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Comment by bb123 | Hacker News Reader

I'm okay with identifying terrorists at airport gates. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Which is fine and dandy until the day you're a target. Power is a sword that cuts both ways.

you can always be the target to border or airport controls regardless of how much technology is involved, and policing was no less crude before we introduced facial recognition checks.

I've been checked at airports before and I have no problem with airport security either. Terrorism or crime are real threats and police without technology is just as biased if not more so then machine aided ones.

The minority report fears every time technology is introduced to policing is an abstract and slightly silly complaint given that most police brutality and abuse of power occurs in impoverished, low tech areas, where if anything police has fewer tools and force available than in public airports and surveilled neighbourhoods.

The problem is that these kind of automated system give governments more leverage than policing using people, and it enables them to do systemic oppression. Also, people have a moral compass that can prevent them from doing bad things, while machines don't. But everything is fine as long as the government is ok. I come from one of the eastern EU states which were under communist rule, and I am naturally more skeptical towards these systems.

edit: I understand that in this particular example the data is stored only on the phones, so your face is used only used to generate a unique signature, which I don't find that bad. But it's important that this is kept in check and that the system is not extended later to centralise all this data.

>The problem is that these kind of automated system give governments more leverage than policing using people,

they also take power away from arbitrary police action because cameras work both ways. Surveillance doesn't just discipline citizens, it also disciplines authorities. If you're in a room alone with a police officer, do you prefer the cameras to be on or off?

Automated systems can have bias just like people, but at least with a digital system the data is catalogued, we can reason about why they make the decisions they make and document abuse and fix them accordingly. Try fixing corrupt police in a small town without papertrails.

That the Soviet Union was so good at oppressing people without any automated surveillance actually proves the point. Oppressive systems function just fine with people all the way down.

The narrative of surveillance as just a tool for oppression is one-sided. Citizens would be wise to use this point in time when the laws are still being drawn to use it as a tool to hold authority accountable.

> that this is kept in check and that the system is not extended later to centralise all this data.

As already explained the data come from passports. All of the data in passports (and ID cards since this is in France), including pictures, is already centralised in a government database. After all you gave the picture to the government when you applied for a passport...

This is also why this new system is completely neutral.

Yes, but this data isn't available to (most) administrations. I guess that the risk is that the access might slowly be granted to more and more of them ?

> This is also why this new system is completely neutral.

That it is neutral today does not mean it will remain so.

That’s only a problem if you are a terrorist. Or have been classed by the government as someone to catch, in which case that is the step you want to avoid. Trying to throw away every chair or step a child drags towards the countertop is silly when all you need to do is keep the knife off the surface and safely hidden away.

>Or have been classed by the government as someone to catch, in which case that is the step you want to avoid.

This chilling effect is the exact purpose, the true goal. When every terrorist and criminal can be instantly, systematically caught in the all-encompassing web of a total police state, then so can anybody else. And that means you always have to watch what you say, weigh the consequences of protest, think twice about associating with fringe ideas or people.

Terrorists are a conveniently indefensible target, but the measures against them are nonetheless a threat toward everybody else. This Can Happen To You Too. But it's okay, you have nothing to fear, just avoid being classed as a dissident. Shut up, keep your head down, and toe the line.

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

Martin Niemoller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...)

> That’s only a problem if you are a terrorist. Like NRA members, as per the city of San Francisco.

>Or have been classed by the government as someone to catch, in which case that is the step you want to avoid.

This is more difficult than it may sound. Guilt by association is alive and well in most governments, and you don't always get to choose who you are associated with.

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