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Comment by f2n | Hacker News Reader

Invasive facial recognition in physical places seems to be the future. A nightclub I walk by on my way to work has a sign up outside stating that they're operating facial recognition cameras. At least they disclose it, I suspect many more places aren't. We need legal recourse against this sort of invasive spying by both private and public parties.

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Anyone want to guess what percent of these places keep their facial tracking database in an incorrectly configured public AWS bucket?

I bet it's not 0.

Who on earth is downvoting these comments?

Case in point...

Realistically, I think the even bigger problem will be whatever private company provides this facial recognition service probably aggregating their data from thousands of sites and selling it to advertisers/stalkers/etc.

Maybe securing it poorly on top of that.

Or if the places using it are in control of their own data, they'll be reselling it to data brokers because hey, free money. Doesn't cost them anything, just their customers' privacy.

The facial recognition camera they use is an ID checking machine. They're basically used to prevent liability for underage drinkers, and to keep track of banned patrons.

They're not actively scanning your face in the club, and I question how good the facial recognition actually is.

Regardless, it's a private establishment, you don't have to go there and get your face scanned if you don't want to. You do have legal recourse, you can choose not to patronise that establishment.

Sure, but there's no legal requirement for them to notify me that such behavior is occurring. And in the case of this article, it's not exactly something you have the option not to participate in. I guess my point is that is should be be seen an an acceptable or reasonable or non-invasive thing.

It's quite obvious it's happening, they take your ID, and put it in a fairly conspicuous machine.

I think it's fair to assume that anywhere that is recording video is running facial scanning, as they have the capability to. If it's not a legal requirement where you live for businesses (and government) to put signage where security cameras are in operation, that's a concern.

Is that really all they are used for? I'd be shocked if they weren't also used to identify VIPs and big spenders to do things that would generate additional revenue. Or do things like track the gender and age ratios to let the bouncer's know how many people of which types to let in.

Bouncers usually have a pretty good idea of the age and gender ratios in the club and who to let in.

A few years ago I went to a place with that. I didn't have a driver's license with me, just a passport that obviously didn't fit into the card slot.

So the guy just looked at the passport and let me in.

It's trite and flippant, but one response I have to public officials doing this is, "you first".

When I can know where my Congresscritters are at every moment, every time they cross a camera's path. Who visits them, in public and in private. What shows they watch -- and their children and grandchildren.

Same goes for our tech lords.

You first.

That’d be cool if citizens just did this to make a point. Could the cameras be small or discrete enough to install in several places in DC, so that even politicians walk by a website is updated? There has to be enough video training footage for them in the public. What’s the legality of this?

Regardless of legality have fun explaining it to the Secret Service.

Yeah I wonder what they could do, if anything. Especially if it was on private property with owners consent. It’ll never happen but fun to think about.

Assuming congress doesn't have special laws for themselves (quite likely –_–) there's still stalking to contend with. http://victimsofcrime.org/our-programs/stalking-resource-cen...

Even if individuals just posted footage from their properties and some DAO actually did the aggregation, image processing, and posting, I bet any individuals connected to the effort would still get harassed by law enforcement.

At least they disclose it, I suspect many more places aren't.

Last time I was in a Vegas casino, I don't recall any signs (granted, it's been a few years). I do know that there are cameras everywhere, and casinos have been using facial recognition for a while.

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