Schneier's point doesn't have to do with the specifics of, as he says, "identification, correlation and discrimination" methods, but rather he's arguing that focusing just on facial recognition instead of focusing on the larger more important question of surveillance in general is not useful.

If you just ban facial recognition, then you are missing the point Schneier's making.

Also, I think it might be easier to wear a mask than to not carry a phone, walk funny, wear bulky clothes over all skin, and never use a credit card. I don't know how hard it is to constantly wear a mask in public though. I'm sure there would be push back.

Varies based on country. Face masks are pretty normalised in some east asian countries after SARS. Coronavirus has resulted in affected areas being sold out of face masks entirely.

That said, Hong Kong tried to make face masks illegal during the extradition protests, which only resulted in even more protests.

I wear a mask outside in the winter, usually, but this makes people uncomfortable inside at best and obviously prevents you from eating or drinking. And you would not be comfortable yourself either. So I'm going to say wearing a mask at all times is not practical.

One winter, I canvassed when it was -40 C. So I wore a Neopreme ski mask. Which are, by the way, quite comfortable.

I did get a few jokes when people came to the door, but everyone knew why I was wearing it. Some did call me a dumbass for doing it, but whatever.

But if it'd been during the summer?

Yeah I think the discomfort would be getting too warm and also having your spit pool up too much.

Of course it's uncomfortable

Why wonder about something you already know the answer to?

"Facial recognition doesn't discriminate people. People discriminate people."

This just reminded me of a typical gun control argument (which I don't disagree with). Banning one particular technology might be still worthwhile, but the argument is valid only after the actual damage is assessed. I think we're still missing the number. (Arguably it's very hard to measure though!)

In Canada, it’s now illegal to hide your face during a protest (a gift from the Harper years)

Unfortunately this is already illegal in some other western countries for quite some time. In Germany for example since 1985 (one year late though). It's often used as legitimation when the police is using violence against otherwise peaceful protests.

In the aftermath of the G20 summit in Hamburg there were some advancements to even tighten the law while at the same time the police was using illegal face recognition software.

What about fake beards and moustaches? I've heard they're the norm in Korea. Imagine thousands of Santa Claus or Paul von Hindenburg protesting.

Illegal surveillance technology deployed warrants illegal masks in my opinion. But you should also hide eyes, ears and nose to the highest degree as possible. But even then advanced image processing will probably be able to identify you if you are already on record in some form.

Alas, maybe if everyone at the Women's March on Washington wore fake beards and moustaches instead of pink pussy hats, they would have been taken more seriously.

Yet to be tried in court, I think. I suspect, that unless someone is using a facial covering to hide their face while breaking the law, it would probably be found against the charter. One does not need to identify law abiding citizens and protesting is very protected expression.

Not a lawyer though, so I speak with little authority on the topic.

In the solidarity protests for HK in Vancouver almost everybody wears them for obvious reason. Would be interesting if Canadian police require to remove them...

In Austria it's illegal to wear a face mask if it's not cold enough or for special cultural activities that are "tradition" thanks to the last right wing - far right government.

I.e. Krampus?

Bill C-309 is the law in question [1]. It should only affect "unlawful" assemblies, but I'd be interested to see what the functional criteria are, how much warning is appropriate, and whether a protest's status can be changed retroactively.

>Harper years

The Liberals were also supporters of this bill, including the current Prime Minister.

If the images exist, you can't actually stop someone from running facial recognition algorithms on them in private, legal or not. To really stop facial recognition, we need to stop the collection of those images in the first place.

Although I would like it, unfortunately I think the CCTV horse has bolted.

> But your face is expected to be on show (obv exceptions aside)

Only in cities where pollution isn't a major concern. Any time I'm in Bangkok I'm wearing a mask most of the time that covers everything from my eyes down, and nobody bats an eyelid.

I feel like masks also got a lot more common during the last SARS outbreak, and in other countries it's normal to wear a mask when you're sick.

I think what I'm saying here is: be the change you want to see, and start wearing one[0] as much as possible in your day-to-day life outside / during your commute / whatever, to normalize it?

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=N95+mask+fashion&iax=images&ia=ima...

If that is needed as a form of protest, but I would hate to see that become the norm in the EU.

It may be polite and even prudent to wear one, if you have a cold or the flue. But many people wearing masks makes society feel even more impersonal, individualistic.

May be a cultural thing to get used to, I dunno. You see them mostly in Asia and with Asian people when they visit Europe as tourists. I sometimes wonder 'Are all these people sick, or don't they trust the air in EU, or do they just feel more comfortable hiding their face that it became a habit'.

Suddenly the muslim veil makes sense. It's definitely a great way to combat face recognition. This is part of why I think a ban on wearing it in public is a bit overreaching - in public is exactly where it's needed.

> action against face recognition is also worthwhile.

there's limited resources for political action. If you focus on facial recognition, may be it succeeds. But the data brokering industry will continue on unabated because there are plenty of other sources of data other than face. And now there's less political capital left to fight the fight again.

Best to deploy the limited resources to fight the root cause - that private data and correlation is unregulated, and put limits and transparency laws around it so that no matter what source or what type of data is collected/correlated, the outcomes for citizens are still good.

Why is it one or the other? IMO, laws against facial recognition would start a national dialogue on data collection.

You have to start somewhere, so it’s better to start with this and then expand, versus trying to pass sweeping legislation, etc.

"we are already safe from privacy concerns because we've already regulated facial recognition! Why spend any more money on privacy, isn't it enough? We have more pressing issues to deal with!"

Statements like that make great TV news commentary, but they have little basis in reality. Governance rarely deals in sweeping structural changes. Even things generally though of as such, like Civil Rights, came from a long series of small reforms leading to bigger reforms.

I'm far more fearful of gait recognition than facial recognition. Gait recognition is more accurate and its much harder to fight against.

Really? Gait recognition seems a far easier thing to spoof via a limp, change in shoes...

I had that thought when I heard about gait recognition too, and I'm still curious if the general counterpoint is the same as the next thought I had, or unrelated:

It seems surprisingly hard to spoof a limp (or any other biomechanic change, like randomly swapping shoe inserts or some prosthesis to change arm movement patterns or something), consistently, for an extended period. Also, painful. Also, noticeable to humans, like most MV-dodging techniques are.

An artificially induced limp is classic fieldwork from the "good ol days" of the Cold War.

What I've read of gait recognition though is that it's not so much about identifying you, as identifying someone walking "suspiciously" in a given area.

Or tracking a person where you can't see their face, based on their gait once recorded.

However, I haven't yet been able to find any papers that describe gait recognition with a subject consciously modifying their gait.

For example, when I'm stressed I tend to walk fast, but when I catch myself doing so, I will actively slow my pace down, and change the distance of my steps - like the old adage of "smiling makes you feel happy when you're not", I find deliberately slowing down my pace, and not taking such long strides, helps me calm myself - especially when combined with a focus on breathing.

What I can't find is any discussion of how existing gait analysis algorithms handle an observed subject deliberately varying their gait.

And what papers I can find on this are largely written by Chinese academics who don't find a 94% identification rate (leaving 6% false positive or negative) to be an issue, which I guess works in a totalitarian collectivist regime where an arrest on a false positive isn't considered a violation of human rights because, lol, human rights.

Which brings me, verbosely, to the academics researching this. How do they incorporate improving the surveillance capabilities of an oppressive government into their personal mores?

Do they take the stance that those doing nothing wrong have to nothing to be afraid of?

A stone or insert in your shoe would probably work (albeit painfully). I don't think people would think you were actively dodging ML if you had a limp, unlike strange face painting or haircuts.

I've been looking into anti facial-recognition make up, and I wonder how much you'd have to apply to defeat the algorithm - like, would a line of make-up breaking up the contrast pit of an eye be sufficient?

And then there's reflectacles - glasses designed to reflect IR and visible light. I presume they'd mess with an algorithm, but could you code that algorithm to recognise them and raise a flag requiring human input?

Ah man, I love how the cyberpunk dystopian future of my youth has slowly arrived, sadly with less magic and orks, and last I checked, no shady street samurai in bars looking to hire me for my leet decker skills.

But you know, I live in CV beDazzled[1] hope.

[1]https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/designer-a...

Do you want to consistently change it for an extended period? You'd be better off changing it for small periods of time when you don't want to be recognized, and you can stick a stone in your shoe for that.

Action against facial recognition is not worthwhile specifically because of the public attention drain it's focus will cause. The focus needs to be on the larger issue of person profile compiling and sharing by 3rd parties.