A big biometric security company in the UK, Facewatch, is in hot water after their facial recognition system caused a major snafu - the system wrongly identified a 19-year-old girl as a shoplifter.

    • Lith@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Actually this one feels pretty similar to watch_dogs. Wasn’t this the plot to watch_dogs 2?

      • sfxrlz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Now I’m interested in the plot of watch dogs 2…

        Edit: it’s indeed the plot of watch dogs 2

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_Dogs_2

        In 2016, three years after the events of Chicago, San Francisco becomes the first city to install the next generation of ctOS – a computing network connecting every device together into a single system, developed by technology company Blume. Hacker Marcus Holloway, punished for a crime he did not commit through ctOS 2.0 …

  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Now now, thought we had agreed not to use facial recognition, am I going to have to collapse civilization or are you going to behave ? Last warning

    • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Are you suggesting they shouldn’t be allowed to ban people from stores? The only problem I see here is misused tech. If they can’t verify the person, they shouldn’t be allowed to use the tech.

      I do think there need to be reprocussions for situations like this.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Well there should be a limited amount of ability to do so. I mean there should be police reports or something at the very least. I mean, what if Facial Recognition AI catches on in grocery stores? Is this woman just banned from all grocery stores now? How the fuck is she going to eat?

        • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s why I said this was a misuse of tech. Because that’s extremely problematic. But there’s nothing to stop these same corps from doing this to a person even if the tech isn’t used. This tech just makes it easier to fuck up.

          I’m against the use of this tech to begin with but I’m having a hard time figuring out if people are more upset about the use of the tech or about the person being banned from a lot of stores because of it. Cause they are separate problems and the latter seems more of an issue than the former. But it also makes fucking up the former matter a lot more as a result.

          • TonyOstrich@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            I wish I could remember where I saw it, but years ago I read something in relation to policing that said a certain amount of human inefficiency in a process is actually a good thing to help balance bias and over reach that could occur when technology could technically do in seconds what would take a human days or months.

            In this case if a person is enough of a problem that their face becomes known at certain branches of a store it’s entirely reasonable for that store to post a sign with their face saying they are aren’t allowed. In my mind it would essentially create a certain equilibrium in terms of consequences and results. In addition to getting in trouble for stealing itself, that individual person also has a certain amount of hardship placed on them that may require they travel 40 minutes to do their shopping instead of 5 minutes to the store nearby. A sign and people’s memory also aren’t permanent, so it’s likely that after a certain amount of time that person would probably be able to go back to that store if they had actually grown out of it.

            Or something to that effect. If they steal so much that they become known to the legal system there should be processes in place to address it.

            And even with all that said, I’m just not that concerned with theft at large corporate retailers considering wage theft dwarfs thefts by individuals by at least an order of magnitude.

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            Reddit became a ban-happy wasteland, and if the tides swing a similar way, we’ll see a society where Big Tech gates people out of the very foundation of Modern Society. It’s exclusion that I’m against.

    • orrk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      you will sit down and be quiet, all you parasites stifling innovation, the market will solve this, because it is the most rational thing in existence, like trains, oh god how I love trains, I want to be f***ed by trains.

      ~~Rand

      • Jtotheb@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        The whole wide world of authors who have written about the difficulties of this new technological age and you choose the one who had to pretend her work was unpopular

        • orrk@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          go read rand, her books literally advocate for an anti-social world order, where the rich and powerful have the ability to do whatever they want without impediment as the “workers” are described as parasites that should get in line or die

  • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Facial recognition still struggles with really bad mistakes that are always bad optics for the business that uses it. I’m amazed anyone is still willing to use it in its current form.

    It’s been the norm that these systems can’t tell the difference between people of dark pigmentation if it even acknowledges it’s seeing a person at all.

    Running a system with a decade long history or racist looking mistakes is bonkers in the current climate.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m curious how well the systems can differentiate doppelgangers and identical twins. Or if some makeup is enough to fool it.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
        cake
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Facial recognition uses a few key elements of the face to hone in on matches, and traditional makeup doesn’t obscure any of those areas. In order to fool facial recognition, the goal is often to avoid face detection in the first place; Asymmetry, large contrasting colors, obscuring one (or both) eyes, hiding the oval head shape and jawline, and rhinestones (which sparkle and reflect light nearly randomly, making videos more confusing) seem to work well. But as neural nets improve, they also get harder to fool, so what works for one system may not work for every system.

        CV Dazzle (originally inspired by dazzle camouflage used on some warships) is a makeup style that tries to fool the most popular facial recognition systems.

        Note that those tend to obscure the bridge of the nose, the brow line, the jawline, etc… Because those are key identification areas for facial recognition.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, if we can still recognize those as faces, it’s possible for a neural net to do so as well.

          But I’m talking more about differentiating faces than hiding entirely from such systems. Like makeup can be used to give the illusion that the shape of the face is different with false contour shading. You can’t really change the jawline (I think… I’m not skilled in makeup myself but have an awareness of what it can do) but you can change where the cheekbones appear to be, as well as the overall shape of the cheeks, and you can adjust the nose, too (unless it’s a profile angle).

          I think the danger in trying to hide that you have a face entirely is that if it gets detected, there’s a good chance that it will be flagged for attempting to fool the system because those examples you gave are pretty obvious, once you know what’s going on.

          It would be like going in to a bank with a ski mask to avoid being recognized vs going in as Mrs Doubtfire. Even if they are just trying to do banking that one time, the ski mask will attract unwanted attention while using a different face would accomplish the goal of avoiding attention.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The catch is that its only really a problem for the people getting flagged. Then you’re guilty until proven innocent, and the only person to blame is a soulless machine with a big button that reads “For customer support, go fuck yourself”.

      As security theater, its cheap and easy to implement. As a passive income stream for tech bros, its a blank check. As a buzzword for politicians who can pretend they’re forward-thinking by rolling out some vaporware solution to a non-existent problem, its on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

      I’m old enough to remember when sitting Senator Ted Kennedy got flagged by the Bush Admin’s No Fly List and people were convinced this is the sort of shit that would reform the intrusive, incompetent, ill-conceived TSA. 20 years later… nope, it didn’t. Enjoy techno-hell, Brits.

  • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    There we go guys. It’s funny when nutty conspiracy theorists are against masks when they should be wearing frikin balaclavas

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Please tell me a lawyer is taking this on pro bono and is about to sue the shit out of Facewatch.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      For what? A private business can exclude anyone for any reason or no reason at all so long as the reason isn’t a protected right.

      • howrar@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’d be surprised if being born with a specific face configuration isn’t protected in the same way that race and gender are.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          In the uk you can pet much guarantee that won’t happen because it would shut down their surveillance state.

  • uis@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Is it even legal? What happened to consumer protection laws?

      • uis@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t think this is legal in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus either.

      • deafboy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        No need to avoid such stores, just wear a protection to avoid your face from being falsely flagged.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Last time I ordered big boxes online, they just shipped me empty boxes. I don’t know how they screwed that up, but then I’ve always gone to big box stores so I can actually see the big boxes I’m buying.

    • ChillPenguin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Welcome to 2024. Where we move closer and closer to black mirror being real due to our technology improvements.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Allowing bad character to reign generally speaking. Sociopaths are like seed crystals; it’s the rest of us implanting their way of life that do most of the evil, even if they’re the ones providing the purest examples.

          We need to be good people, not just nice people, in order to improve things.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is why some UK leaders wanted out of EU, to make their own rules with way less regard for civil rights.

    • ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      nah i think main thing was a super fragile identity. i mean they have been shit all the time since before EU. when talks between france,germany and uk took place the insisted to take control of EU.

      if you live on an island for generations with limited new genetic input…well, thats where you end up.

      • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        We humans have these things called “boats” that have enabled the British Isles to receive regular inputs of new genetic material. Pretty useful things, these boats, and somewhat pivotal in the history of the UK.

      • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t understand the tendency to attribute harmful behaviours of the rich and powerful to these strange, irrational reasons. No, UK leaders didn’t spend millions upon millions on propaganda because they have a fragile identity. They did it because they’ll make money off of it, and will be able to move the legislation towards their own goals.

        It’s the same when people say Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants to restore the glory of the Soviet Union. No, he doesn’t care about any of that, he cares about staying in power and becoming more powerful. One of the best ways to do so is to invade other countries, as long as you don’t lose.

        • uis@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s the same when people say Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants to restore the glory of the Soviet Union. No, he doesn’t care about any of that, he cares about staying in power and becoming more powerful. One of the best ways to do so is to invade other countries, as long as you don’t lose.

          Thank you. I see so many people who don’t get it. I’m happy some people understand it without sending them link to one of few Ekaterina Shulman’s lectures in English.

          • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            Thank you for the validation, sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy with how often these things are repeated.

            But those lectures do sound interesting - would you mind linking them when you have the time?

            • uis@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              1 year ago

              This is not the lecture I originally intended to post. Also small correction for 1:00:02 first answer in poll should be translated as “social fainess”.

              If you find lecture where she says about “dealing with internal problems by external means” and “dropping concrete slab on nation’s head” - that is one I intended to link, but still searching which one it is.

  • HiramFromTheChi@lemmy.world
    cake
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Not the first time facial recognition tech has been misused, and certainly won’t be the last. The UK in particular has caught a lotta flak around this.

    We seem to have a hard time connecting the digital world to the physical world and realizing just how interwoven they are at this point.

    Therefore, I made an open source website called idcaboutprivacy to demonstrate the importance—and dangers—of tech like this.

    It’s a list of news articles that demonstrate real-life situations where people are impacted.

    If you wanna contribute to the project, please do. I made it simple enough to where you don’t need to know Git or anything advanced to contribute to it. (I don’t even really know Git.)

  • Paragone@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    IF you want to create accountability among such arrogent tech executives,

    THEN you need to enforce accountability, and 1 excellent way of doing it, would be to immediately, & permanently, ban the CEO of that company from having any right to any in-country right to purchase anything.

    Force THEM to be subject to the abuse they enforce on “their inferiors”, and … oh, suddenly their motivations appear from “nowhere”??


    Enforced-accountability against executives & oligarchs needs to be automatic, not “politically impossible, because they’re the privileged ones, with real rights”, the way our current dogshit for-profit manufactured “culture” insists.

    _ /\ _