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Comment by coldcode | Hacker News Reader

I'm in that database because my photo was taken for a driver's license. Imagine the system is not 100% reliable (which of course it isn't), I wind up being matched as a probable, and become a target for investigation, and potentially arrested. At this point I am only guilty of driving a car and will have to defend myself by hiring a lawyer. Eventually it will be obvious I couldn't be the person. By then my life is mostly in ruin. Yet there is nothing I can do to avoid this possibility legally.

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Same thing happens when police publishes photo of suspect and then your neighbour reports you.

Yes. This is similar to asset seizure where the entire burden of proving your innocence is placed on you.

I would imagine that this database is going to be used to supplement police work rather than substitute it. I don't think police or prosecutors will try to press charges based on the database searches alone because it is very unlikely that something like that would hold up in court. They will also have to show other evidence that the person in question did in fact commit the crime. For example, in this case, it seems like the software justified the drug sting, but I imagine the drugs and paraphernalia found at the scene was what justified the actual arrest and prosecution.

Looks like fake moustaches will be a thing soon

Camouflage from face detection: https://cvdazzle.com/

Here it is done correctly[0]

[0] http://www.eonline.com/resize/300/300/akns-images.eonline.co...

"Yet there is nothing I can do to avoid this possibility legally."

Don't drive? I know that sucks, but with self-driving cars on the horizon, these sort of "capitulation of rights" scenarios should not need to exist.

We are very vulnerable (in terms of rights) when driving in the US.

> We are very vulnerable (in terms of rights) when driving in the US.

We are very vulnerable (in terms of rights) in the US.

In the USA that doesn't help. If you don't have a driver's license, you have to have a "state-issued ID card", which is the same except it doesn't confer the right to drive. The only way to avoid both is to opt out of society completely, which is effectively giving up living in this country.

> If you don't have a driver's license, you have to have a "state-issued ID card", which is the same except it doesn't confer the right to drive.

Why? There are alternatives for ID and proof-of-age, such as a passport booklet/card.

They're expensive, most Americans don't have them, especially the poorer, and they're a greater hassle: people expect a driver's license. And once you've had one, they have your photo; too late to change.

Also, not having a driver's license is looked down on in most of the USA, outside a few major cities. It constrains job/dating/social/living location opportunities.

Obviously, a passport does not avoid the facial recognition problem we're talking about here.

No.

Most laws only require people requesting proof of identity accept an in-state drivers license or military ID.

In Washington I was able to request to not have a photo on my license which I started doing when they started using a facial database. The license says "NOT VALID FOR IDENTIFICATION" in large red letters, so I can't use it to buy beer. But I can use it to drive a car which is all I really need it for.

Just learned that California, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are the lone states that do not use facial recognition tech on DMV photos.

I imagine though that eventually the FBI, State Dept, states, etc. will all be combined

Or, you know, maybe our founders knew a good idea when they adopted this federalism thing.

As someone born, raised in and retired to the great state of Missouri, which is also the sole state that doesn't play big brother with narcotic prescriptions, I rather like the idea of imagining that we won't combine our law enforcement agencies in such a vertical manner.

As a California resident, I was relieved to read that we were exempt. But how can this continue with the eventual implementation of the RealID law?

My guess would be that you'll be interviewed rather than being arrested, because of a low 'threat score': http://www.infowars.com/police-using-social-media-posts-to-d...

The problem of course is that those scores aren't very good either, because they don't distinguish between e.g. libertarian peaceniks, right-wing anarchists, and biker gang bangers. But the solution is just more data; cross-referencing with a consumer purchase database, for example. Eventually the police will get their responses well-calibrated. I'd assume this sort of thing is what Trump is referring to when he says he supports profiling.

Honestly, why would you want police to have access to "a consumer purchase database"?

Because at some level, policing is about delivering a product (a policeman) to a consumer (a victim / criminal in a bad situation), so standard marketing tactics (market segmentation, revenue management, etc.) apply. Many other businesses have access to these databases and use them to beneficial effect; there's no reason police shouldn't jump onto the big data bandwagon too to increase customer satisfaction.

See e.g. http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/10/uk-police-departments-d... http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/more-pol...

True but still creepy.

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