[London Riots] Help work out how to do facial recognition on the police photos

http://groups.google.com/group/london-riots-facial-recognition

by robhawkes • 15 years ago

14 27 15 years ago

groups.google.com

pointyhat9• 15 years ago

Please do not do this. It compromises people's right to privacy and will artificially incriminate people who may not be participating but are bystanding or trying to get home.

Technology is not the solution - it's part of the cause. Everyone is automatically incriminated. Don't add fuel to the fire.

robhawkes5• 15 years ago

Can you expand on your argument against the use of technology in this way?

Nothing here compromises your privacy, and nothing will artificially incriminate you. Everything is already public information.

A system like this would be exactly the same as photos being released to the public by the police (which they have), and then random people ringing up saying "That person might be XYZ" (which also happens).

This would be a simple automation of the process to help filter down who it could potentially be (none of the results would be public). It would be up to the police to work out who should be pursued.

Also, I entirely disagree with your statement that technology is the cause. Riots happened before the Internet and social networks. People would be using phones, radio, and word-of-mouth anyway.

throwaway322• 15 years ago

No, it is not exactly the same, things have shifted a lot in the last 20 years ago. It used to be "what a police officer happened to see while he was driving down the street in his car", now it is rapidly becoming "what could have a police officer possibly seen at any time and in any location, in all EM wavelengths, tied into massive identifying databases". That is a massive shift in power to the police, its important to proceed cautiously, a free society is much more important than catching criminals.

pointyhat9• 15 years ago

I think if you analyse your statements and compare them to a sensible set of morals which put a person above the state, you can answer that question yourself.

tamberg• 15 years ago

https://www.eff.org/issues/privacy

nodata• 15 years ago

How many times have you heard this:

1. This will be misused.

2. But someone else will do it if you don't.

3. Okay I'll do it then.

JamesLowell2• 15 years ago

What inspired this idea? Most people would just leave these sort of efforts to the police. I'm not judging, I'm a journalist and I'm legitimately curious.

robhawkes5• 15 years ago

I just hate to see technology lying around doing nothing when it could genuinely help the situation. We have the data, we have the technology. Let's put the two together and actually help the situation, rather than sitting around moaning.

The police cannot use these methods, I believe, so if the public can do it for them to help narrow down inquiries, then surely that's a good thing.

I think it's important to point out that a system like this would be to close the net, not to be used as evidence.

pointyhat9• 15 years ago

So you're saying use technology to treat the symptoms and ignore the cause? Retribution rather than prevention?

Help your neighbours, not the police, then shit like this wouldn't happen. People are so ready to delegate responsibility for everything to technology and a "higher authority" that they forget their own moral responsibility.

As for using it to identify people for questioning, it is strictly against the DPA to collect this information privately without consent and supply it to the police without a data controller and disclosure policy.

JamesLowell2• 15 years ago

Just sent you an email.

riotforequality• 15 years ago

Anyone who takes part in this is a fucking fascist. This is not just simple rioting and looting, it is a backlash upon the failed establishment in the UK. The young people can't find jobs and can't afford to go to school. They are poor, hopeless, and destitute; oppressed by the ever growing disparity between who is rich and who is poor. This is probably not a revolution or an uprising, but it is the start of something. People are fed up with government and they aren't going to be able to take it much longer.

pointyhat9• 15 years ago

Spot on. Listen to this person. This is the voice of most of London at the moment other than the iPhone wielding, wine swilling, bugaboo shoving middle to upper classes.

pointyhat9• 15 years ago

I think I might have hit a sore point there.

ach5689• 15 years ago

So, kids as young as 6/7 are lashing back beacause they can't find jobs....BULL - they're thiefs, they're using any excuse to vanadlise and burn whatefver they can. any technology that can be used should be used, lock up the litttle b'stards

zardiw• 15 years ago

Screw taking pictures. Shoot Looters.....z

pointyhat9• 15 years ago

Yeah right: kill people for taking worthless material things...

autoiq• 15 years ago

It makes me very nervous, but how "ethical" or not this depends on who's driving and participating in the effort.

A college friend of mine got charged with inciting a riot by standing on a car and shouting "Don't burn our hood! Go burn some rich folks stuff! Follow me!" According to him they didn't trash his stuff, and that was worth the hassle with the courts.

If your shop or car got torched or your kids are afraid at night, this is probably a great idea. Leveraging public data (photos) and off the shelf technology to at least identify witnesses if not actual participants should be done. If a friend of mine was in that situation and asked for help, I would do everything I could. If a company asked me to consult on designing the solution they could sell, I would probably pass.

I've been working in security, identity and privacy for over a decade and this "ethical" question has loomed since before Orwell. Commercial packages are marketed to law enforcement, today. Instead of disengaging or blindly sending your leads to police, the ethical middle path is a publicly defined framework. Using the riots as the catalyst, there should be public/web/community effort for vetting the most incriminating images, aimed at shaping the rules of public disclosure, law and evidence around facial recognition.

If this makes you queasy, get engaged. Saying "that's bad" or "they're wrong" won't stop those driving the technology solutions forward. Advocacy can keep the situation a little more honest.

dan_g• 15 years ago

http://facebookjustice.wordpress.com

opinonatedbloke• 15 years ago

If you build it , some one with more ambition will take it from you and misuse it. It might help here, no doubt, but it will be abused. Consider China doing this to identify political deviants. Consider the invention of nukes , and the on going struggle to keep them out of peoples hands who wish to use them. Nothing good will come of this in the long run.

[London Riots] Help work out how to do facial recognition on the police photos

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