Privacy fears as Moscow metro rolls out facial recognition pay system
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
They have all data from mobile operators – they know where your phone is at all times. They've installed cameras on almost every single house entrance. They've been using facial recognition for a few years now, with little to no information on sources of data they used for this.
It's not about tracking people anymore, it's about improving the accuracy of said tracking.
Scary stuff but I can imagine western governments salivating at these capabilities and doing metal gymnastics on what justification to spin for the introduction of such systems here, as "terrorists" and "think of the children" have been used already.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/wa-police-stand-by-decisio...
If anything I’ve felt my privacy increase. Masks are finally normalized. What’s more private then covering half your face and not being weird for being the only person doing it? Ive walked by people I know and don’t even recognize them. If you look back at the Capitol Rioters think of how many were identified by not covering their face. I also recall the Hong Kong protestors years ago using masks & face paint to obscure themselves from facial recognition systems.
However, there have been federal-level incursions on "dissent or constitutional rights" that was mentioned in the GP post - in particular, freedom of assembly, and the sovereignty of one's own body, with what has effectively been a federal vaccine mandate (as there's little effective difference between "companies with 100 companies or more must force their employees to get vaccinated" and "every citizen must get vaccinated").
And, I'd like to point out, that yes COVID-19 is a real issue that has killed many people - as are terrorism and CP. But you know what? There's still an infringement of rights that threatens our freedom, and like both of those issues, I strongly suspect that after we get past our emotional fear of the virus, we'll realize that, even given the number of people that died, it wasn't really worth giving up our rights for (as the "temporary" powers meant to be used to fight terrorism were never given up, for instance).
I encourage you to really think about the comparison between COVID-19 and 9/11 - how a real tragedy could be abused to advance the powers of a government that does not have your best interests in mind.
Your city traffic dept is probably prototyping or rolling out this tech already.
What exactly is "smart cameras"? Today, every widget that has existed for the last 50+ years is prefixed with the word "smart" when it's been added internet access or wi-fi control (smart power plugs, smart lights, smart doorbells, etc). But from that to being able to host and run a real-time NN based image recognition is a long way.
>Your city traffic dept is probably prototyping or rolling out this tech already.
LOL, yeah, if only. I think my city is still running the trafic control on some Siemens SCADA system from the '80s.
"Smart cameras" in this case would be devices with edge NN classification built in. But there's always products like briefcam / good vision if they only have the regular camera feeds.
In a sense, it is happening already, but in a distributed way via Ring spreading like wildfire.
1. Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
2. UK public faces mass invasion of privacy as big data and surveillance merge - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/14/public-faces...
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-56255823
https://www.9news.com.au/national/recycling-bins-monitored-b... (loud video)
I can't ind a third one that used a camera in an alley, similar to the first one.
Just an interesting inequality about how jurisdictions are perceived.
This is true of lots of things. Card payments are more convenient than cash, sure, but there's a hidden cost behind that convenience - your spending is easily traced and tied to your individual bank account.
Better to let people see orwellian tech for what it is!
Yes, incredible amount of progress has been made in using computer vision to identify diseases but the authoritarian and workplace use case of computer vision is absolutely effective at present time.
Orwellian tech isn't sudden, it is a creep, it is comfort, it is an acceptable cost of convenience.
I suspect the next big milestone planned is to link it to a "social credit" score, i.e. an opaque system of extra-judicial punishment where the government can hide behind an official excuse of "the AI decided" every time a wrong-thinker complains about their oppression.
Moscow has no qualms about overtly oppressing its opposition. What advantage does the ambiguity of such a system bring to the table? If anything, Putin's flamboyant campaign of pursuing dissidents puts as much emphasis on messaging as physical outcome. Softening the message--if you oppose the Kremlin, it will hurt you--is counterproductive.
Also, if it's cheap enough, the government can apply low-level incentives/nudges at the top of the dissent "recruitment funnel" as well as high-level high-profile actions against the few brave people who make it all the way to becoming leaders of these groups.
The displays you mention are just that, displays. For population scale control you really do need to be more subtle and pervasive. Which is what makes this type of surveillance so much more insidious.
I mean, how often will this thing get the facial recognition wrong? Will people just end up with metro charges from their "lookalikes" (I almost said doppelganger).
Or has the state of the art in facial recognition recently zoomed ahead to where this is feasible for such a high throughput process?
I'm sure they are matching against very small subset. Most likely they are getting data from mobile phone operators on who's currently around the entrance
I think the real value of this system is the intimidation factor. It really pushes the idea that the state can identify anyone anywhere is Moscow. It's useful to discourage both terrorism and political activism.
He was reasonably close in appearance, allowing for age progression.
So I have to wonder: Was the tip a high probability hit in a facial recognition database?
They can (and will) use this system to restrict movement for "uncomfortable" persons — turnstile will not open for you if government do not like what you said in Twitter.
During my childhood in 1980ies the cost to ride was 5 kopecks (0.05 rouble), payable via hefty, sizeable, incredibly pleasant to hold 5 kopecks coin (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%8F%D1%82%D1%8C_%D0%B...).
With hyperinflation in the late 80ies the costs quickly went up by lots of powers of 10 to first roubles, then tens, hundreds and eventually thousands of roubles. For a while the entry fee was paid via tokens that you bought with money at kiosks, and the tokens were identical in weight and size to 5 kopecks, so same old machines could be used. Some people who had old soviet coin stashes could and did ride for free.
Machines that didn't like the coins would slam you sideways hard. I still am instinctively afraid of those that look like one that smashed me when I was about 5.
Fast forward to late 90ies and early 2000s, there were single use magnetic stripe and rfid tag tickets that were discarded by people all over the ground, really messy and likely unenvironmental.
Haven't been there in a while but seems like an Oyster (London)/Opal (Sydney)/Ventra (Chicago) payment cards would likely be what I'd want to use, just as much tracking but without the creepy factor of face recognition
As far as their fears about this being used for privacy violations and/or mass surveillance, they are 100% justified. The Snowden leaks, as well as what we know from leaks about pretty much every major and a lot of minor tech companies, have shown that if it can be abused, it will be abused. By the state, tech companies, or both.
Now not only your phone knows your location, you're also being filmed all the time with a tag attached and could be traced anywhere. This is extremely scary, especially that Kremlin persecutes its population into submission. Not only is the Kremlin regime anchored deeply (no possible fair elections), now this makes it even more impossible to have an alternative. Let's say you and a segment of the population wants a different leader. Let's say you as dissenters amount to even 70% of the population. Your voice won't matter as elections are highly rigged. Back in the day you could take out to the street to protest and if numbers are too great it sends a clear message. But this type of surveillance makes you think twice about it, you can go to an unauthorized protest (no authorization would be ever given for a dissenting protest) in the morning and be arrested in the evening.