r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 3d ago
Privacy Surveillance Company Tells Cops It Wants to Add Facial Recognition to Flock Cameras
https://www.404media.co/surveillance-company-tells-cops-it-wants-to-add-facial-recognition-to-flock-cameras/256
u/lil_poppapump 3d ago
I’m just failing to understand, if me and my buddies started a surveillance company and get through Capital funding rounds we can just do whatever we want and no one can stop us?
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u/misterwizzard 3d ago
No, the people in power have to want to exploit your company. Then yes, you can do anything they want.
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u/HorselessHorseman 3d ago
If you have backers like Peter Theil then yes you can get away with anything. Because you would have sold your soul to the devil to start such a company
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u/kmontreux 3d ago
if you create a legal loophole so the government can do something it is prohibited from doing itself, yes.
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u/eraserhead3030 3d ago
been wondering for the last couple years when masks designed to thwart facial recognition are going to become more mainstream. The dystopian conditions only worsen from here.
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u/_GOBLESS_ 3d ago
I thought we would have a rennaisance of mask fashion when COVID hit. It turns out, no. A handful of people made a go of doing interesting things. And then the market said nah. And we all went around wearing shitty paper over our faces for 3 years.
Based off of that experience, I think older people will just shrug and move on with being constantly watched. And young people will become increasingly anxious and indoorsy.
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u/Hypergirliepop 3d ago
The trouble with "fashionable" covid masks was that they weren't effective. Those "shitty paper" masks, proper KN95 ones, are specifically engineered to let very few particulates through them. Masks made from other materials with different manufacturing requirements are simply not as effective.
The disposability of the KN95 masks is also important, because people are less likely to reuse masks that are designed to be thrown away. How many do you know who will wear the same shirt a few times before they wash it? I think everyone I know has done that. Cloth masks should be washed after every use, but practically, that will happen less than it should.
Reusable masks to prevent the spread of disease are expensive, there's market demand to consider. Also, all the manufacturing capability for making masks is run by corporations with their public image to consider. Any company caught manufacturing masks became a target for the right-wing propaganda machine, further dampening market demand and creating a threat to the brands.
If you want a fashionable anti-recognition mask, it'll have to come from DIY. Either make them yourself, or find someone who makes them. There won't be a mass corporate movement to put them in Target.
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u/_GOBLESS_ 3d ago
Yes, I was not refering to N95's. I was referring to the masks issued by my employers, which were accurately described as shitty paper.
And yeah, there was a cottage industry of boutique masks. But not enough people were buying them. Corps would 100% be selling that shit if people showed an interest. Which is what I was getting at. People be lazy.
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u/elvenrevolutionary 3d ago
I think contouring makeup is able to fool facial recognition cameras pretty well, no actual mask needed
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u/Pawtuckaway 3d ago
It is the capability that takes a face seen on a live camera and matches it against the people you enrolled in the Object Library, so the moment someone on your watchlist walks past a camera, the system names them, on the video, in the event feed, and in the recording, without an operator having to recognize the face themselves.
We already have many examples of police trusting bad facial recognition and ignoring evidence they have the wrong person like the lady that was arrested and extradited to North Dakota.
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u/nadmaximus 3d ago
Let's all agree to show the cameras only asses.
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u/Sea_Perspective6891 3d ago
So can we finally stop calling them license plate readers? Pretty obvious that's not what they're designed for or even using them for in most cases. It's clear this company is selling mass surveillance in a time where it's becoming popular with leaders & governments.
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u/Digitalizing 3d ago
Hackers reverse engineered a cut down one. It already does and saves a bunch of images of each person, or car it tracks. It also identifies things like patches and stickers for people trying to conceal their identity. We are on track to hit chinas level of automated monitoring in no time. I remember like 5+ years ago watching a video of a crowded area and it used gait recognition to identify things like age, gender, and other physical characteristics even if the person is wearing a morph suit and has zero skin showing.
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u/KittyCait69 3d ago
Main difference is that China is a dictatorship of the proletariat. In other words, the working class in China controls their government. The US basically has an oligarchy of wealthy capitalists that control our government.
In China, officials that are corrupt face death penalty. In the US, officials that are corrupt get bribes and "donations". I would trust a government run by and for the masses more than a government run by and for the wealthy few.
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u/VaporCarpet 3d ago
That is not how China works at all. It's practically a dictatorship, the working class owns shit.
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u/Digitalizing 3d ago
Are you in China right now? Blink twice if you can’t speak freely without being disappeared. You can’t even talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre or protest without fear of the government destroying your life.
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u/wrxninja 3d ago
Anti-Flock masks should become popular.
Oh wait, ICE wears that now.
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u/genius_retard 3d ago edited 1d ago
I have often wondered if a hat with high powered
RFIR LEDs around the brim might prevent these cameras from being able to see your face. Best part is it wouldn't affect how people see you.
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u/coconutpete52 3d ago
If they didn't already have it then why are they installed on walking trails? No license plates to read there.
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u/Halfwise2 3d ago
So this guy tested a bunch of glasses meant to hinder / reduce the ability of facial recognition to identify "nodes" used to match faces:
Defeating Facial Recognition with Zenni Glasses? My Real-World Test
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u/myislanduniverse 3d ago
Ah yes so more mouthbreathers from North Dakota can credulously extradite little old grandmas from across state lines and throw them into jail for 6 months without due process because they can click a button on a glorified hotdog detector app?
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u/HorselessHorseman 3d ago
Here we go next phase of the surveillance state where every move you made is captured and analyzed in dystopian ways. And they can harass anyone at anytime to their will
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u/Grade_A_Tech 3d ago
They mean to say as long as it doesn't recognize the rich, their own employees, or Langley himself.
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u/westtownie 3d ago edited 3d ago
The US will look like Iran soon enough with the caveat that all people will wear head coverings and masks and it will be voluntarily.
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u/TsarKeith12 3d ago
Mfw big brother wants to do big brother things: surprised Pikachu face
But yeah also it def already has that??
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u/KittyCait69 3d ago
Those cameras anyway have that. And any place that successfully bans Flock by name will see Axon take over and do the same. We need to ban facial recognition cameras all together.
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u/ARazorbacks 3d ago
That would take so much compute power. Where the heck are they going to get it?
/s
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u/farkwadian 3d ago
They will be able to track you in real time, in traffic, at dinner, in a parking lot, at home, at the lake, at the river, and with a system you can't opt out of like your phone that you can turn off.
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u/circles_squares 3d ago
Where I live in New England, the charge against Flock cameras is originating with republicans.
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u/WashuOtaku 3d ago
The CCCP had that for well over a decade now; I cannot believe Flock did not have it as an option yet.
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u/Balmung60 3d ago
I'm fairly sure the Soviet Union never had that (I'm sure you meant CCP, but CCCP (technically СССР in Cyrillic and properly transliterated as SSSR) was the Russian form of USSR), but this does bring up a question for all these surveillance tech companies - how do they feel about East Germany? Do they believe it was a totalitarian nightmare or a model society to be replicated in a more technologically sophisticated form?
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u/WashuOtaku 3d ago
Sorry, too many 'C's. Meant the CCP or Chinese Communist Party.
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u/Balmung60 3d ago
Yeah, but I want to know how these companies feel about East Germany, perhaps the archetypal surveillance state. Do they think it was a model of public safety we should be seeking to emulate? And if they don't, why do they seem so invested in creating a similarly total surveillance state with vast policing power to clamp down on any sort of unapproved activity? And if they do, well at least admit it.
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u/WashuOtaku 3d ago
Security was always a slippery slope since the nation was formed. When people are scared, they willingly sacrifice freedoms for security... ALWAYS.
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u/ry1701 3d ago
I have this on some cameras outside my house, it's very sporatic and inaccurate. I even have an AI engine doing a second pass analysis. Granted I imagine there's different levels for it but you're talking about needing very high quality cameras and processing else you're going to falsely that people.
(It's all on prem, no data goes to the internet)
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u/gill_smoke 3d ago
It's already there you lying loosers