My neighbor has such a doorbell. My facial data is captured every time I come over or walk by with my dog. When was I given an opportunity to consent to this?

In the United States, your consent is not needed to film you in places with no expectation of privacy.

While technically true, this doctrine came from a time when cameras were far less common than they are today (by orders of magnitude), and when facial recognition software didn't even exist as a concept (outside of science fiction).

Given those two very significant changes, it's probably worth re-evaluating the doctrine itself.

snip

> You want to re-evaluate the first amendment?

I don't.

> You don't want freedom of press?

I do.

> Let me guess. You also want to abolish the second amendment.

I don't.

> Why don't you just move to somewhere they don't have those rights. Like in south america. They don't have guns, free speech, anything like that. Like brazil, venezuela, or ecuador.

It's almost like you deliberately chose the least charitable interpretation of my point to avoid rebutting the actual argument I was making.

Here's an example of a doctrine that likely wouldn't run afoul of the first amendment (impinging on neither freedom of speech, the press, or religion). These also likely wouldn't impinge on the second amendment, nor steer us towards economic disaster:

* You can record in a public place

* You cannot use facial recognition software on the recording without the consent of those that were recorded

* Provide some limited exceptions to the above for small-scale private purposes or academic research

What an extreme comment. We need to reevaluate the concept of privacy. What does that have to do with freedom of press, guns or Venezuela?

I think this is an area where the constitution needs an update to reflect current technology. With the possibility of entities doing complete surveillance of the whole public space we need to refine the concept of privacy. I don't think it's acceptable that the only place where people are protected from surveillance and have privacy is their home.

We may need a new philosophy of privacy to account for big data analysis.

This feels related to the question of identification by DNA in large databases. It's pretty clear I own my own DNA, but if enough of my relatives upload their own that an association map of information about me can be discerned without my consent? What right do I have to prevent that?

Currently, pretty much none. Should I have one?

That my consent isn't legally necessary doesn't mean that this application of technology is ethical or good for society.

False. It depends on how invasive the recording was, how recognizable you are and how the recording is used (e.g. using it for advertising).

That's misleading. It's only if you're famous and the image is being used for profit. And even then it's pretty nebulous.

Also in the United States, you have the right to video-record anything you can see from where you are if you have the right to be present. You have the right to record any happenings on or in your dwelling and its curtilage. There is no question whatsoever that everyone has the right to mount a doorbell camera and do whatever they like with the recordings.

The only exception is that if you are not in a single-party consent state, you might not be able to record the audio. It is unlikely that a legally protected conversation would be happening in mic range of the camera, though.

But what if we changed those laws?

We could, for example, make it such that you can continue to record, but that those recordings couldn't be used as input to facial recognition software without the consent of the person being recorded.

Just because you _currently_ can do something legally does not mean that it _must_ be that way.

You cannot abridge freedom of expression without an amendment. Nor can you abridge freedom of computation.

You should perhaps instead endeavor to strike down anti-mask laws as being contrary to existing freedoms. The logical counter to automated facial recognition technology is facial concealment practices. It is the least harmful to liberty.

Alternatively, we could all wear--with our masks on--t-shirts with other people's faces printed onto them (especially Batman's face). And we can, of course, ban the government from using facial recognition technology without a specific, limited reason for doing so.

Just because I can record you from my porch and identify your face as appearing often, doesn't mean I would be able to tie that image in to a compulsory national identity database with facial photograph data included. Individuals might instead be able to identify a face as "John Doe #154" on their own server, and maybe match it to "YourMetroArea Serial Package Thief #15" on neighborhood-watch.net . Maybe I can set up an alert if any of the shared criminal faces show up and get recognized, or I can voluntarily forward my video to the cops when an incident actually happens. Giving cops unrestricted access to everyone's raw feeds is a bad, bad, bad idea. You bring in the cops only when it is apparent that a crime has been committed, an identifiable individual is responsible, and there is now a tangible reason to deanonymize the culprit.

What's wrong with an amendment? I don't want to live in a world where I have to wear a face mask to get some privacy. And they will probably soon not even need faces but recognize you from your height and the way you walk.

Nothing, in theory, but I don't think any amendment can get enough legislature votes to pass and be ratified right now, and the Powers That Be are absolutely terrified of what might come out of a Constitutional Convention. Anything could happen: gun control, equal rights for women, gay marriage, abortion rights, a requirement that presidents must divest all businesses and show tax returns prior to inauguration, right to strong encryption without back doors or key escrow, technology privacy and personal data ownership... anything.

So then we'll need masks and privacy-enhancing shoes.

What if the camera field of view was strictly confined to a neighbor's front door and facial recognition was used to log every visitor; all of which was freely available on the internet to any person?

Is there a source for this claim?

In major cities, there are multiple cameras at every traffic light intersection, and some even focus on the pedestrian crossing.

In most places those cameras don’t record anything. They’re used for traffic signaling to avoid having to embed sensors in the roadway.

https://www.peektraffic.com/products_video_detection.php

When were you given an opportunity to consent to your relatives uploading their own DNA to ancestry.com?

Ownership of one's own DNA information is not quite as blurry as surveillance camera footage, but if it's capturing activity happening in a public place or on the camera owner's property? Yeah, ownership of that information is still pretty blurry.

You effectively consent to the possibility of surveillance every time you go outside your home, office, or anywhere with a "reasonable expectation of privacy".

Surveillance is not always mass surveillance.

CCTVs are one thing. Giant companies and government entities automating the tracking of people in other countries is another.

Yeah, it looks like:

1. Users opt to share video clips

2. Police can't view unshared videos without requesting

3. The whole thing is opt-in

I don't see an issue here. It's a technical framework around something that already exists: police going door-to-door and asking for video clips. Why not make this more efficient?

I can see the potential for abuse, as it is all centralized. But I think "portal for mass surveillance" is a bit of an exaggeration.

> I can see the potential for abuse

But that is the problem. The potential exists, and without proper governance and oversight, you don't have the ability as a citizen to walk back abuse when it begins to occur. You only have the options of submitting to continued abuse, moving to a more sane locale, or the uphill political battle of defending your rights.

Authoritarianism is a slow boil, and doesn't happen overnight (usually; occasionally it does!).

I agree with your point. To elaborate my position, once one builds an opt-in surveillance network, it only requires a shift in public policy to remove the opt-in nature. You would have to have strong confidence in the safeguards against such a thing -- mainly the court system siding with privacy, which is not a sure thing historically speaking.

I would cooperate with the police to help solve an actual crime, but I certainly would not opt in to this. I would even go one step further and say that I likely wouldn't buy this product at all.

I would prefer home automation systems that have basically no cloud infrastructure. It is unfortunate that, if such a thing even exists, it is poorly marketed.

>moving to a more sane locale,

The last frogs out of the pot before it boils always find whatever pot they migrate to to be far too cold for their taste and insist upon turning up the burner.

Relocating only buys time. At some point you have to make a stand if the problem is to be solved. The culture that tolerates authoritarianism and paternalistic government needs to actively be stopped if we want to see it relegated to history textbooks. You can't just keep moving away from it.

However, are we throwing the baby of crowd-sourced neighborhood policing opted into by residents (essentially, a digitally-assisted neighborhood watch) with the bathwater of potential for abuse?

What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur?

These technologies aren't either-or; they're a tradeoff of possible benefits and drawbacks. What concrete drawbacks should we be concerned with here?

> What are the actual abuse scenarios that we would fear could occur?

Abuse by police for non-official business (stalking). Targeting of individual citizens and their daily activities because they attempt to hold public officials accountable. Constant surveillance of the wrong individuals. All off the top of my head from events that have occurred ("ripped from the headlines"). I could go on, but only because I take time to hold my public officials and government accountable as a hobby.

It is deeply unsettling, based on history (not just global, local US history alone), when technology professionals retort to issues like this with, "What's the big deal?"

Is that tradeoff worth seeing many, many fewer Amazon packages stolen wholesale from front porches?

... if you ask around, you may find the average neighborhood resident's answer is "yes." Especially if one finds the average neighborhood citizen isn't living under a corrupt police hierarchy, but instead an underfunded / understaffed one.

If you're willing to trade your privacy and security for reduced Amazon package theft, I'm unable to reason with you as my neighbor.

Sounds like you live in one of the neighborhoods that doesn't have a rampant theft problem, but okay. ;)

FWIW, the bias I approach this from is that we can't order packages delivered to my relatives because petty theft is so rampant in their area that packages will, on average, go missing. And the police are too underfunded to do anything about the new trend of theft right now. This technology would be life-changing in terms of convenience to them; it's a non-trivial expenditure of resources to schlep out to an Amazon pickup center of the post office to get anything large.

> Sounds like you live in one of the neighborhoods that doesn't have a rampant theft problem, but okay. ;)

My neighborhood does have the occasional Amazon package theft. Why do you assume consumer convenience is so important compared to fundamental rights?

> it's a non-trivial expenditure of resources to schlep out to an Amazon pickup center of the post office to get anything large.

This doesn't excuse the implementation of a surveillance machine.

Where you see "consumer convenience," I see "breakdown of law and order" that this technology could help ameliorate.

I think we're just coming at this from different biases. You see the risk of abuse of power as much, much higher than street crime (if I take your "occasional" literally, then I humbly suggest you haven't experienced it to the level my relatives have). I see the threat of street crime as much, much higher than risk of abuse of power (because while those abuses do happen, they are so rare relative to the street crime this system could prevent that it's a viable tradeoff).

I agree.

The only abuse scenario I’ve seen on the app so far myself is people of color continually having their images shared as suspicious while walking down the sidewalk. Maybe that says more about my area than anything, but that’s a potential problem.

That, and a lady posted a photo of a vehicle and license plate that she followed several days after a recent minor crime was associated with a vehcile of the same make and color. Not sure if it ended up being the vehicle, but this should’ve only been shared with law enforcement since it could’ve been anyone’s car that happened to be similar.

Risk of increasing efficiency of racism is definitely a concern. On the plus side, an audit trail dataset of "suspicious person" neighborhood reports coupled with some racial-identification of the subjects in the images would be a concrete dataset to demonstrate structural racism to the (still-existant) nonbelievers in the phenomenon.

The technologies aren't either/or, but the implementation, control, and regulations are.

I'm all for neighborhoods policing themselves, but this isn't even close to that.

I would be fine with there being additional tools that assist the individual consumer with reporting crimes or providing video evidence to police. Amazon/Ring/whoever doesn't need to be involved with what is a local/neighborhood issue.

> Amazon/Ring/whoever doesn't need to be involved with what is a local/neighborhood issue

In what way? Who on Earth is going to set up and maintain those tools, pay for the hardware, provide service channels for the hardware, etc.?

Technological sophistication is by no means uniformly distributed.

I don't take issue with them making the hardware and selling a product. I have an issue with them being so heavily involved with the police side of things.

There's a big difference between a feature that allows consumers to report a video and a feature that allows police to demand a video.

But they are both features that have to be implemented, and they'll be implemented sooner if done by the same org.

If we have no problem with the police having the tool at all, why would it be bad for Amazon to implement it?

(Unless the issue is you don't think the police should have the tool at all, in which case the question is "Who should? Can private citizens be trusted with this information aggregation? Can private citizens' designated / elected representatives? Or should we just make sharing of private video feeds for surveillance purposes illegal, uh... somehow?").

(Also, FWIW, "request to voluntarily divulge video" is not the same as "demand").

This comes to mind: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-police-office...

It also boggles the mind why some think that this sort of interaction is the kind that brings others over to one's “side”. But in any case this kind of comment doesn't belong on Hacker News, so could you please post civilly and substantively instead?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is an unhelpful comment. Rather than attacking chrisfosterelli you could explain your point of view.

Probably because they also see 10,000 years of governments and citizens generally muddling along okay, most of the time?

The fact that you immediately jumped to personal attacks demonstrates that you don't have a valid argument.