Why are all of these articles written under the premise that this software sends you automatically to jail? It’s just a first step in the vetting process.
The Netherlands had various high profile cases where the investigators focussed on one or more individuals. This despite it making no sense at all. At least two people ended up in jail for 10+ years after multiple years of being investigated. Various of these cases were shown on a television program, see https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R._de_Vries#Bekende_zake... (Dutch). It often took enormous effort to get these people out of jail, see e.g. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puttense_moordzaak (Dutch).
I noticed that I forgot the details a bit. It's worse if you read above links. Anyway, you really do not want to become a suspect!
He's pretty fairly mocking this answer, though. Anecdotes are not an answer when it comes to something this prevalent. I can find an anecdote for almost anything to make it look bad.
An anecdote is a logically valid response to "This isn't happening". "Yes it is, because here's a case where it did" is a valid counter. It doesn't prove that it's happening systematically, but it does prove it has happened, and from there it is valid to discuss whether it might happen again.
> An anecdote is a logically valid response to "This isn't happening".
Well, choosing to respond to a claim that wasn't asserted isn't a valid argument against the original assertion.
> and from there it is valid to discuss whether it might happen again.
This again is working at 'anecdote scale'. Unless you can show that the costs of these anecdotes are anywhere near the collective benefits, then it's worthless. Keep in mind, it's equally worthless to assert there actually are benefits in this system without support, but that's why I'm not asserting that. I'm just saying an isolated argument on one side or the other, especially when it just a fucking anecdote, is functionally meaningless.
Even being stopped for 20 minutes while the cops check your papers is an inconvenience and often an indignity.
And if it happens regularly - a man who looks like Bin Laden today will look just as much like him tomorrow - that would be a major inconvenience.
If you think government departments and the tech companies they outsource to are too competent to repeatedly hassle innocent people due to mistaken identities, just look at the no fly list. [1]
I think the even bigger problem here is that if face recognition software is malfunctioning those who have been identified by mistake are suddenly subjected to an investigation that can pose serious threat to their privacy.
Not just "privacy". I would imagine some judges will issue search or even arrest warrants based on the information ("it's science!"), which might mean in the worst case the police might roll up to your house, shoot your dog, scare your children, take you into custody (even without an arrest warrant if you're somehow deemed "resisting") or even shoot you because they got scared of how you look, you may lose your job because you cannot show up to work while you're in jail, your neighbors will think you're a hardened criminal, etc.
Even if the courts do not convict in the end, a lot of damage might already been done.
The pseudo-scientific hair analysis stuff performed by the FBI showed the dangers of "science" and "tech"[1].
People went to real prison because investigators, judges and juries overestimated the flaky results the sometimes outright negligent pseudo-science produced. I imagine some people were shoot during arrests based on that evidence, died in prison or committed suicide.
There also was the Phantom of Heilbronn here in Germany, where police looked for a master criminal and serial killer for ages (2001 to 2009), but it turned out the materials they used to do DNA swaps at crime scenes were contaminated at the factory by a worker[2]. For years nobody of the many involved in the investigations even considered questioning the DNA results.
So even if the science and tech is sound (which it really isn't in case of facial recognition yet, if ever), wrong application, common mistakes, and misunderstanding the results are real problems.
There's a lot of assumption about future behavior here.
I think there are a couple reasons to be hopeful about court systems taking a more nuanced view of this technology: 1) it cannot be denied that it is imprecise, and 2) it's pretty easy for laity to understand (at least in principle) how it works. DNA evidence is effectively magic by comparison.
I actually think the imprecision is an asset for this technology. I would much rather this tool be 95% reliable than 99.99% reliable. The former inherently requires law enforcement to work harder; the later tempts "oh the machine said so it must be right".
People went to prison over expert testimony from FBI scientists over hair analysis in the past (not just warrants, actual convictions).
Like this guy, who spent 23 years in prison because FBI told the jury some hair they found was his... while it was actually not even human but dog hair.
>An FBI analyst testified that one of the hairs from the stocking mask linked Tribble to the crime and “matched in all microscopic characteristics.”
>Tribble’s attorneys were successful in obtaining mitochondrial DNA testing on the 13 hairs recovered from the stocking mask. None of the hairs—including the alleged match—implicated Tribble or Wright. Further, the analysis revealed FBI analysts’ errors, including mistakenly calling a dog hair human.
https://www.innocenceproject.org/cases/santae-tribble/
As for face recognition, I wonder if you're correct. I'd expect a lot of people think it's very precise. Well, at least the "My Sibling can unlock my iPhone with their face" debacle might have generated some press to combat that misconception.
If it’s a spectacular failure (someone who doesn’t like at all like the criminal) he’ll be let go right away. If there’s a reasonable resemblance, it would be as if some person reported the guy manually to the police.
>The general rule is that arrest records are public records. However, each state can determine whether they wish for such records to be readily available to the public. [1]
>Arrest records are generally open to the public unless they concern an active or ongoing investigation.[2]
>Since the arrest record is public, anyone can access the information by going to the jurisdiction’s government website. Also, anyone can obtain the arrest record by going to the county clerk’s office in person.[3]
When traveling to e.g. the USA arrests have to be declared on the online visa waiver. Similar for other countries. I have no idea what happens if you have any arrests but I assume it is not totally convenient. Even if your record might be sealed/not public in your countries does not mean you can ignore this section of the form.
Sure, the classic "I have nothing to hide so..." argument. Sounds great until disagree with a government policy labels you a threat to homeland security.
There is a quote but I forget from whom that basically says "if you follow anyone for 30 minutes, you'll witness them commit a crime". Although it is likely to be a traffic violation, that doesn't change the fact that constant surveillance would "catch" you soon enough.
I noticed that I forgot the details a bit. It's worse if you read above links. Anyway, you really do not want to become a suspect!