, and run a SWAT team like surveillance operation. After that became routine, every venue that can host any gathering of any size became a security sink that ate attention and distracted potential opportunities as public levels of casual violence simply skyrocketed to the levels we see today.

matz13• 7 years ago

I would guess because it was a lot more difficult and costly to handle those threat 10 years ago.

pcdoodle• 7 years ago

Yes the ban will happen. You work for the damn FR industry, get out of here with your fear tactics.

bsenftner5• 7 years ago

And working in the industry, one is given access to the threats and the level of concern the hosts have for their attendees. This article may as well as be a bunch of MAGA people, because you're all acting like an irrational mob.

BTW, this web site is nothing but a fear farm. The defining image has text right at the top "Could lead to..." which is just fanning fear.

Hnrobert428• 7 years ago

I don’t read that post as using fear tactics nor for that matter do I even read it as supportive of FR. I read it it as simply an explanation for why venues will choose to use FR.

One can both support the ban and doubt its success.

sergiotapia• 7 years ago

which puts music fans at risk of being unjustly detained, harassed, judged, or even deported.

Lost me at deported. Why is this hypothetical music fan in this country illegally? And why is it so important to allow him to stay?

angry_octet6• 7 years ago

In many places you can be arrested and/or deported for saying the wrong thing, being seen at the wrong place.

Basically you are arguing that cultural organizations should support the police state.

anonuser123456• 7 years ago

As someone that believes in substantially increasing legal avenues for people to reside in the US, I do not agree that we should constrain law enforcement.

We should fix the damn laws, not make a conflicting hodgepodge of regulations meant to mitigate ones we don't like. Putting police and law enforcement in the middle of a political debate is a recipe for disaster.

matz13• 7 years ago

Trying to ban FR seems to be a solving the privacy problem in the wrong way. Instead of banning FR, what should be fixed is the misidentification problem or the issue that come out when the FR become public.

martin_a4• 7 years ago

This problem needs to be tackled from several angles, I think. Omnipresent cameras, linked to FR systems, are just as big a problem as misidentification.

matz13• 7 years ago

Yes i agree but instead of trying to stop/hide the information, we should instead embrace it and fix whatever issue that come out from that.

otterley10• 7 years ago

Can you explain the problem in more detail?

kcdev• 7 years ago

I always thought of festivals as an escape with like minded people. Privacy should be upheld.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 7 years ago

Facial recognition is just math. Why are people trying to classify certain matrices as illegal?

It seems this was a convincing argument for a lot of people in regards to encryption. Facial recognition is math just as much as encryption is.

otterley10• 7 years ago

Facial recognition is “just math” in the same sense as being punched in the face is “just physics.” It’s not the natural properties that concern people; it’s the societal effects, political effects, and impacts on liberty that concern people.

amelius• 7 years ago

It's not the math that is illegal, but the application of it.

And even in some cases math itself can be illegal. For example digital images can be written as large integers, and we know that in some jurisdictions, it is illegal to have some types of images in one's possession.

nexuist• 7 years ago

Why are people trying to classify certain matrices as illegal?

Certain encryption algorithms, which are at their core applied math, are still illegal to export to this day to certain countries such as Iran. They are regulated and banned under the same treaties that apply to nuclear weapons.

If you publish an app to Apple's App Store, for example, you have to sign a waiver explaining if your app uses encryption (such as for SSL/TLS) before being allowed to publish in international markets.

Not saying it is right, but there is definitely legal precedent to ban mathematical knowledge at the international level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...

jmpman6• 7 years ago

I’ve always used the number of Spanish speaking radio stations on the dial as a litmus test for how much illegal immigration exists in my city. First generation and second generation don’t typically listen to to the Spanish speaking stations, so the demand is being driven by the initial immigrants, the majority of whom are illegal (in my city).

No matter how much I hear about illegal immigration being cracked down upon, the Spanish speaking radio stations aren’t being converted to another format, so there’s still enough advertiser demand to pay for the station. That can only happen if the advertisers are finding a large enough customer base to justify their costs.

If these radio stations then sponsor concerts, it’s likely that the attendees will have a high illegal immigrant percentage.

Should the government be able to mass survey the Spanish speaking population attending these concerts, looking for immigrants who have not turned up to their deportation hearings?

I applaud the government for being that efficient with my tax dollars (I expect this method is much cheaper than others), but should they be doing it? Probably not.

Now what about facial recognition for known terrorists at large sporting events in order to prevent an attack? Maybe?? At music festivals? I can see the argument there too.

otterley10• 7 years ago

You’re dismissing the possibility that the first-generation immigrants who listen to these radio stations were admitted legally.

jmpman6• 7 years ago

I used the word “majority”, which doesn’t precluded that “some” are here legally.

If I had to quantify my suspicion of Spanish radio listeners in my city, I’d say that 90% are likely illegal immigrants.

If I was in Florida, I’d say that 10% are likely illegal immigrants.

Don’t interpret my observation of illegal immigration existing as condemnation of a group of people who migrated across vast distances and dangerous deserts in order to work hard manual labor jobs in order to better their families. If I were in their shoes, I’d do the same. But, that doesn’t make it any less illegal.

paganel3• 7 years ago

Known terrorists shouldn’t be free in the first place, least of all in an Western country. And if they are free I suppose that are actively on the run (hence the “known” part) so I don’t think they’re in the mood for a concert or a Ligue 1 match. As such whenever the powers that be use the terrorists line for stuff like this I call them bullshitters, because that’s what they are.

blfr• 7 years ago

Terrorists attend these events to, you know, commit acts of terrorism, not enjoy the music.

pavel_lishin• 7 years ago

Known terrorists shouldn’t be free in the first place, least of all in an Western country

If I were a Western country, I would simply arrest all the known terrorists.

Hnrobert428• 7 years ago

Source?

jmpman6• 7 years ago

You’re asking for my source of Spanish speaking radio listener immigration status statistics?

whatawaste2• 7 years ago

This might be the stupidest thing I’ve read on the internet this week, congratulations. Have you also considered listening to the local hip hop stations, you might ‘uncover’ the number people illegally smoking weed and stealing all the white women.

NoblePublius• 7 years ago

The arguments here are that the tech doesn’t work as well with people with dark skin and maybe it will be used to deport visa overstays or undocumented / illegal immigrants? Is that it?

caconym_2• 7 years ago

I want to be surveilled everywhere I go, because I trust corporations and the government to safeguard that information and never abuse it. After all, corporations and governments have never acted against the best interests of the people in the past, so there is no risk in them having a live-updating data set on the locations, activities, companions, and sentiments of every American.

Is that what people think? We are letting this shit run wild on us, and if the future is anything other than a bonafide utopia (spoilers: it's not going to be that), people are going to pay for our present naivete.

nojvek• 7 years ago

Playing the devil’s advocate here. Suppose in the perfect world we got to design ideal surveillance, how would it work?

You could track every person and item in public space and automatically fine a percentage of net income for violations. Think in terms of enhanced red light and speed cameras.

The system would store everything encrypted in a distributed system. Data would automatically get wiped out after 30 days. The public would be able to verify this (open source code and public access logs)

Any humans accessing the feeds would need a court order specifying time span + place + item being searched for and a good reason why. The court orders would be also be publicly accessible. May be a blockchain which is append only and distributed. Some form of hard mechanisms to prevent anyone being above the law. If anyone abuses access, they’d stand a trial too)

Access would would blur out all other faces other than person being investigated.

Basically what I’m saying is let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Good Surveillance may offer the means to quickly find violators and deter crime. A car got stolen. Boom, easily identified. A kid got lost/kidnapped. Instant search. Some asshole didn’t cleanup after their dog pooped. They think twice. Littering in public space. Nay nay.

Whether we like it or not, with the advance of cheap cameras, cheap processing power and advanced computer vision algorithms/neural nets. Surveillance is coming. It’s a god like power.

I believe we should at-least be having conversations on safe and trust worthy surveillance.

Facebook/Google already know what everyone is doing. We don’t know what they are doing with our data. The information asymmetry is a problem.

caconym_2• 7 years ago

I believe we should at-least be having conversations on safe and trust worthy surveillance.

Yeah, we should, but we aren't. Or, at least, the people actually involved in advancing the state of surveillance either aren't participating in such conversations, or are there for appearances only and don't really give a shit what the other participants have to say.

You don't have to be paying much attention to see that there's basically zero accountability and zero effort to protect the public in what I guess I might call the surveillance-industrial complex.

Believe me, I see the theoretical potential and value of surveillance for keeping people safe, but it's sort of like the idea of a benevolent robot dictator who makes perfect decisions to maximize good and minimize bad. Even a shaky first-pass implementation of such a thing is way beyond our capabilities, and if done even slightly wrong it could be a global catastrophe. Surveillance is a bit different because we're starting to have the technology to make it happen, but we don't have the social machinery necessary to do it effectively or responsibly.

habosa• 7 years ago

There are people debating a lot of big issues in this thread.

I just don't want a facially-tagged database of me doing my shitty drunk dance moves at shows ... is that too much to ask?

user95723• 7 years ago

At least with implants we could opt-out

glenda• 7 years ago

Festivals should just start inviting bounty hunters instead of using facial recognition.

Or maybe they could just put shock collars on every attendee in case they begin to act in an unacceptable manner.

In fact, once it's proven to work at festivals we can extend this to schools!

user95723• 7 years ago

It will probably be proven to work in schools first as most parents don't think children should have privacy anyway

peterwwillis• 7 years ago

Does anyone see any evidence for this website's claims? It literally just says "big companies are investing in this". No sources quoted, no evidence of how many groups, to what extent, or for what actual purposes.

Basically, this looks like a FUD campaign to work the outrage machine to get more followers and donations (and e-mail addresses)

user95723• 7 years ago

For obvious reasons, people didn't like microchip implants so we just invented face recognition

new_realist2• 7 years ago

Should festivals ban facial recognition, I imagine pickpockets would be a lot more into them.

new_realist2• 7 years ago

Do undocumented workers avoid Las Vegas casinos because of all the cameras? This seems like a solution to a problem nobody has.

jakemal• 7 years ago

They are very clear this is to prevent future problems. It's a problem that (most) people don't have yet.

Ban Facial Recognition at Festivals

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