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Comment by andialo | Hacker News Reader

After IBM, Microsoft and many others publicly declared (for marketing reasons no doubt) to stop working and delivering face recognition systems, a new competitor quickly fills the space. Color me surprised.

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Yes expected. I posted before that by trying to stop companies we work for or other well known companies from operating in this space we give up far too much opportunity to police and possibly influence the outcome.

Facial Recognition is coming along with all other sorts of identification. They key to making sure these are not abuse is to get embedded into the process of making them. This way issues of privacy, accuracy, and accountability, can all be addressed.

Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual.

Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this

"Because you can damn well guarantee it won't be corporations abusing it, it will be politically oriented groups who will exploit it. You think the cancel culture is bad now with their name and shame combined with using sycophants to leak records if not outright court challenges to sealed records, wait till they abuse this "

I am very worried that there will be a lot going on behind the scenes. Public cancel culture is bad but secret cancel culture is even worse.

> Currently far too many here, especially here, are the head in sand type. If they shout it down and declare it evil and see a big name step down they declare it fixed. Ignoring the fact the world is a big place and other companies and countries really don't care what your opinion is. So get in there and make sure where you live that this technology when it does become common place has the structures in place to protect the individual.

So because it's going to happen anyways, get on board or else?

I'm not a follower of defeatist thinking. Large structural changes can happen, but only through persistence and focus.

Saying "it's not worth it" right from the get-go is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> They were not responsible for the Nazis, they were only impressed by the Nazi success and unable to pit their own judgment against the verdict of History, as they read it. Without taking into account the almost universal breakdown, not of personal responsibility, but of personal judgment in the early stages of the Nazi regime, it is impossible to understand what actually happened.

-- Hannah Arendt

The proper solution to this problem is strong, enforced legislation on when and where facial recognition technology can be used.

Well, sort of. Microsoft and IBM etc. moved out of the space because it was unpalatable to consumers. Now the question is whether the same dynamic will affect Rite Aid, CVS and other major retailers. It's entirely likely that it will, and then you'll see those companies pressured to drop these systems. Articles like this (which bring the practice to public attention -- notice that retailers don't seem eager to disclose it to customers directly) are an important step along the way.

Of course, it's entirely possible that in the end, controlling these practices will require legislation (either to prohibit, or regulate, or at least disclose where this is being done.) If that legislative fight happens, it will be very helpful to not have the most largest and most politically-connected tech firms depending on this stuff as a key revenue stream.

As long as there are no laws there will be companies who will provide these services. There may some companies that still have some ethics and won't serve that market . But the result will that companies with even less ethics will move into that space.

I suspect the companies you are mentioning didn't pull out for ethical reasons but because they have other products and don't need that market.

Drawing a line in the sand is still an important step in the debate surrounding this issue. Now that the line is there, we can discuss legislating it.

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