NY Times: Activists Turn Facial Recognition Tools Against the Police

[friendly_iconoclast]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/technology/facial-recognition-police.html

“We’re now approaching the technological threshold where the little guys can do it to the big guys,” one researcher said.

By Kashmir Hill

Oct. 21, 2020

In early September, the City Council in Portland, Ore., met virtually to consider sweeping legislation outlawing the use of facial recognition technology. The bills would not only bar the police from using it to unmask protesters and individuals captured in surveillance imagery; they would also prevent companies and a variety of other organizations from using the software to identify an unknown person.

During the time for public comments, a local man, Christopher Howell, said he had concerns about a blanket ban. He gave a surprising reason.

“I am involved with developing facial recognition to in fact use on Portland police officers, since they are not identifying themselves to the public,” Mr. Howell said. Over the summer, with the city seized by demonstrations against police violence, leaders of the
department had told uniformed officers that they could tape over their name. Mr. Howell wanted to know: Would his use of facial recognition technology become illegal?

Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, told Mr. Howell that his project was “a little creepy,” but a lawyer for the city clarified that the bills would not apply to individuals. The Council then passed the legislation in a unanimous vote...

Good. Per the article, this is already being done in France, Hong Kong, and Belarus.

Time to start doing it to the violent right wing, who just love to post photos of themselves online.
Lets see how many can be identified via their photos!

[friendly_iconoclast]

1. And then there's: "License Plate Scanners Aren't Just for Cops Anymore"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-30/license-plate-scanners-for-police-are-becoming-cheaper-more-available

Cheap tech is turning any mobile phone or home security system into a vehicle tracker.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne879z/i-tracked-someone-with-license-plate-readers-drn

This Company Built a Private Surveillance Network. We Tracked Someone With It

Repo men are passively scanning and uploading the locations of every car they drive by into DRN, a surveillance database of 9 billion license plate scans accessible by private investigators.

In just a few taps and clicks, the tool showed where a car had been seen throughout the U.S. A private investigator source had access to a powerful system used by their industry, repossession agents, and insurance companies. Armed with just a car's plate number, the tool—fed by a network of private cameras spread across the country—provides users a list of all the times that car has been spotted. I gave the private investigator, who offered to demonstrate the capability, a plate of someone who consented to be tracked.

It was a match.

The results popped up: dozens of sightings, spanning years. The system could see photos of the car parked outside the owner's house; the car in another state as its driver went to visit family; and the car parked in other spots in the owner's city. Each was tagged with the time and GPS coordinates of the car. Some showed the car's location as recently as a few weeks before. In addition to photos of the vehicle itself, the tool displayed the car's accurate location on an easy to understand, Google Maps-style interface.

There's a few freely accessable parking lots near me that are just crying out for a slow cruise through them with one of these.

Little Brother, anyone?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_novel)

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Citizens need to step up policing the police. phone videos, social media, apps like this...

more the merrier.

[friendly_iconoclast]

3. This sort of thing would be also be a good tonic for violent right wingers, imo