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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Years ago I read about a Russian product based on facial recognition. Their pitch was that you could take a picture of an attractive stranger, send them the picture, and for 100$ they would send you all of her information in a matter of minutes so that you could strike up a conversation. Of course this sound really creepy, but why? The information is public. Is it the amount of money? Police and governments want this sort of tool. We don't bat an eye when a cop uses such tools to pull all of your license/insurance information during a traffic stop. Is it more creepy or less creepy if such tools are also made available to the public?

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>> We don't bat an eye when a cop uses such tools to pull all of your license/insurance information during a traffic stop.

In order to legally drive we basically enter into a contract with the state agreeing to the terms it set. Keeping a current license, registration, insurance etc. During a traffic stop, it is a requirement to hand over the documents, if asked, so they can verify you are within the law. Atleast in the parts of the US that I am familiar with. Same for travel and other government documents, if you want to legally move between borders, you agree to their terms or stay put.

Having random creep take a pic of someone and get their address so they can visit later on, would be a very big problem.

To be a commercial driver it is necessary to contract with State for the privilege of engaging in commerce.

Most people travelling in private conveyance are not engaging in commerce.

Have you researched USSC rulings about private travel?

As far as I am aware I still need to agree to the terms that the state of TX has set in order to legally drive my truck on public roads within the state. Meaning a driver's license, current insurance, and current registration. I would not need those for driving US military vehicles, tractors or horses. If this is no longer the case, please show me where I can find that information as I would very much like to not deal with that regulatory mess any more.

I believe this was called "FindFace" it became a mobile app and I remember reading this article about it at the time: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/14/russian-photog...

That's the one. Setup by former intelligence operators iirc.

There is a flip side to this in places like Russia. If you are at a party and want to talk to someone, you might want to lookup whether she is the wife/girlfriend of the local crime boss/politician/general first.

The cop is in a position of public trust, and at least in theory is accountable to the public if they abuse that ability. Most people are actively aware that the government has their information, because they submit it themselves when they file taxes, apply for their license, etc. Even if you don't trust the police at all, their stated purpose for having and using this information is logical.

A private company is accountable to nobody, trusted by nobody, and likely accessing "public" information that was publicized by an entity other than the individual. They are collecting the information purely to make a profit, not to (again in theory) increase public safety. Their entire purpose is to abuse the information for purposes it was not intended for.

It's difficult to image any level where this doesn't come across as creepy.

What data was available? Where they live? Who their parents are? What school they went to? What car they drive? Or even creepier, like hobbies?

There is no scenario where walking up to a stranger and starting a conversation about their personal information is going to come across as normal.

There was a scene in one of the Ironman movies. Tony Stark is at a party and his personal assistant is pointing out people for him. She is recognizing faces and telling him who is who before he talks to them. She is telling him their jobs and backgrounds. Just swap out the flesh-and-blood assistant for a service delivered to your phone. Why is the automated system so much more creepy?

(Such scenes are in probably 75% of all movies. It is an old device for introducing characters.)

That is massively different though, that is a subset of people that most likely were on an invite list before hand. Would be similar to social media recommending the friends you are already friends with in photos you upload. More of a convenience than anything else.

What you mention is any random person identifying any other random person (ignoring the creepiness of taking a picture of someone without their consent). And using that to track down identifying information about them.

"Ignoring the creepiness of taking a picture of someone without their consent" In a public setting consent is not needed for photos.

It being creepy and legally needing consent are not the same thing. Consent is what makes it not creepy.

Just because it may be legal, doesn't mean it isn't creepy for someone to take a picture of a random other person.

Depends on the jurisdiction, it is needed in France.

The difference is that at a party like that the people are public persons and used to being recognized. Many of them are probably business partners so he is essentially using his assistant as a CRM to do sales.

Big agencies have entire dossiers on their clients for the sole purpose of brushing up on your info before a meeting so they can come across as super friendly and high touch. Even your hairdresser probably does this.

Main difference being that it isn’t creepy to keep track of things you can’t remember when being friends with hundreds of people is part of your job.

It's the expression of unlimited power by tools more powerful than us, perfect vs. flawed in their realtime ability to judge and analyze you in real time. It a a shift further into a world totally controlled by perfect knowledge of all details about every person's life. I don't want to live in that world.

Tony's personal assistant may have intimate knowledge of everyone at the party, but probably knows nothing about people outside the industry. And she probably spent a fair amount of time prepping for the party. So she's bound to an upper limit of what a person can reasonably do.

And his personal assistant is a person which is a building block that innately fits into society. Any given person has some level of morals and integrity which would limit what they were willing to do with their knowledge. And even if they don't, people can be brought to justice if they abuse their knowledge/skills or otherwise have some kind of public pressure used against them. An algorithm cannot be imprisoned or even really destroyed and doesn't care one bit what it's used for because it doesn't care about anything at all.

Some of these things seem inevitable, but that doesn't mean they aren't creepy!

We do bat an eye on such systems. All facial recognition systems are banned for government use in San Francisco. Police use of license plate readers is limited by law. Pretty ironic that people that build and export this tech all over the world are wary of it in their own backyards.

Facebook and other social media isn't far off of this. You really need a name to find someone's facebook profile (but people will usually give out their name to pretty much anyone), and you can of course set your profile to private (but many people don't).

With facebook you didn't need that.

You'd just need a picture.. and it would auto suggest who they are.

That's what got them into trouble with the IL Biometric privacy law.

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