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I sincerely hope it happens. I'm tired of seeing privacy eroded in the name of safety and I hope nobody falls for the "we need to keep up with the US and China" argument that is inevitably going to be brought forward.We don't need to compete with others on technologies whose primary purpose is diminishing the rights of our own citizens, that's not an arms race we need to be part of and it seems to be increasingly the rhetoric tech companies adopt as well. One piece that I read recently that I found particularly disturbing talked about aerial surveillance of US cities. https://longreads.com/2019/06/21/nothing-kept-me-up-at-night...
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> we need to keep up with the US and ChinaIn all of human history, as soon as people get fed, they turn into a group dick measuring contest. Well meaning people who are totally nice starts waving the banners at the sidelines. Politicians dress up impeccably and speak beautiful language at the center stage - to conduct this dick measuring contest. One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest than out of dick waving necessity.
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> One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest than out of dick waving necessity.Couple of observations: 1. Large amounts of open source projects which seem to ego-driven (i.e. done not to provide genuine improvement, but done for amusement and promotion of the author). 2. Same for conference appearances (speaking at a conference to be able to say one spoke at a conference). 3. Commercial software in sorry state in order to maximize company profits, i.e. increase dick size of the owners. It's impossible to escape our nature, no matter what field.
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> done not to provide genuine improvement, but done for amusement and promotion of the authorI'd argue that if done for amusement, it's rather self-fulfilment than dick waving. Spinning the metaphor, some of us are not open-sourcing their project to put their external organs in other's face, but rather publish "just in case" someone may be interested in bootstrapping another project from here.
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I speak at conferences so that I can say I speak at conferences so that I can earn more so that I can afford to pay for my kids to go to university. Does that make me a dick?
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> Large amounts of open source projects which seem to ego-driven (i.e. done not to provide genuine improvement, but done for amusement and promotion of the author).While that kind of thing does happen, many of the participants in older active projects seem to be driven by a genuine desire to improve things for our fellow people.
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What are the right reasons for these things, then?
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I would say you’re right, but your implication (that this only has negative effects) is wrong. There are a lot of positive things that people trap themselves into first as platitudes they speak, but then identify with, and then feel that they must defend as part of their identities.For example, it is a long-standing hypothesis of mine that countries become more democratic precisely because democracy is a nice thing for a government to claim to support—and then, two generations later, everyone running the government was brought up to think that their country was "democratic"—and so acts under the assumption that it is democratic, applying concepts like "rule of law" and "constitutional rights" and so forth, because they know that those are what democratic nations do.
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Macroorganizational dick measuring isn't an automatic outcome of the needs pyramid at all. Far more wars have been fought to distract from domestic problems than because there were no other problems left unsolved.> One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest A genuine interest in artillery trajectories and cryptoanalysis? I don't think so.
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>Politicians dress up impeccably and speak beautiful language at the center stage - to conduct this dick measuring contest.Let's change the narrative then. A dick measuring contest in terms of public privacy. Cambridge, MA is heading in the same direction: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/01/14/cambridge-...
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Sadly, one of the things that is killing my interest in software is that a large part of the efforts I have spent have been on building things that already exist and that all that collective brain power would be better spent on other problems.I guess I should start working for an open source company.
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Finding an entirely new foundational problem and solving that by designing a generic, reusable solution is incredibly hard. Only very few people luck out and succeed in doing that.The vast majority of modern technology are mainly improvements on past solutions. And the process is entirely darwinistic: only those improvements that come with the least amount of friction will be adopted by a large enough number of users. The same is true for science. Few people get to crack truly foundational problems. Most people work on different ideas and approaches that refine existing solutions, until the scientific community converges around a new incumbent solution or idea. Then the cycle begins again when a new idea or solution enters the domain. Rallying our collective brain power towards a few or even a single idea or solution will slow that feedback cycle. So, working on a variation of an existing thing isn't necessarily bad. Your execution may be better then the incumbent solution and uproot the status quo. There are also other reasons why working on an existing problem may yield benefits: You learn more about the process. For instance, a simple todo application isn't interesting in itself. But going through the process of building one and finding out how to do that efficiently: that's where you'll find value. Those experiences and lessons you take to the next project which may be your own or part of a bigger mission or vision. If you work with other people, you are practicing your communication skills and your people skills. Both are hugely valuable as well. The most impact you can have isn't necessarily through writing code on your own, but by coaching and supporting others; clearing impediments and clarifying problems by reframing them. If you cling on to the notion that building something entirely new is the only relevant measure of success, you set yourself up for failure.
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> I guess I should start working for an open source company.Open source can also be mostly building things that are pointless or already exist.
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I think that is what makes me most sad about Linux distros. So much time spent just to create a pleasant desktop experience or find yet another way to organize config files.It's tough, because the variety and freedom is the whole point. But it feels wasteful.
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> One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest than out of dick waving necessity.Did you ever notice computer manufacturers playing on specs and retina to sell their products? That is pure dick waving. It's everywhere.
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Spec are sometimes useful. Mutual military build ups are not.
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Yeah, the second world war had nothing to do with it.
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One would prefer to have innovation without killing millions. Electronic calculators are a thing before that. It’s a natural progression, WWII just made it a little bit faster, at the cost of about a hundred million souls.
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One could of course argue that even the modern computer and therefore software was borne out of both necessity and dick measuring.
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What's wrong with that? Glory is a powerful motivator and encourages people to do genuinely impressive things. Instead of decrying the desire to excel, you should channel it in productive directions. There's no shame in doing something wonderful for the recognition. There's only a problem when society is dysfunctional enough that people can't get recognition by doing productive things.
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The desire to excel and the desire for glory are two different things.I'm not on board with those who say the desire for glory is automatically a bad thing, though (although I admit that it is something that I don't really understand).
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I agree. Besides, there's a difference between "keeping up with development of technology" and between "keeping up in using it for dubious goals".
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This is the ensure influence on the technology that they indeed plan to use. That might be good if you trust in your influence on the work of the commission. I am skeptical here, so I don't really feel too euphoric about this.
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There's no way this ban will apply to governments though. Just like that right to remove PII, governments are exempt. The article already mentions exceptions for security.
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Governments aren't exempt from all privacy laws; in fact, just last month the Data Protection Commission in my EU country blocked the police from installing cameras in public places.That said, I can see some countries vetoing such an EU-wide ban if it applied to all law enforcement.
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At least in the Netherlands there’s the same loophole as in the US: the police can give a camera to a private party, point it to the street and get access to the feed.
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Not sure how you’re going to hang up a Ring doorbell then. And the police surely doesn’t mind if you ‘accidentally’ capture ‘part of’ public space, as long as you share your images with them.
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If you cannot do it without filming public space, then you don't. Simple as that.(If you've got a garden in front of your house or so, I don't see a problem)
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Strong words but they don’t mean anything. Reality shows the doorbells are selling and people are not getting arrested.
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In my country the municipality does fine people directing surveillance cameras towards the street
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This matches precisely none of the practical experience I've had. The police is the police, they're going to be evil bastards when they can get away with it - but in this case I'd like to see some legislative proof that this is actually true.
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But state owned institutions can not be fined under the GDPR, which makes it tough to enforce it against government entities.
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The GDPR isn't the only privacy law in the EU.
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> There's no way this ban will apply to governments thoughIt's a good thing even if it doesn't apply to governments, although it would be even better if it did.
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> I'm tired of seeing privacy erodedAnd I'm tired of people imposing arbitrary limitations on technology in the name of "privacy". It's become another one of these ideas that you just can't question without becoming a bad person in some circles. Why? Why can't we ask whether "privacy" is so precious that we should preserve it at any cost? Much of the supposed loss of privacy comes from technological development normalizing the exceptional. Now everyone can have an unblinking ever-watching doorbell. So what? You can't roll back progress. What you can do is embrace new technology, accept its downsides (almost always over-played), and figure out how to use new capabilities to make life better. (For example, we can lower crime.) These people beating the "privacy" drum don't acknowledge that there are real regulatory and opportunity costs coming from the measures needed to preserve this "privacy" and that ordinary people might prefer not paying these costs if they were fully aware of the trade-offs. What specific and concrete unjustified harm has ever come to someone as a result of public facial recognition?
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I disagree with you, but I still don't like seeing you downvoted.Actually, I kind-of agree with you. The problem isn't data (i.e. lack of "privacy"). The problem is abuse of this data - by governments (foreign and you own) (e.g. being locked up because you're a spouse of a journalist, or being refused at the border for saying the wrong thing), corporations (FB banning you for supporting the wrong party, insurance premiums rising because you're speeding), even your neighbors (perverts jerking off to videos of your kids)! I hope that someday in the future, we can have a world where all (well, most of) your data is used in your best interest. Unfortunately, the current legislation is, to a large degree, made with the idea that it's not going to be 100% enforceable anyways - so many laws have to change to make that happen... from child porn & consent laws (children shouldn't have the rest of their lives ruined for having sex, or messaging naughty photos of themselves), speeding laws (different countries have different max speed laws, so clearly at least some of them are wrong and/or arbitrary), insurance laws ("preexisting conditions" need to be covered, smoking can't be singled out as the only dangerous behavior), free speech laws (you shouldn't be punished even for the most offensive jokes), ... just some example from the top of my head.
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> The problem isn't data (i.e. lack of "privacy"). The problem is abuse of this dataA.k.a. the "Guns don’t kill people" argument.
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A bit off topic, but the argument is 100% correct. We just need to figure out the actual causal factors, all else is bad statistics, leading to bad policy.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/switzerlan... > In 2007, the Small Arms Survey found that Switzerland had the third-highest ratio of civilian firearms per 100 residents (46), outdone by only the US (89) and Yemen (55). > In 2016, the country had 47 homicides with firearms. The country's overall murder rate is near zero. (Not saying of course that whatever they do in Switzerland is applicable to any other country, in any kind of short- to medium-term. The best short-term solution for the US might as well be banning/restricting gun ownership.)
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'your data is used in your best interest' -- coming soon to a dystopian sci-fi.
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>> What specific and concrete unjustified harm has ever come to someone as a result of public facial recognition?The harm is to peoples' expectation of privacy in a public place, which is non-zero. For example, if I'm walking around town talking to my partner, I don't expect random strangers to keep pace with us and eavesdrop on our conversation, because, even if it's in a public place, it's a private conversation. In the same way, I don't expect private or public organisations to watch my every move and keep track of where I go, what I do and whom I speak to, every single day, which is possible with facial recognition technology and is, by its indiscriminate nature unjustified. You 're probably not happy with this reply because you have framed the question as "concrete and unjustified harm", which strongly implies either financial as physical harm. But there is concrete and significant harm that can come to persons that is not financial or physical and that is nonetheless recognised by law. For example, Article 4 of the European Human Rights Convention makes slavery and servitude illegal without any precondition that violence is exerted, or the person is otherwise harmed physically or in any other way than being in servitude, i.e. the harm is recognised as being caused by the condition of servitude itself. And you can rest assured that nobody takes slavery and servitude lightly at least in most European countries who are signatories to the treaty.
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> You 're probably not happy with this reply because you have framed the question as "concrete and unjustified harm", which strongly implies either financial as physical harm. But there is concrete and significant harm that can come to persons that is not financial or physical and that is nonetheless recognised by law. For example, Article 4 of the European Human Rights Convention makes slavery and servitude illegal without any precondition that violence is exerted, or the person is otherwise harmed physically or in any other way than being in servitude, i.e. the harm is recognised as being caused by the condition of servitude itself.How does one become enslaved without the threat of physical or financial harm?
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Because you were born a slave and raised with the idea that it's normal, for instance.
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There is psychological coercion, for example many women trafficked into EU countries from African countries are coerced with threats of sorcery. E.g.:Juju magic 'more controlling than chains', says Harvard expert https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-29599158 And, unfortunately, the threat seems to work pretty well, even if "juju magic" itself of course doesn't. Additionally, the threat of physical or financial harm is not itself physical or financial harm. So that's a kind of harm other than physical or financial harm. My assumption was that the "specific and concrete" condition you placed on "harm" in your original comment was meant to mean physical or financial harm. I have to ask- was I wrong to make this assumption? I apologise if so, but could you clarify what you meant by "specific and concrete" harm?
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Oops, sorry vonmoltke. Mistook you for the OP. Can't edit comment now.
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> Why? Why can't we ask whether "privacy" is so precious that we should preserve it at any cost?I would suggest opening up one of the many books that deal with the history of various police states of central, eastern and southern Europe of the last 100 years or so. This continent is scarred to the bone by authoritarianism, millions of nameless graves and all that, if that's not a good enough reason I don't know what to say more. Ignorance of the past is deadly.
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> What specific and concrete unjustified harm has ever come to someone as a result of public facial recognition?And what specific real benefit? If they are going to implement facial recognition, then I would like to see real (not just numbers of) prevented crimes, terrorist attacks, caught criminals, etc. I want to see what my liberties were given for. If there is 100% facial recognition in every public centimeter square of Europe, then there should be not a single "bad guy" on the loose. PS: why downvoting parent? Even if I don't agree at 100%, in my opinion it's a very valid PoV and not formulated in a trolling/flaming way.
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Are you crazy? The persecution of Muslims in china is heavily reliant on surveillance technology. As this technology rolls out, it will make surveillance cheaper, and as a result, will make the job of authoritarian regimes easier.Saying there aren't good, documented examples of 'concrete', 'specific' harm is akin to saying that hydrogen bombs are not dangerous because they've never been dropped on people.
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I'm equally tired of the argument that it's OK to invade people's privacy because technological "advancement" is more desirable.But the issue is really more fundamental than that -- why should others be able force me to live a worse sort of life just so they can have cool gadgets?
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Response as a Brit: "yes! That’s great news. Idiot/sinister police forces have already been trialling this, fantastic. Thank god for the EU."(Pause) "Oh shit, I forgot."
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As some that lives in a part of the country that voted for Brexit and actually knows a lot of people who voted Brexit: I can guarantee that nobody who voted for it did so because they wanted more privacy violations.Your link is inserted in such a way that it looks like it should support the assertion that the security services supported Brexit, but it does not. Do you have a source for that?
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Here's Dearlove on Brexit: https://briefingsforbrexit.com/jeremy-corbyn-and-national-se... ; he's retired, which allows him to speak on the subject.The security services are supposed to be both secret and impartial, which makes it difficult to directly find out what they want, but campaigning against ECHR has been a common theme of Home Secretaries for years and Brexit is a necessary precondition for leaving ECHR. And of course, what people wanted from Brexit and what they're going to get are two almost completely unrelated things.
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Nobody — almost nobody — is a moustache-twirling villain who wants to eliminate privacy for its own sake. I doubt many people voted for a 10% devaluation of the pound either, yet since then I’ve seen different people looking at the same graph saying "it’s gone back up" and "going down is good".But… …one of the big bug-bears of the newspaper and politicians whom I associate with Brexit is how the Human Rights Act stops the British criminal justice system from doing whatever it wants, including violating the privacy of anyone suspected of Being A Wrong’n. I know Human Rights Act/European Convention on Human Rights/European Court of Human Rights are different things from the EU. I bet you know that too. Do your neighbours know it? Do they even know what the HRA says or do they say something about Abu Hamza? Everyone I’ve seen who supports Brexit sees the EU as somewhere between "greedy and incompetent" on the low end and "the unholy spawn of Hitler and Stalin" on the high end (paraphrasing). I am aware that could be Nut Picking on my part, so I’m open minded about how wrong I could be about how other people think.
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I have to walk through Cardinal Place in Victoria (a shopping area) to get to work and they have "greeters" with cameras strapped to their chest. Feels a bit inhuman for those poor workers and uncomfortable for people walking by.
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Yeah, sorry to not be specific. I meant the private use without the (assumed, possibly only theoretical) public body oversight.That Victoria greeter situation sounds terrifying
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Good thing the UK are able to pass their own laws.
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Amusing, but also as a Brit, I still think it's good news and that it adds weight to making the same arguments in the UK.
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Except that the UK tends to like emulating the US ways rather than the EU ones.
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UK ranks much worse than most countries in the world wrt privacy. ironic considering their traditional values
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> EU digital and antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager is expected to present her proposals next month.She has been such a force in the European Union during her short time in the Commission. I'm glad she's still spearheading stuff like this even if she didn't become president like some thought she would when Macron started promoting her. The funny thing is that she was also officially second in command when she was in the Danish coalition government a decade ago, but somehow the government's official policies were much closer to _her_ party's ideology (Social Liberal) than the ideology of the much bigger Social Democratic party that they were in a coalition with.
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All of us are in hundreds of people's photos & videos every time we travel through a city and then FB/Apple/Google will recognize us anyway
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Yet another big example, where tech literacy is probably a barrier to getting good policy. Layered onto the bureaucratic & political challenges that always apply to rule making...There are two operative components: cameras & software. They don't need to be on the same device or used by the same person. Increasingly, if the cameras exist, the "data" is likely to go through software at some point. Facebook, Apple, Google or whatnot... they do facial recognition & other classification by default. Any publicly available pictures can be crawled & analysed by aggregators... or whoever wants to. Most people use services that analyse image content, make images public, or both. These aren't just theoretical loopholes. There are tons and tons of private cameras out there. These will continue to "do facial recognition," or lead to it. This can probably only be a ban on certain users: police... maybe some classes of regulatable businesses. This might be ok, but I don't get the impression decision makers know this.
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Does anyone else think total bans on this technology are excessive? Why not enact strict controls on the collection and use of face/location data, yet still leave room for obviously useful applications like (for instance) arrest warrant subject recognition at bus stops, airports, train stations, etc.?It just seems ridiculous to have officers scanning CCTV for the FBI's Most Wanted when algorithms could effectively and responsibly assist them.
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ask a vietnam war resister if "arrest warrant subject recognition at bus stops, airports, train stations" seems like a good idea.
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Having the means in place for total surveillance and thinking it will be kept in check with "strict control" is a total delusion. Who determines what constitutes proper grounds for using the captured data? The government, I suppose? And if you want to automatically recognize certain individuals it must by design mean everyone gets scanned.
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A total ban is not being proposed. It is a temporary ban that may include exceptions for security and research projects.
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Opt-in then. For everyone. No exceptions.
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Yes, please! Stop that ridiculous surveillance. I am appalled at our minister of justice in Denmark that seems to see every week in power as a possibility to wreck havoc on our privacy.
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Same with the interior minister of Germany who seems to strive for total surveillance.
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And unfortunately whatever Germany does, the rest of the EU countries later copy because if Germany does something then it must be good, right, because German efficiency or something.
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Thank you for providing a useful source.
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Here's a weird request: any video-recording device, when activated (shooting or ready to shoot), should be required to emit a low-power radio signal. So your own device (e.g. cellphone) can listen for that signal and let you know what is recording you and from where.Maybe it's silly or infeasible but I'd be curious where that could lead. Consider that in some cultures you're not allowed to film/photograph people in public without their consent. So this is a small step toward a technological infrastructure that could enable that social convention.
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>Consider that in some cultures you're not allowed to film/photograph people in public without their consent. That's the exact case in Austria and it's not always a good thing though as most of the times it ends up protecting the wrong doers. For example as a cyclist you're not allowed to use a dash/action camera because you'd be taping people without their consent so if you get hit by a car and have no witnesses then it's your word against his in court and who can afford the more expensive lawyers. If you did use an action cam to tape the accident then the driver's lawyers could have the footage dismissed as it was obtained without his consent and he could even sue you and ask compensation for it. Sad world. Austria just got Google Street View last year as the previous strict privacy laws that were blocking this were relaxed.
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>
If you did use an action cam to tape the accident then the driver's lawyers could have the footage dismissed as it was obtained without his consent and he could even sue you and ask compensation for it. Sad world.That's not the case. It still can be used, but compensation is also possible.
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I believe if that were the case, in any significant sized city, you would simply always get the "someone is recording you" signal.Which would normalize it even further, as it becomes unavoidable.
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The signal could give you an identification for who/what it is that's recording.I'd rather normalize knowing who's tracking me than normalize the tracking without me even having a chance to know. You could imagine extending the mechanism to where users can emit a "don't record me" beacon.
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But what of the billions of already existing non-compliance recording devices, plus the ability to easily roll your own without including an emitter?Even if it was successfully implemented it wouldn't actually at all tell you whether you're being recorded or not. Then what's the point?
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Identification can be either fuzzed or resold to aggregators and become effectively useless.There's precendent for the emission signal in Do Not Track, but I don't think the result is what you want.
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I'm talking about a legal mechanism relevant for the sale of hardware devices. Do Not Track was useless, but GDPR was not.
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This isn't enough - a ban on spreading public pictures would be needed, because otherwise it is open for anyone to mine public image sources/"open surveillance" and running facial recognition themselves(!)
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CCTV usually already has rather strict limits on what you can do with the footage and how long you're allowed to keep it around.
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I thought that seemed rather unlikely so I searched around a bit. Apparently it's at least partially true, https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/data-protection/refer...>Although the installation of cameras might be justified for security purposes, the timely and automatic deletion of footage is essential. The EDPS requires all EU institutions to have clear policies regarding the use of video surveillance on their premises including on potential storage.
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Would this include simple face detection (i.e. the first-line heuristic modern cameras use to autofocus)?
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I'm not really sure where I stand on this, but I'm starting to fear the "if surveillance is outlawed only outlaws will do surveillance."The issue I see is that surveillance is because so miniaturized and easy that I'm not sure if it will be possible to enforce these laws against "the bad guys". Ideally we should deploy technological countermeasures that prevent anyone from doing mass scale facial recognition. But failing that it may really be better to just have a free for all.
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> "if surveillance is outlawed only outlaws will do surveillance."This is a valid argument when speaking of encryption, but I don't see how it makes any sense in this context.
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Really... is it so hard to imagine? Criminal gangs can put tiny cameras everywhere to track the police but the police cant do do the same to them.
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This is a complete non sequitur. The problem at hand is the security overreach of monitoring _everyone_.If I am not under investigation I shouldn't be monitored end of discussion. If I am under investigation, then if my case has not reviewed by a third party (judiciary power/judge) then I also shouldn't be monitored. It's basic human nature. Without checks and balances those who can abuse, will abuse. It doesn't matter which side they are on.
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Are the police actually difficult to track? They wear uniforms and drive around with flashing lights and sirens.
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When this actually becomes a widespread problem we can revisit the ban. Indeed, if mass-surveillance becomes so cheap that ordinary citizens can deploy it it makes sense for police & governments to also have access to it. Until then, don't.
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Hate to break it to you: it is that cheap. I an looking at a $99 Intel Compute Stick driving a build of the enterprise FR software I write, connected to a $21 ELP IP camera. Total cost of hardware is less than $150, and the software is of course expensive. There is no reason a button or embedded-in-a-screw camera would not work just fine. Pandora's Box is open kids, and it is not closing.
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Deploying and powering all of it at scale, not to mention getting bandwidth (so you'd need to set up a mesh network or get very cheap mobile data) is still out of reach of most. When that is sorted we can revisit.
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Hate to break it to you again: the cameras and connection networks are already there. Also any real estate property of note had a traditional camera surveillance network added sometime over the last 30 years, and modern FR systems are designed to piggy back on them. Just add the less than $150 worth of hardware per camera, perhaps you only need 1-2 FR systems and ability to switch camera feeds and you're operational.
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The original comment was about criminal gangs setting up their own surveillance systems to keep an eye on the police (among other things) and the argument was that if the bad guys can do it then why not allow the police to do it as well?Property owners doing so on their own land is a whole different matter.
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And criminal gangs can quite easily access these private property surveillance networks for their tracking desires.
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[citation needed]I just don't see it happening at a widespread scale yet. On the other hand if you give police the right to use these technologies you can bet you'll see police (and other government agencies piggybacking off them) deploying this everywhere very fast.
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Wouldn’t apple’s face unlock fall under the purview of such laws? This seems fairly capricious since there is no real justification in relation to what the problem is exactly. It might be better to introduce some penalties for wrong doing before introducing an outright ban.
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In Berlin they have a voluntary facial recognition zone at one of the train stations. Passengers can opt in and be part of the pilot program or just go through the non-facial recognition entrance. I'm guessing most in privacy-valuing Germany don't go through facial recognition.
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Actually, the Ministry of the Interior is seeking to get that tech from trial into production just now:> Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer plans to use automatic facial recognition at 134 railway stations and 14 airports, according to a news report published on 3 January. Source: https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/german... I wonder if that's why Vestager is tackling this issue now.
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Off topic: Does anyone else find the font they use hard to read?
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I can understand the impulse behind it, but just downright banning it will mean that after 5 years they either are prolonging the ban or will have to buy the tech from the US, China or Russia.Even if they prolong, every tech that might be a morally less questionable offshoot, will also come from said countries. I think the smarter way would have been regulation, that makes its more transparent, more controllable but keeps a window open for technology to be developed in Europe.
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There are still a load of applications for facial recognition that don't involve use in public places. There's no reason why EU companies can't stay involved in developing the tech.
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... and at least dozens of EU startups who have drank from the Cool-Aid of Peter Thiel cry out in anguish ...On the one hand, it's tough to do innovative things in EU with its many rules and regulations. OTOH, sometimes they actually protect the citizens.
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The problem with this is that most public places have private places right next to them. So this will be easily circumvented.
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What is "public space"? Is a trainstation public, since the operaters are all private companys?
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In EU/Europe usually a public space is stree common areas and all spaces when someone can enter at their own will legally (read shops, transport systems, cinemas, etc.).So, anything that is not a restricted space, e.g. a manufacturing plant, is an open space.
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So as I see it is that they ban it temporarily until they can regulate it as now it can be used wrongly. I don't think it will ever get banned for good.
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This is something of a distraction from the total surveillance currently provided by everyone carrying a mobile phone. As I read people's concerns, a good majority of the concerns also apply to mobile phone tracking, yet that completely globally operational and in place system is ignored?
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Is this for police too or civilian tech only ?
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It's one thing to limit facial recognition, but maybe those videos/pictures should not exist in the first place?
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if EU seriously considers privacy, the only tool that citizens can have is encryption. e.g. mandate E2E on every text-messaging communication. banning FR, while this:> Exceptions to the ban could be made for security projects as well as research and development, the paper said. Is hypocritical
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Article itself is behind paywall so i cannot comment much, but i would really hope if such ban would be implemented that it would be permanent one, along with other forms of tracking.On the other hand it is EU tackling it, so we can expect something as dumb as content filters or as good as GDPR.. EDIT: thankfully someone posted non-paywalled link :)
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I find it funny how "privacy" is a key issue, but other personal freedoms like ownership (say of weapons) or freedom of speech is not.Privacy is even more detrimental to police capacity to investigate and freedom of speech for you to critize and spread information about any of this, yet most people on HN hand waive these rights away because they are not trendy and there is hostility against them in the media.
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What can be remembered (GDPR).What can be said (Article 13). Mandatory DRM is on the EU todo.
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"To work out how to prevent abuses". I read this as: "to ensure only the EU and top government can have access to such data."I believe their end goal is centralization of power. In this case, by ensuring control on who can access such information. And it won’t necessarily be by people appointed by those we voted for. Maybe it’s the same with GDPR. I’m not so sure any big government has the pure intention to simply "protect its citizens".
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A private company does not need to do facial recognition ... in public areas. I see no legitimate usecase.
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"public spaces" may include shops and other private property open to the public. Shop owners may want to use it for marketing and blacklisting known shoplifters.
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You're suggesting that shop owners use a Howitzer to shoot flies.Using such technology for this purpose is a massive overkill and prone to abuse. I already resent some of the tracking techniques used by shops today (i.e abusing my cell phone for their tracking). I hope that some enterprising citizens (I see organizations like the CCC) publish lists of shops employing such technology. Because I, for one, wil make damn sure that they don't get my business. Not! one! penny!
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> Shop owners may want to use it for marketingThat's the exact case most of us want it banned for.
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>Shop owners may want to use it for marketingPlease no. I find it annoying enough that I can't click on random youtube links for fear of being bombarded with viral trash for the next few weeks.
I really don't want to be bombarded by ads just because I looked into a window display for a bit too long.
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By "shop owners may want to use it for marketing" you mean large companies that would love to build complete behavior profiles and then sell them?Edit: Even if this is somehow restricted to small ago owners I don't think they have the right to have my identity because I setup into their shop. I do think a reasonable exception could be carved out to allow monitoring for a specific list of individuals who have been banned from the premises.
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Doesn't sound like a legitimate usecase. Sorry.
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It's odd how everyone here has such an odd opinion. It's best to let what be be and regulate it asap. The outright ban just means we'll fall behind, as usual with everything.
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On every EU-related article there's always someone commenting about how we "fall behind"... but what did we actually lose out on due to regulation?Most US-originated tech we widely use today (operating systems, hardware) is US-originated because they were the first to come up with it may decades ago (before EU regulation was a "problem") and it doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel, and are now using their monopoly power and network effects to prevent new players entering the market (Apple with iMessage for example). I don't see new tech we missed out on in the last decade because of regulation, so could you please elaborate with some examples?
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Fall behind with what? Fall behind with stripping away privacy from our citizens?
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That means 5 years behind others that will be researching it and actively using and improving the tech. What a rushed decision. And that's how EU did and will always lag behind everyone else.
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You'd think by the time much of the cold war ended we would have learned that allowing technology to run away rampantly has vast reaching implications in everyone's life.I love technology as much as anyone but sometimes we have to slow down and consider the potential implications of what we're creating/contributing to. Not all technology is, in-and-of-itself arguably good for humanity.
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5 years behind in the race for totalitarianism.
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Will make life easier for criminals. I would love to have the arsonists who put my home on fire identified and safely locked away by a good camera. they would have had to deal with an 'attempted manslaughter' charge so they might have been prevented from causing other victims trouble for a while. So I'd love it if this exemption for security projects includes surveillance just outside the home.
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I agree with you that crimes like kidnappings would be solved faster but only for a short while, it is like fingerprinting today the criminals know to not leave them behind.The issue people have with this surveillance is the abuse that always happens by the government or private companies. For protecting your private property you should be able to film your property and provide the video to the police. For crime in public places maybe you can have cameras that are offline and that overwrite the video every n hours,if a crime happens then the police can ask a judge for a warrant only for the cameras in the locations connected to the crime, then using that warrant someone can get the physical key to access the cameras video, I think this system can help with crime and make the abuse harder, when I am thinking at abuse I am thinking at police or other employees checking on who they want, find all their movements, find who they talked to and politicians can abuse it to find dirt and blackmail their opponents, journalists and critics.
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I was with you for the first sentence, but the criminals I'm afraid of are NSA/GCHQ/FVEY/etc who absolutely would never abide by some silly "ban" on a technology like this.
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Of course, secret agents play by different rules. In the EU intelligence agencies generally aren't as intimidating so it's less of a concern. But if you do have reason to worry about this, investing in this technology might help a bit with spotting spies.
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>But if you do have reason to worry about this, investing in this technology might help a bit with spotting spies.This seems really doubtful. If anything the wide availability of commercial surveillance data would be a treasure trove for intelligence agencies to sift through.
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I'm pretty sure a reasonable exception could be made for use limited facial recognition on subjects with a warrant.> Exceptions to the ban could be made for security projects as well as research and development, the paper said. That is very different from allowing homeowners to automatically identify all people in public places outside their homes.
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i guess that was wishful thinking on my part. Although it's not clear what 'security projects' will be allowed.
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