[kefka]

Ok. So businesses already have cameras. Yeah, privacy, schmiravacy. That horse has done gone left the barn.

So, the second problem with cameras/face tracking is cost?

I wrote this: https://github.com/jwcrawley/uWho

It does what your hardware does, but also does facial recognition. It's still early in the build process, but I'm working on a commercial (non-QT) version of this.

But right now, it can accurately count unique people, as well as remember people. So when Jane walks in front of the camera, it remembers that her database number is 1234. Tomorrow, it will also remember that she's 1234. And tracking is all stored in few XML config files for easy calculation.

[eevilspock]

> Yeah, privacy, schmiravacy. That horse has done gone left the barn.

So you're using the slippery slope as justification and welcome sign instead of warning. The world is all downhill from here exactly because people don't have the integrity and courage to resist.

Also

[kefka]

Slippery slope? Humans already can do classification. Should we ban humans from identifying and counting other humans?

I can hire 2 guards who can remember people by taking a photo. And then I can have them recall who shows up. With people.

All my project does is substitute a computer for human. The only reason why we don't do the above is because people cost a lot more. Computer software and cycles are cheap.

And the procedure I used with my code saves a hash of the face. I cannot generate faces from the hash, although it would be a one liner to spool a face to the hard drive when a pic is captured. My software doesn't do that.

[thwest]

You see, humans have judgement, and obvious presence. I don't mind George and Jim remembering I was at the pub on Tuesday, because they will consider who to reveal that information to before they do. (A pub I don't think anyone would be at if there were two guards photographing everyone). These giant piles of databases are open for everyone.

[kefka]

Doesn't the business have a right to keep track of its clientèle? Obvious legalities of underage-ness of a pub aside, I already can hire counters that watch the security feed and assess numbers.

And also, CCTV isn't open to the public or traded around wanton. Instead, I would argue, this data is highly confidential to the business and therefore would guard it selfishly.

And as for the pub photographing: There has been a trend in bars in Indianapolis to scan he barcode on the back of the drivers license to "verify identity". What they're really doing is building up a clientèle database for which they can do whatever with. And they are booming bars.