What a difference fifteen years make!
Is Google or Facebook evil? Forget it!
Russian nerds have developed a new Face Recognition technology based app called FindFace, which is a nightmare for privacy lovers and human right advocates.
FindFace is a terrifyingly powerful facial recognition app that lets you photograph strangers in a crowd and find their real identity by connecting them to their social media accounts with 70% success rate, putting public anonymity at risk.
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(From This App Lets You Find Anyone’s Social Profile Just By Taking Their Photo by Mohit Kumar)
Compare that breathless, “…nightmare for privacy lovers…public anonymity at risk…” prose to:
Super Bowl, or Snooper Bowl?
As 100,000 fans stepped through the turnstiles at Super Bowl XXXV, a camera snapped their image and matched it against a computerized police lineup of known criminals, from pickpockets to international terrorists.
It’s not a new kind of surveillance. But its use at the Super Bowl — dubbed “Snooper Bowl” by critics — has highlighted a debate about the balance between individual privacy and public safety.
Law enforcement officials say what was done at the Super Bowl is no more intrusive than routine video surveillance that most people encounter each day as they’re filmed in stores, banks, office buildings or apartment buildings.
But to critics, the addition of the face-recognition system can essentially put everyone in a police lineup.
“I think it presents a whole different picture of America,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida.
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(From Biometrics Used to Detect Criminals at Super Bowl by Vickie Chachere)
If you don’t keep up with American football, Super Bowl XXXV was held in January of 2001.
Facial recognition being common in 2001, why the sudden hand wringing over privacy and FindFace?
Oh, I get it. It is the democratization of the loss of privacy.
Those whose privacy would be protected by privilege or position are suddenly fair game to anyone with a smartphone.
A judge coming out of a kinky bar can be erased or not noticed on police surveillance video, but in a smartphone image, not so much.
The “privacy” of the average U.S. citizen depends on the inattention of state actors.
I’m all for sharing our life-in-the-goldfish-bowl condition with the powerful and privileged.
Get FindFace and use it.
Create similar apps and use topic maps to bind the images to social media profiles.
When the State stops surveillance, perhaps, just perhaps, citizens can stop surveillance of the State. Maybe.
If “privacy” advocates object, ask them what surveillance by the State they support? If the answer isn’t “none,” they have chosen the side of power and privilege. What more is there to say? (BTW, take their photo with FindFace or a similar app.)