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A comment on America is turning against facial-recognition software.

Re:America is turning against facial-recognition software by vfc1 on Friday May 24, 2019 @09:13AM (#20001070)
It's like nuclear power, technology is what we make of it.

Do we want to use it for criminal purposes only, effectively to almost make it impossible for someone to commit a violent crime and get away with it and make a much safer society?

I'm all for it, there are some nasty people out there, serial killers, pedophilians, drug cartels. This technology deployed at scale would make these crimes much harder to get away with.

As long as it's another way to ensure democratic laws are respected, I don't think that completely forbidding it makes sense.

I'm all for regulation, we don't want this technology to be abused.

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Re:America is turning against facial-recognition software by yusi-san on Friday May 24, 2019 @10:18AM (#20001774)
The thing is it depends of what you call 'criminal' on the moment, right ?

And when you know you're watched, you start self-censoring to adapt what should be the 'right thing' to avoid blame or judgment.

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Re:America is turning against facial-recognition software by coding123 on Friday May 24, 2019 @09:16AM (#20001092)
Ski mask. You might catch/convict a guy with it, but soon after a lot of people are just going to wear them all the time.
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Re:America is turning against facial-recognition software by johaugum on Friday May 24, 2019 @10:23AM (#20001827)
The same fundamentals used in facial recognition can be applied to 3D pose estimation for gait recognition. This allows identification of a person without biometric features like a face or iris [1].

Facial recognition is used as a catch-all term because it's easily understood, but the deep-learning behind it is much more widely applicable.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.06512

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Re:America is turning against facial-recognition software by bpyne on Friday May 24, 2019 @09:20AM (#20001128)
Yup. About half the US needs them for 3 or more months per year. And then there's the rise of surgical masks to prevent the spread of viruses.

I also foresee a surge in wide-brimmed hats.

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Re:America is turning against facial-recognition software by Loughla on Friday May 24, 2019 @12:27PM (#20003124)
I remember stories from 5 years ago or so about artists who were making facial recognition blocking scarves. The scarves made you look like a lightbulb on camera, so they couldn't see your face.

I chuckled, because it was ridiculous, and now I'm wondering if they make them in professional colors. . .

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Re:America is turning against facial-recognition software by vfc1 on Friday May 24, 2019 @09:20AM (#20001127)
I don't know how effective is this technology to identify masked people, if at all.

But then again, how suspect is that to wear a ski mask? Everyone will notice.

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